Today, 29th June 2021, is Cast in Conflict’s publi­ca­tion day. Cast in Conflict started life as Cast in Isola­tion. My editor(s) liked the title, and I was thinking purely of the book itself. Marketing, however, rightly pointed out that we’d had more than enough isola­tion in the past year, and anything that reminded people of covid shut­downs and quar­an­tines was Not On. This made sense to all of the people who had liked the former title, which is why it’s now called Cast in Conflict, or ‘Conflict’ as it’s called in this house. *** Today is also the day after my 2nd covid-19 vacci­na­tion shot. My reac­tion has been pretty mild so far (with the expected wow it hurts to lift my arm), and a touch of the usual Michelle … Continue reading →