Are Creative Writing MAs worth doing?
Read MoreCreative Writing
New online blogging course
Updated! Here are some preliminary details of a blogging course I’ve been asked to teach.
Read MoreData
The most recent article I wrote for a client is characterised by 24 pieces of data. More correctly: metadata.
Read MoreReview: My very first Updike
Signs of the times
Signs in the environment can provide great stimulation for our imagination, and tell us about history in some cases too.
Read MoreRead like a writer
Reading like a writer is a different way of reading. There’s a great series on the subject from Electric Literature.
Read MorePhotoPrompt #34: Tobacco tins
What stories can old tobacco tins tell, or conjure up?
Read MoreCreative writing experiment in structure: Unforeseen Consequences
This article was written in January 2019. I wanted to write a narrative about one of our cats, but using a different time structure. You’ll see what I mean when you read it.
Read MorePhotoPrompt #33: Park benches in the time of Covid
The effect is to heighten the prevailing sense of dystopia.
Read MorePhotoPrompt #32: Shops in the time of Covid
When is a shop not a shop?
Read MorePhotoPrompt #31: Schools in the time of Covid
Is a closed school a school?
Read MoreWriting the blues
What do these pieces of writing have in common, apart from being examples of creative nonfiction about blues music?
Read MorePhotoPrompt #29: Cat in a box
This photo reminds me of one of the first books I read. Could it provide the basis of a new story?
Read MoreThe long goodbye
This is an article I wrote for a creative nonfiction writing assignment, dealing with dementia. It was first published in an anthology called Between The Lines.
Read MorePhotoPrompt #27: A robin
If I were a poet, I think this photo would inspire me to write. It’s not a great picture from a technical point of view — or at least I don’t think so — but the early Spring colours are lovely.
Read MoreAlways wear trousers on Skype
Seeing as we are in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, with millions of people either in lockdown or self-isolating, many previously face-to-face activities are starting to be carried out online. I thought this true story might serve both as a cautionary tale and as some light relief.
Read MorePhotoPrompt #26: Rush hour
Here is what the rush hour looked like on the last day I travelled in London.
Read MorePhotoPrompt #25: Spitalfields in the rain
The building shown in the photo is located just before you enter Spitalfields itself.
Read MoreReview: Oulipo and Modern Thought
If your interest in the Oulipo goes beyond simply trying out their techniques, and you wish to learn about the context in which it was conceived and the developments in went through, you will find this book very useful.
Read MoreThe 100 word constraint
Working within a limit of 100 words is both terrifying and liberating.
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