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The Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre asked people recently to share their favourite poems today. As with all favourite and best-of lists I find it very hard to choose. What strikes with you in one circumstance may not be right in…
Continue readingA Day for Poetry There is a time and a place a thought; a feeling; an emotion when there is no other way to say it. It can be for sorrow and grief joy and exultation when politics angers you…
Continue readingMr Tumnal is the story of a man who marries his imaginary friend. Based on the dissertation of my friends Kirsty, You Were My Betty is another crazy idea from the same brain. Charlotte gets help with her dissertation from…
Continue readingToday, Emma and I finally made it into Oxford for the Magical Books exhibition at the Bodleian Library. I am so glad that we did. The exhibition space at The Bodleian is small but we spent about an hour in…
Continue readingGhost Hawk by Susan Cooper Ever since I read Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising, and the sequence of which it is part I have loved Susan Cooper’s books and she she has remained one of my favoured authors. Probably…
Continue readingThis poem was written sometime around 1986/7 by Me, aged 13 (or thereabouts). I’d completely forgotten I had written this, but as soon as I read it I remembered precisely when I had, and where it was about. Folk from…
Continue readingI’ve always loved reading, and have never not had a ‘book on the go’. I also like writing them too. I can pinpoint the moment that I became a writer to my ninth birthday when my Grandpa gave me a…
Continue readingThe Red House by Mark Haddon This is the story of two families who haven’t really spoken in 20 years who decide to holiday together in a cottage on the Welsh borders after, and for the sake of, their recently…
Continue readingBracelet of Bones by Kevin Crossley-Holland From the beginning, the first book in Kevin Crossley-Holland’s Viking trilogy reads like an old Norse myth or saga. The language is, as you would expect from the author, beautiful and poetic, and he…
Continue readingFor many people, a statement like that might be a good enough signal to others to call the professionals in to sort me out. For me, though, it is normal. It’s as sure as sign as anything that another story…
Continue readingMr Tumnal has an eclectic taste in music. His music collection is entirely vinyl and (mostly) cassette, with some recent additions on CD, thus, Kathryn buys him an iPod which she has engraved for him: For your music collection and…
Continue readingBeing as I am in that awkward space that a writer finds themself in, of having finished writing the one novel but not yet having started the next, my mind is, as I begin to read and revise Mr Tumnal,…
Continue readingYou had that look in your eyes and that purr that defined you. You always knew what you wanted and were very good at telling us. You were loving and dependable. You couldn’t catch birds and micickles; but you did…
Continue readingA Thread Through Time by Deborah Shepherd This is Deborah Shepherd’s second novel, after her debut, The Underhill Buttons, and like with Buttons it is a classic time-shift novel of the kind that Penelope Lively used to write when she…
Continue readingSo I’ve got 400+ pages of novel sitting before me on my desk. Some would probably call it wasteful resources to print out an entire first draft like this, especially as for the first time ever I intend to do…
Continue readingWed, 23:04: has started reading #MrTumnal from the beginning. Already I’ve addressed a few Louis/Lewis mix-ups… #progress #amwriting #rewrites Wed, 23:15: Brilliant… 🙁 I just got a mental age test result of 44 on My Mental Age http://t.co/jQGUW1Tz9H Thu, 09:11:…
Continue readingTue, 12:20: RT @hss_brookes: Why Humanities MATTER: the humanities are about what it is to be human… http://t.co/Kue6jJMoLh Tue, 18:09: “I walked down the stairs. I knew what the next sentence was going to be. I walked up the stairs….
Continue readingThe Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman I bought this book on impulse after reading a review from a good friend. I didn’t have any idea what the book was going to be like. What I…
Continue readingThe Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman I bought this book on impulse after reading a review from a good friend. I didn’t have any idea what the book was going to be like. What I…
Continue readingMon, 23:06: curses the excellence of @blackwelloxford. I wish I had more money to buy all the books they sell there. Maybe I should just move I…? Tue, 09:00: is feeling a little bit under dressed today… #Rain
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