I’ve just been reading very kind words by writer Ken MacLeod on Déjà Vu: I wasn’t the only reviewer who thought the book, and the writer, deserved a lot better. Ian’s efforts to become a properly published writer were serious, unavailing, and in the end heartbreaking. He had another life than being a writer, and [...]
Anthony Horowitz quotes an interview with Giles Foden, author and professor of creative writing at the University of East Anglia. At any event, he was asked—broadly—about the place of literary books in the new world and he replied: “It’s hard to establish what is good and what is not. Barnes, Amis and McEwan were the [...]
Well, this looks like huge fun. Apparently, some agents on Twitter have been tweeting about bad queries (tag #queryfail). And now the writers strike back: It was bound to happen – the only surprise is that it’s taken a whole month. Writers were angry and wounded by March’s “Queryfail” on Twitter, which saw a group [...]
I’ve been hibernating over the winter. To be specific, I’ve been marking assignments. There was no time for updating this blog. But when I say ‘no time for updating’, I mean I had no time to write longish articles. There was certainly time to write shorter ones. This morning, I had an idea. Maybe two.
What do novels about a journey across post-apocalyptic America, a clone waitress rebelling against a future society, a world-girdling pipe of special gas keeping mutant creatures at bay, a plan to rid a colonisable new world of dinosaurs, and genetic engineering in a collapsed civilisation have in common? They are all most definitely not science [...]
Remember when, as a child, you’d suddenly see things from a new perspective? I must have been about nine, or perhaps eight, when it struck me that there were people in the world who had not heard of James Bond. That thought held me in a tighter grip than the notion that some people had [...]
According to the Beeb, Peter Jackson is going to write the scripts for the new Hobbit movies, to be directed by Guillermo del Toro. This, I would submit, is a good thing.
Merlin Mann shares his thoughts on what makes a good blog. Via Daring Fireball.
The human being is a peculiar creature. While all of its senses, and almost all of its capacities, are matched and exceeded by countless other animals, something strange and unimitated lies between the ears of Homo sapiens sapiens. I speak of nothing less than the mind.
Readers of this blog will be all to familiar with my own attempts at flash fiction, which I try to keep as ‘flash’ (i.e. short) as possible. Fiona Robyn, however, goes one better. She goes for the ‘f’ of the ‘flash’ like Linford Christie used to go for the ‘b’ of the ‘bang’.