The excellent Sandra Scoppettone Okay, here’s the deal. Sometimes somebody will read a story of mine, go to the website or the blog and email me. And then – assuming they are not completely insane (as is likely with some of the material I write; it appeals to the lunatic fringe) I reply to them. […]
Hook into her Heart This wonderful print is the work of Wuon Gean Ho, an artist and printmaker who was asked to respond to my story ‘Acorns and Conkers’, recently published in the Tales of the Decongested Anthology. It’s a superb image, in which Wuon Gean captures the darkness and manipulative nature of the protagonist, […]
Writing Flash Fiction If you’re like me, you find summer heat makes writing fiction difficult. Not only is it hard to concentrate, the computer is never in a good place to deal with sun and writing with paper and pen is a sticky, sun-tan lotiony, sweaty business. This is when I turn to writing flash […]
Statistics It’s amazing what you can learn from statistics. I’ve just been transferring my database from one computer to another and as a result I had to sit and look at various tables and charts I’d never really bothered with before. The first shock was to realise how much longer it takes to find a […]
If you want to be a novelist … learn to write short stories Every year I have at least one student arrive for class who ‘doesn’t want to bother’ with short stories because they’re working on a novel. Phooey. Yes, there are writers who manage to get a book published without working through the apprentice […]
Memory Palaces I’ve been having a discussion with other writers about memory palaces recently. This technique, credited to Cicero, was a device favoured by rhetoricians of the ancient world who had to speak for long periods without notes. The process is to pick a place you know well, and attach notes to objects and views […]
The reader is not in the writer’s head One of the biggest weaknesses I see in memoir and creative non-fiction is that the writer assumes every detail that is important to them is also important to the reader. It’s not. Salient detail is what counts. To understand why you mention your primary teacher Miss Oliphant’s […]
Tales of the DeCongested – Brighton Reading Last night was wonderful! I’d like to thank everyone who came along – the room was packed, and all the readers who gave us such a fantastic evening. I haven’t got permission to post anybody else’s photographs yet, so you’ll have to make do with this one of […]
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