Have you seen What Does The Fox Say? yet? If not, here it is - you'll need to have experienced it before we begin to deconstruct it. After watching it a few times over the last week with my kids, it's become obvious that within the inane chatterings and costume-play, the singer Ylvis - our protagonist - is actually asking an important … [Read more...]
My Nan’s pumpkin pie recipe
My kids really got excited about carving pumpkins this year (you'll see from the photo that they went for a Minecraft theme). So I bought three, one of which was a real whopper. It meant we had a lot of pumpkin flesh to eat. Nearly 5 lbs of the stuff in fact. While looking for pumpkin pie recipes, I discovered that my mum still had my nan's … [Read more...]
Writing tools I can’t live without #3: Scrivener
I'm always looking for new tools that make the writing process simpler, more effective or more fun, and Scrivener does all of these things. After reading a recommendation a couple of years ago, I saw that you can get a free 30-day trial of Scrivener and gave it a go. Now I write just about all of my fiction on it. Scrivener is an incredibly … [Read more...]
A cemetery reading and a weekend workshop with WordFactory
Next month I'll be doing two gigs for the awesome WordFactory: On Friday 8 November at 7pm, I will be reading at Hauntings: Ghost Stories at Earlsfield Cemetery, alongside Stella Duffy, Tania Hershman and Alex Preston. Can't wait. It's going to be spooktacular. Tickets are £10 if booked before 31st October, £12 in advance, and £15 on the … [Read more...]
The opposite of Glee
Naomi and I sat through the Finn Hudson memorial episode of Glee last night in pieces. Boy it was agony to watch. Did you see it? It was a uniquely weird reality-fiction crossover, and I can't think of another example quite like it right now (it's 2:30am - I'm going through another spell of insomnia, so my brain is not up to full operating … [Read more...]
Daleks at the BBC National Short Story Awards
Until last week, I'd never been to BBC Broadcasting House, but it was somewhere I'd always wanted to go. So I was excited when the invite to the BBC National Short Story Award prizegiving dropped through my letterbox and I saw that the event had moved from its traditional home at the Freeword Centre to the BBC Radio Theatre. And the Beeb didn't … [Read more...]
Five things I learned at Small Wonder yesterday
At dawn on Sunday morning I drove down to Charleston, near Lewes in East Sussex, for the final day of the Small Wonder short story festival. The events were - as always - fascinating and diverse. Here are five things I learned there: 1 William Trevor used to be a serious sculptor. In a recorded interview with Small Wonder Artistic Director Diana … [Read more...]
Why can’t real life be like the Cork Short Story Festival?
I've just got back from the Cork International Short Story Festival and I have Post Literary Festival Separation Anxiety (PLFSA). It's so hard to leave a festival sometimes. Especially one as spectacularly warm and generous as this. Of course I missed Naomi and the boys like crazy while I was away, but when you spend more than a night or two … [Read more...]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- …
- 14
- Next Page »