Xujun Eberlein – a writer you should read now! In 2006 I spent time in Beijing. It was a confusing, demanding and ultimately frustrating experience, compounded by my inability to speak the language. China left me with no clear impressions but with many fragmented or faceted ones, so I was keen to read Xujun Eberlein’s […]

Posted by on Sep 25, 2008 in A.L. Kennedy, Moniack Mohr, screenwriting | No Comments

And the glorious A.L. Kennedy shares her own experience of the Moniack Mohr course here! I’d love to pretend she wrote this as a response to my humble journaling on the subject but no … it’s just a coincidence. And I’m sure the rogue apostrophe in the last sentence is a typo … What interested […]

Strange, serious and sundry success Strange and serious went hand-in-hand on the day I met fellow writer Jo Horsman in Brighton for coffee. The serious bit was the wide-ranging discussion about all things writerly, and the strange was the passer-by who was taking his corn snake for a walk through the middle of town … […]

What happens when you become a product? If you haven’t seen the video of “Christian the Lion”, you need to watch it first. Wonderful, isn’t it? It’s a three hankie story if ever I saw one. But … Sony Pictures has purchased the rights to the story of Christian and the two men: John Rendall […]

Writing courses I did threaten you with this – the literary version of ‘What I did on my Holidays’! Here it is, five days on an Arvon course for your delectation and delight … Day 1 I arrived at Moniack Mohr (MM) with the hangovery feeling of somebody who hasn’t slept and the low grade […]

Prizes for Titles and angst The Diagram prize is The Bookseller magazine’s award for oddly named publications, and Greek Rural Postmen and their Cancellation Numbers has won the Diagram of Diagrams, for the weirdest title in the past three decades. Perhaps unsurprisingly it’s published by the Greek Hellenic Philatelic Society of Great Britain. The ninety-one […]

Never judge a book by … But we all do, don’t we? Judge books by their covers, that is. For example, I recently read Leila Aboulela’s excellent novel, Minaret. On the left is the version I read. And although I took it from the library shelf, I think that was because I am a sucker […]