Thoughts about things I’ve written or read or heard or seen. An attempt to stay positive in a turbulent world.
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Scared to Say I Love You this Valentine’s Day? Fabularium and Random Acts of Kindness Week
If the very idea of saying I love you this Valentine’s Day scares you to death, may I suggest a remedy: ask yourself why you’re with (or want to be with) the one you love and then make a list of your reasons. I know, it sounds far too practical to be romantic (and probably...Continue reading→
SPEAKING of LOVE: an alternative Valentine ?
SPEAKING of LOVE is one of amazon’s Recommended Valentine’s Reads this week (10-17 February). Happy days. But please be warned: it is an alternative Valentine, one that asks why we find it so difficult to talk about love; one that shows the terrible consequences of not talking about love. It doesn’t pretend love is easy. Continue reading→
The Shock of the Fall : hurray for mental illness in FICTION
The subject matter of this year’s Costa first novel winner (and now overall 2013 winner), The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Fileris mental illness. Hurray! (Because publishers so often swerve when they see one of those coming.) And hurray for the Borough Press for not swerving. I hope this win will help, as Lionel Shriver’s We...Continue reading→
The Bookbag’s Top Ten Self-Published Books of 2013, and Visitation, a haunting image by Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison
I’ve just heard that the Bookbag has included Speaking of Love in its Top Ten Self-Published Books for 2013. Very exciting. Thank you, Bookbag. And a couple of weeks ago, at ENO‘s miraculous Magic Flute, directed by the ever-inventive Simon McBurney I saw, inside the programme, some of the most haunting, poetic and beautiful images I’ve seen for a long time....Continue reading→
Free eBook SPEAKING of LOVE : UPDATE
A HUGE THANK YOU to all of you who’ve been downloading SPEAKING of LOVE on its two free days, yesterday and today: in the USA from here and in the UK from here. It’s given the novel, my first novel, a new lease on life. Thank you very much. Thank you also to Storm Drummey at Liz...Continue reading→
Free eBook : SPEAKING of LOVE : Friday 15 & Saturday 16 November
On Friday 15 November and Saturday 16 November the kindle edition of SPEAKING of LOVE will be available free. Go here for the UK and here for the US to download your free copy. And if you felt inspired, after you’ve read it, I’d love it if you wrote a review on either or both amazon sites, or...Continue reading→
Scared to say ‘I Love You’?
Last week Paul McCartney admitted to John Wilson on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row that he was scared to say ‘I love you’. Instead he wrote the words into a song for his wife, Nancy Shevell. The song, Scared, reviewed at the end of this link, is a hidden track at the very end of McCartney’s new album, NEW. It’s a beautiful wistful ballad...Continue reading→
The Dance of Love will be published in 2014; and roses, FIRST WORLD WAR graves and Gertrude Jekyll
Wonderful news, my second novel, THE DANCE of LOVE, will be published by Robert Hale in July, 2014. It’s very exciting. But, for now, I must get back to work on my third. Just before I do, in a parallel life where all things are possible, I would love to have been as talented as Gertrude...Continue reading→
For the Love of Life in COLLAGES, the Man Booker shortlist and a glorious goat gouda
In my post in July I wrote about the September publication of COLLAGES, a collection of new writing by students on Maggie Hamand’s wonderful CCWC courses. Maggie has kindly included an extract from my third novel, a work in progress called For the Love of Life, in the collection and now you can buy COLLAGES here, if...Continue reading→
Voice, and Bill Viola
I have never really been able to explain to myself what voice means for an artist, and particularly for a writer, even though I know it exists. But when I read this: Voice is a set of ideas and concerns that becomes distinctively owned by the writer. in the summer edition of The Author, at last...Continue reading→