Stationery: An Important Choice for Writers
Although the final product of an author's work is assembled electronically, pen and paper remain important everyday tools. They provide an immediate, accessible facility to record notes, sketches, dialogue and narrative in a structured or unstructured form, regardless of location and power supply. The decision of which notebooks and pens is something not to be […]
SALAD: Southend Area Local Authors' Day Saturday 7th July 2018
Along with many other local authors, I will be participating in the 2018 Southend Area Local Authors' Day (SALAD), part of the Southend Festival 2018 Literary Events. This is an ideal opportunity to meet local authors, share stories and experiences of their writing and yours, and to buy their books. Participating authors from a number of […]
Ambient Literature - The Route to a New Reading Experience?
The Ambient Literature project, to quote from its website, is: ‘… a two-year collaboration between UWE Bristol, Bath Spa University, the University of Birmingham and development partners Calvium, Ltd. established to investigate the locational and technological future of the book. Funded through a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the project is focused […]
B S Johnson and the British Avant-garde of the 1960s
This Guardian article, reminding us of the avant-garde British writers of the 1960s, is interesting for several reasons. They were maligned by their more conventional peers, possibly for their attention to form rather than content, yet today we are not fazed by such experimentation; indeed, it is welcomed, to the extent that such novels are […]
Essex Authors' Day, Chelmsford, Saturday 17th March 2018
I thoroughly enjoyed the Essex Authors' Day, on Saturday 17 March at Chelmsford, Essex, library. An Essex Book Festival event, it featured over forty local writers giving talks, readings and 'Meet The Author' sessions. All presentations were free. My talk on 'Writing Speculative Fiction' was well-attended. I described a number of sub-genres and offered suggestions […]
Busy Working on My Seminar for the Essex Book Festival 2018
I am currently busy working on my presentation/seminar on 'Writing Speculative Fiction' at the Essex Authors' Day, Saturday 17th March at Essex Libraries, Chelmsford, part of the Essex Book Festival. The session will be an interactive presentation and discussion of Speculative Fiction. I will give an outline of the genres and sub-genres, listing examples of the main […]
New Novel Complete - Next Step: to Find an Agent
My new novel, working title, 'Another Life', is written and I have completed two edits. The photographs show one of the key characters. The book describes a wide-ranging quest, combining folklore, legends and ancient beliefs with the protagonist’s reminiscences of his family life. It explores the borders between dreams and memories and the social and ethical questions […]
The Peregrine - a Classic Nature Book Set in Rural Mid-Essex
I’ve been aware for many years of ‘The Peregrine’, by J A Baker, as a classic of nature writing, although I have never read it. What I did not know was that it is set in the countryside around my home in Little Baddow, Essex, as described in this Guardian article from last weekend, which mentions […]