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Chip Kidd on designing books
Great TED talk that answers the question: WHAT DO THE STORIES LOOK LIKE? Chip Kidd’s designs are wonderful things. And while you’re here, you really should read his first novel, The Cheese Monkeys.Read more
My Arvon week in pictures
Will post something a little more substantial about my experience at The Hurst soon. For now, here is my week in pictures. I lived here: Which is just down the path from where some of the others lived: I wrote here: I cooked here: I made the one on the left: I could see this from my window: I was tutored by these guys: I drove this road home: You can see more photos of The Hurst over on Arvon’s flickr, including the dining room where much good food was consumed and The Ted Hughes room (The Hughsie) where we spent our evenings listening to great author readings, playing silly…Read more
And another thing….
I’ve been interviewed by the lovely and talented Nuala Ní Chonchúir. Her questions were a pleasure to answer and got me thinking about all kinds of things to do with my writing. The interview covers my writing process, themes that run through my work, my favourite short story authors and individual story, balanacing writing with being a full-time parent. All this and more is just a click away. You can read the interview over on Nuala’s blog Women Rule Writer. If you do pop over there, stick around and catch up on her other posts. Nuala’s blog is brimming with good stuff about writing and reading and life. I’d also…Read more
Calling all Freaks!
While I was away, a book I have been waiting eagerly to read was published; Freaks! ‘Dedicated ‘To all who, if only for a moment, felt that they didn’t belong’, FREAKS by Caroline Smailes & Nik Perring, illustrated by Darren Craske, is a unique collection of short stories with comic book style illustrations. Darkly humorous these stories explore the more disturbing consequences of ordinary, flawed human beings obtaining superpowers. A bizarre collection of short stories, each featuring a character with an unusual superpower.’ If that weren’t enough to get you picking up a copy, Andrew Kaufman, the author of books as wonderful as The Tiny Wife and All My Friends Are…Read more
The Best British Short Stories 2012
The Best British Short Stories anthologies reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor’s brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking for the best of the bunch to reprint all in one volume. After a…Read more
Home
After 13 hours on road and sea yesterday, I am finally home. Had a great week but great to be home. Like this great: Will post soon about the week’s workshops and writing and the like. Right now though, enjoying being back with my family. See you in a bit.Read more
Retreat.
I am off here for the next week: My MA class has a residential writing retreat, with morning workshops, afternoon writing time and evening readings. Four or five days to focus on my writing generally and my MA novel specifically. Wonderful. After a week or two of no progress (due to polishing short fiction competition entries and a family holiday last week) this is just what the tutor ordered. When I get back be ready to see my MA novel progress bar rocket to the right (hopefully). There’s not internet at the Hurst so it will be a bit quiet around here for a week or so. I had planned…Read more
99 Reasons Why – Review
99 Reasons Why, the latest novel from Caroline Smailes, is a darkly comic peak into the disturbing inner workings of a uniquely dysfunctional family. The story is told through the eyes of Kate Jones, a 22 year old with the unusual job of spying on The Kevin Keegan Day nursery across the road from her bedroom window. It is while doing this she starts watching the girl in the pink coat. Pretty soon Kate’s mum has agreed to steal the girl for Kate. The story unfolds over the course of 99 short chapters, in which we meet shady Uncle Phil, the volatile and violent Mam, and the spider-tattoed father of…Read more
What the first 10,000 words taught me.
Last week saw me break 10,000 words with my MA novel. I thought my completing 1/8th of my target word-count for the first draft would be a reasonable time for me to reflect on my process so far and what I have learnt about tackling a project like this. The first thing I have had to let go of is any idea that I might be able to achieve a regular amount of words per day or week. Having three kids, part-time job and an ironing pile that seems to be attempting to build itself into a sentient creature (amongst my other household chores), means it is not always possible…Read more
99 Reasons Why you should read this.
Caroline Smailes‘ new novel, 99 Reasons Why, has been creating quite a stir in the weeks building up to its publication last Monday, the media interest has focused on the book’s unique selling point. 99 Reasons Why has 11 different endings, the reader selecting one of the eleven via a spinning wheel on the iTunes/iBooks version or a series of questions on the Kindle ebook. Nine endings are included in the ebook, with ending 10 to be handwritten and auctioned for charity and ending 11 being ‘given away,’ in both senses of the phrase, on blogs all across the internet. 99 Reasons Why is ‘a gritty and heartfelt novella with a…Read more
Bitches in Bookstores
This is rather genius. I was always going to like a video that features two of my favourite things, smart women and books. (via Out of Print)Read more
Better Living through Bookshelves
This is great: By Grant Snider (via Bookshelf)Read more
Why Don’t You Dance? vs Everything Must Go
Watched this last night: As you can see from the trailer it’s based on a Raymond Carver story, one of my favourite Raymond Carver stories in fact, Why Don’t You Dance? I wasn’t expecting much. I rented the movie as it was a 99p rental on iTunes and my better half and I just wanted a slice of easy Friday night viewing after a pretty awful week of dealing with poorly kids. The film was actually a pleasant surprise. Will Ferrell turns in a suitably downtrodden performance as the alcoholic made to live on his lawn when his wife leaves him and his stuff there. The story is of course…Read more
Pictures worth a thousand words
The week I was hoping would be a writing bonanza has already taken a turn for the worse with a nasty bug working its voodoo on my two youngest kids and turning them into little vomit machines. Looks like it will be Thursday before I get any real writing time. As a picture is worth a thousand words I thought I would post a few that caught my eye on the interwebz over the last week or so. * * By my reckoning that’s 3,000 words right there. Makes me feel a little better about my lack of writing time. Roll on Thursday.Read more
C’est la écrit
Been super busy with work so no blogging time. What little time I have had this week has been spent writing. The MA novel has now broken 6,000 words and observant reader of this blog will have already noticed I’ve added a little progress bar in the sidebar to keep me motivated as much as to keep anyone out in the ether informed. I’ll be posting something more thoughtful and detailed about the process I’m stumbling into with this book sometime next week. My other task this week has been redrafting a short story I wrote at the tale end of 2011. It has sat in a folder for a…Read more
My Life In Short Fiction – Christopher Allen
In addition to his role as one of the editors of Metazen, Christopher Allen’s fiction has appeared all over the web. Having been edited by Christopher a few times now over on Metazen, his recently being named Best Ezine Editor over on the Preditors and Editors Readers Poll came as no surprise to me. I’m a big fan of his fiction writing and his travel(b)logue and it is with great pleasure that I present to you, Christopher Allen’s Life in Short Fiction: 1. The first short story you remember enjoying. I don’t remember much of my early reading life, and conjuring up the little I can remember of it makes me feel…Read more
Dan Powell 