Filed by Fletcher Moody — Literary Correspondent I was sent to Eldon, Missouri, in November 1953, to cover a bonfire. The Parent-Teacher Council of Eldon had voted, by a margin I was told was comfortable, to collect and publicly burn a selection of comic books, paperback novels, and other materials deemed — the word used in the press release was "injurious" — to the moral development of children. This was not unusual. Dozens of towns across the...

Edna O’Brien (1962) The Lonely Girls. Edna O’Brien (1964) Girls in Their Married Bliss. Edna O’Brien’s trilogy of books which begins in rural Ireland, moves to Dublin and ends in the less than swinging sixties of London. Kate and Baba against the world. An era of the ‘Angry Young Men’ on stage and screen. But there’s no room for women. Baba steps out of Dublin and into London as easily as she’d change a new jacket at home. Caithleen/Cait/Kate is...

Well where to begin with this tale of my life for the last five months. I guess I should start by saying I am safe and happy most of the time when I don't have to communicate with a certain person. But sharing a child means I have to communicate with him. Lets start with the weekend of November 22nd. I went to a friends house as she lives on her own, her cat looked like he was on his way to kitty heaven. My husband (who I am still married to but...

The Singer Story: Made in Clydebank (2019), BBC Scotland, Directors Barthelemy Francis Corbelet, Yoann Fabrice Le Dantec, Narrator Marc Jennings. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00051z7/the-singer-story-made-in-clydebank I’m old enough to remember Singers. All that’s left is some red brickwork and the original staircase that leads up to Kilbowie Road. All of my partner’s aunts worked in the factory and her sister and her brother-in-law...

Posted by onemorething: This Week's Story of the Week is Not of God by Alexander Moore - great writing, deeply unsettling, left me wanting to know more. https://www.abctales.com/story/alexander-moore/not-god This Week's Poem of the Week is Ralph's A Steady Carry On. Truth be told, I found it hard to choose between this and the other poem he posted this week - both powerful and beautifully written. You can read them here: https://www.abctales.com...

Daniel Goleman on Emotional Intelligence It’s been over two decades since the publication of Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence , which coincided with a spike in populism and hatred of others centred around the divisive figure of Donald J. Trump around a decade ago. Emotional Intelligence is empathy at work, which has never worked for Trump. Emotional self-awareness is a misnomer. At the memorial for conservative activist Charlie Kirk, whom...

Edna O’Brien claimed The Country Girls wrote itself. The best books often do. Indeed it’s a marvel and she is a marvellous writer. It’s easy to make the mistake of confusing her with Caithleen (Cait) Brady. The teenage protagonist growing into womanhood in rural, 1950s Tuamgraney, East Clare, and later Dublin, with a little help from her frenemy Baba Brennan. Write what you know. O’Brien/Cait knows the in and outs of every field and path through...

Filed by Fletcher Moody — Literary Correspondent I have, over the course of my career, failed to obtain interviews with some of the finest writers of the twentieth century. Hemingway refused to acknowledge I existed. Christie pretended to be someone else. But William Faulkner is the only author who ever lost my mail. I first wrote to Faulkner in the spring of 1923 at the University of Mississippi post office in Oxford, where he served as...

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-unlikely-pilgrimage-of-harold-fry Jim Broadbent usually plays somebody’s dad. Here he’s Harold Fry. Solid. Dependable. Middle-class and retired. In one of those long-standing relationships. Husband and his wife Maureen (Penelope Wilton) have signed a grief-fire. Both are retired, standoffish and stuck in their middle-class home getting further and further from each other and fading into the wallpaper. A...

BBC Radio Wales, BBC Sounds, Secrets of the Salt Path. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0n5p4w5 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0n7b8j7 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj32vx61x6lo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c80p2pzgpmgo In films and television drama writers are one dimensional. Invariably, they are portrayed as some tortured soul that knocks off an international bestseller. It happens. Irvine Welsh is the poster boy...