Joolz is on the Orange longlist.

She's been nominated for her third novel, Billie Morgan.

The Grauniad has an article here which is really about the longlist generally but concentrates more on her than any other author, and also has the prologue here. Her own website is, of course, at http://www.joolz.net/.

Also, Brookmyre's new one, "All fun and games until somebody loses an eye", is out in about three weeks. Mary Doria Russell's new one, "A Thread of Grace" is out now.

Disappointed.

It seems that the last Writers' Bloc evening was not taped. The tape that came back in the machine is blank. Hopefully this doesn't mean that the machine is broken, but that it was hooked up wrong. Still, we'll see tomorrow.