Tag Archives: Green Man

The Green Man Appears in Many Forms

I have discussed in earlier posts how the expressions of English representations of the Green Man changed over the centuries. They were sculpted at their jovial peak from around 1300, before declining through merry, smiling, serene, worried, distressed, tormented and finally to resignation. A distinctly menacing image can be found in Bamberg Cathedral, Germany, supporting […]

The Challenges of Writing Another Life

My speculative fiction novel, Another Life, combines themes of family life, myths and legends, a quest and cutting-edge science. These elements are introduced in a natural, uncomplicated way, avoiding technical explanations, so as not to alienate the reader. To bring these disparate elements together, I had to overcome several challenges, the biggest being how to […]

Under The Hill

Before I started working on my speculative fiction novel, Another Life, I had the idea for a story that followed the sequence and narrative of T S Eliot’s Four Quartets. This was not to be: Faber restricts ‘fair use’ to a maximum of 800 words in multiple extracts for inclusion in academic works or reviews. […]

The Quest for a Hidden Village

My novel, Another Life, is centred on a quest by the main protagonist, Oliver, to find a woman who waved to him from a window of a village cottage thirty years ago. Oliver begins with no motive, other than to understand a moment from his past when he glimpsed the prospect of happiness in an […]

Solomon’s Knot

Several people have asked me about the significance of the cover image of Another Life, in particular, the design that encloses the image of the Green Man. The main protagonist, Oliver, decides to seek a woman he saw, fleetingly, thirty years ago, a woman whom he will encounter in various guises in the present time. […]

Dreams & Reality

I am delighted that my publisher, Burton Mayers Books, has provided me with a number of advertising images to promote Another Life, my new, speculative fiction novel, published 1st May 2020. Those that I have included refer to the interweaving of dreams and reality, which is a major theme of the book.

Another Life: Only a Week until Publication

Those friends who do not follow my Facebook Page may not be aware that I have a new contemporary fiction novel, ‘Another Life’, due to be published on Friday 1st May in both paperback and Kindle format.Advance orders can be placed on Amazon (currently at a reduced price), Waterstones and through independent bookshops, many of […]

May Day Traditions

When we think of May Day, in a traditional sense, we think of maypoles, ribbons, Jack in the Green and Morris Dancers. In the United Kingdom, celebrations of May Day can be traced back to two sources, the Roman Floralia and the Gaelic Beltane. Floralia was an ancient Roman plebeian festival in honour of the […]