“I’m sorry I still love him” unabashedly declared author, journalist and “stationary addict” Susie Steiner of Tony Blair on Twitter during the coronavirus lockdown whilst amusingly adding of Boris Johnson: “If only I could retreat to Chequers.” Registered fully blind and a mother of two, this former Guardian commissioning editor did a “little one-page feature, showing the ‘Keep Calm’ poster as one of her favourite things” in 2005. “After that, all hell broke loose,” according to Stuart Manley, co-owner of Barter Books of Alnwick, and what Steiner terms a “message of stoicism and patience” went viral. She thinks “it’s had its day now” and after publishing her first novel, Homecoming, in 2013, this West Hampstead based Londoner signed “significant six-figure” deals for her subsequent works. “Susie is a joy to publish” remarked Suzie Dooré of Borough Press, whilst she herself gave away the secret to her much deserved success in a 2016 interview with The Hampstead & Highgate Express: “I’m very disciplined about my work… The daily-ness is what matters; it’s being in contact with it all the time that keeps the work alive in your mind. Your mind is doing it even when your trogging up the hill from school or waiting in the hairdressers. It fingers it like a pebble in your pocket.”
