Posted by: Clare Nonhebel
on Jan 29, 2011
It was always my ambition to be a writer. It outlasted my other ambitions (ballerina, dairy farmer) and other careers - carer for young disabled, social worker, optician's assistant, secretary, and PR executive.
I've written stories ever since I could write. My first novel was 100 pages long, written in biro in a couple of exercise books, at the age of 13, and only my sister was allowed to read it. By my twenties, I was seriously writing a book. I'd heard how difficult it was to get published, and how you should never send the whole manuscript, only a couple of chapters as a taster. So I was caught out when, having sent three chapters of my first adult novel to Penguin books, an editor wrote back and asked to see the rest of it. I had to ask her to wait six months because I hadn't written it yet!
Posted by: Clare Nonhebel
on Jan 29, 2011
Former sex offenders released into the community are probably the nearest parallel to the lepers of Jesus’ day, feared, reviled and shunned. Paedophilia seems to have become the unforgivable sin, with no biblical basis for this belief.