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Stephen Chance

“This period he can picture. If he saunters down to the Thames after his mid-day meal he will see this scene: merchants’ houses, wharves, the unloading of ships. But…the scale, the insatiable demand. The report states bluntly: the golden age at Venice, the Florence of the Medicis. English wool! Flemish cloth! London, Ghent, Lille….the market squares and tiered and jetted merchants’ houses. Dripping wealth, he thinks, and alum shipped as ballast! Under the lighter, more precious goods, alum. Alum – essential to the Venetian dyers, the Florentine tailors.”

Extract from ‘The Alum Maker’s Secret’

“Encouraged by the author Jon McGregor (If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things) I contacted TLC. I had written a reasonably complete draft and I took myself off on one of TLC’s literary holidays in Las Alpujarras, Spain. There I attended workshops run by the author Rebecca Abrams in which, in a small, sociable group, we talked, wrote, read to each other, walked in the hills and visited local bars.”