Storytellers … on the road

June 30, 2008

Two storytellers, Peter Chand and Giles Abbott, have begun a storytelling journey from Avebury to London. Like itinerant monks, they will depend on the charity (or love as it has long been translated) of others for their welfare along the way, and in return they will tell stories. Their storytelling journey will also raise money … Read More

The Reader: Philip Pullman and The Storyteller’s Responsibility

June 21, 2008

The Summer issue of The Reader is, as usual, full of wonderful things (I discovered The Reader over on dovegreyreader’s blog a while ago, thank you dovegrey). But the reason this issue (No. 30) is particularly wonderful to me is because of the essay by Philip Pullman called The Storyteller’s Responsibility. It beautifully describes what … Read More

Literary fathers

June 15, 2008

Simon at Stuck-in-a-Book has prompted this post, with his post today. He asks who our favourite literary fathers are. I commented on his post, here, but I feel so strongly that Mr Bennet is the best literary father in my literary world that I’ve turned my comment there into a post here. Mr Bennet is … Read More

South East London reading

June 9, 2008Speaking of Love

I’ll be talking about and reading from Speaking of Love tonight at Penge Library in south east London. It’s part of The Blurb, Bromley’s June festival of Books and Reading and it’s free, but if you’d like to come you need to book. The event has been organised in association with Spread the Word’s bookchat … Read More

Rose Tremain wins Orange … HURRAH!

June 5, 2008

One hundred years ago a great friend told me about Rose Tremain’s short stories, and since then I haven’t stopped reading her work. She’s written at least two collections of short stories and ten novels and today, wonderful writer that she is, Rose Tremain has won the Orange Prize for Fiction with her tenth novel, … Read More