Category Archives: Writing

Lone Rangers

I’m about to drive into Edinburgh to record a four-way interview about the Dark Angels collective novel Keeping Mum for the BBC World Service. It’s Thursday evening and today is publication day. According to the information sheet from the friendly … Continue reading

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The Angels’ Share

Has there ever before been a fifteen-author book signing? Unbound, publishers of the Dark Angels collective novel Keeping Mum, have just posted photographs of this unusual, probably unique event on Facebook. It preceded our 10th anniversary dinner last week at … Continue reading

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A place at table

Commensality. I first came across the word a few years ago when I wrote an appeal for a community of monks. It means the act of sitting at table together (remember that famous first declension Latin noun, mensa?). Commensality was … Continue reading

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Other humans

I have been finding lately that a conversation about empathy is a good starting point for workshops on any kind of business writing. It breaks the ice and gets people talking together about something of which everyone has some kind … Continue reading

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Finding the flame

Since the beginning of the year I’ve been involved in the drafting of three large, high-profile public documents, one an urban regeneration strategy, one an export strategy for a national industry body, and one a long-term plan for a cultural … Continue reading

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Prison reading

A few years ago I visited a prison to give a reading and run a writing workshop, the only time I’ve ever done such a thing. I wrote about it here at the time, but even without referring back to … Continue reading

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War Horse revisited

I once heard the novelist Michael Morpurgo say, ‘The adults I find most interesting are the ones who know that the child inside them is really their soul.’ I’ve always admired his writing. He’s a consummate storyteller who tackles big … Continue reading

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Blind certainty

Yesterday I got an email from Stuart Delves, my fellow Dark Angel. It said: ‘In the library at The Royal Blind School on Monday and the first book I saw on the shelf was yours – in Braille!’ The book … Continue reading

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An anniversary

There’s something perversely appropriate about the fact that the darkest Christmas period I can remember (I’m speaking meteorologically here), should have heralded the year in which Dark Angels celebrates its tenth anniversary. Though there is actually nothing dark about Dark … Continue reading

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Through the wall

I’m looking at a picture of the Great Wall of China. It’s on a calendar given to me by my friend and acupuncturist Wenbo Xu. There are two crane-like birds in a meadow in the foreground. Beyond them the wall … Continue reading

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