Blogs

Last week I had the good fortune to speak with Julian Jordan, the co-founder of Write Out Loud , a grassroots organisation dedicated to encouraging poetry in the UK – mainly through a very extensive and very user-friendly gig guide, though they also host their own events and feature reviews, poet profiles and literary news. They’re the UK’s largest live poetry resource, and if you’ve any interest in poetry at all, the site is very worth...

The cover of Death and the Penguin has the outline of a penguin in black, one wing is the barrell of a gun and the other a handle, the trigger is superimposed on the white bib of the penguin. It’s ingenious. I was halfway through the book before I noticed. The book is genius. Set in the Ukraine, after the fall of Communism, Viktor Alekseyvich Zolotoroyov is a writer that can only manage to write the occasional short story that no one wants to...

I've shortened Writing Process Blog Tour to (WPBT). No I haven't. I'm tryng to make it longer and more interesting. "As part of the Writing Process Blogging Tour, I've been invited by John Allen - a freelance writer to talk about what my writing process is." Writers always start off by saying it’s hard work. Maybe you’re in the wrong profession. Writing isn’t work. Writing is just messing about with words. The consolation is that most of the...

I watched the movie and it was as scary as a box of melted Maltesers. Part of the reason for that is my fault. I’m old and cynical and nothing much on the telly can scare me as much as looking in the mirror. I thought I’d give the book a chance. After all it inspired a film and an extended run on stage as a play. Nineteen years one of the blurbs on the book tells the reader. Wow. The book must be really good. It’s only 160 pages (including...

'I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour. But heaven knows I'm miserable now' Morrissey song. Is it miserable drivel? I say no, The Smiths' frontman can write, we know this from the music. The first hundred pages are best, we meet the sensitive, sickly child from 'streets upon streets upon streets upon streets' (page 1) of inner city crumbling terraced Manchester. Family life is alright, there's piles of them; most of clan Morrissey moved over...

This is the best thing that has been on the telly for a long time. The first episode begun with an impromptu party in Hitler’s Germany of 1941. Five friends celebrating life and agreeing to meet up at the same time every year. Wilhelm Winter (Volker Bruch), a Wehrmacht officer posted to the Russian front, provides some of the voice overs. He’s the natural leader of the group. His brother Friedhelm (Tom Schilling) is the more sensitive or the two...

I’ve spent a lot of time with these babies. All of the women writers who are featured - and there are ten of them here - have been story or poem of the week on ABCtales a couple of times. There are other women writers that are not featured. It’s a difficult one. We’ve all got our own preferences, whether it’s prose or poetry. Maggy van Eijk, for example, is a strange beast. ‘This is the part where a Dutch girl/ loses herself in smoke only/to...

Started writing this 6 years ago. Anyone familiar with, or starting the process of, putting words down on paper or screen will know (or find) the story may not even have a title. The heroes and villains have different names; perhaps culled from a phone directory. They may even be real people who've annoyed you in the past. Or now. Give that one up now. The effort of diguising just to avoid the litigation dilutes the venom you feel . Blank piece...

This was for a 1960's theme party. Them shoes nearly cripppled me. I thought I would have a go at writing a blog. No idea what to say or what I am doing but I've got to do something to pass the time. I got up at half past one and have actually managed to type some comments on competition entries as well as being able to read them so that was a great way to pass a couple of hours. Very enjoyable! Signing off now as it's light and my eyes are...

I sat down to write a blog last week in Tunisia, under the creaking ceiling fan hung over my hotel’s solitary computer terminal (wifi has yet to take off in North Africa), and though I baffled my way through the Arabic keyboard the internet flickered off just as I hit post, a setback redoubled by the autonomous reboot of the system and a user-lockout, which left me sitting there scratching my head. And now that I’m back in the land of the...