Tag Archives: creative writing

Chaos theory

This gallery contains 4 photos.

Sometimes it feels too difficult to write this blog. I am tired and over-stretched. Events, major and minor, have been piling in over the last few weeks. Right now I have a swarm of half-formed thoughts buzzing at the edge … Continue reading

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Dem bones

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a book by Julia Cameron called The Right To Write. Since then I have been reading what I think of as its older sister, Writing Down The Bones, by Natalie Goldberg. I’ve been … Continue reading

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Dark Angels

Each new year John Simmons, Stuart Delves and I meet in the Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s comfortable rooms on Edinburgh’s Queen Street, as we did today. It’s our annual Dark Angels partners’ meeting. We have a bar lunch, a bottle … Continue reading

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Hold me

As in life, so in art – we do need constraints. In their own way they can even liberate, by relieving us of the pressure of having to encompass everything. That has certainly been my experience with the two 26 … Continue reading

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Why fiction?

‘Why should I read fiction?’ This was a question put by one of our students in Spain, a couple of weeks ago. It’s a good question, and a reminder for me that not everyone has the passion for stories that … Continue reading

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Dawn chorus

Finca el Tornero de Abajo is the Spanish home of my childhood friend, novelist Robin Pilcher. A chestnut farm on a hillside in the Sierra de Aracena, 100 kms northwest of Seville, it’s a place of magical light, long views … Continue reading

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Treasure trail

Visit the V&A from tomorrow and for the next nine days you’ll see something rather unusual: large red panels with alternative interpretations of twenty-six objects in the museum’s British Galleries. There will be the normal curatorial information: stuffed dragon’s head, … Continue reading

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Jail talk

If I had been asked, as they filed in, to point out the one that most unnerved me, it would have been him. Thick set, bull-headed, covered with tattoos, including one in what looked like Arabic script across his neck, … Continue reading

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