On learning to read
Listen again (and again)
October 1, 2012
Listen again (and again): The full shortlisted of the BBC International Short Story Award 2012, available as free podcasts. Hurry, hurry.
I have been influenced by this refutation of the notion of writerly influences
September 17, 2012
I have been influenced by this refutation of the notion of writerly influences: J. Robert Lennon, being articulate and smart and considered again, this time on the redundancy of the “who do you consider to be your influences” question. A question I’ve tried to address before, usually with reference to the music of Pulp, but which Mr …
Not An Instruction Manual
September 13, 2012
Not An Instruction Manual: Lists of strict injunctions about How To Write usually descend into a kind of macho self-mythologising, and Rick Moody proves himself to be no exception by including “Do this [revise] twelve to twenty times” in this guide to revision. Eleven revisions would be one too few, Rick? Twenty-one would be overdoing …
Your Next Reading List
Your Next Reading List: Courtesy of the always-worth-listening-to Charles May, a list of 200 short stories for you to get your teeth into. And that’s just to get you started.
Ali Smith, talking at the Edinburgh festival last month about…
September 11, 2012
Ali Smith, talking at the Edinburgh festival last month about style and content in the novel. (She’s speaking between 8 mins and 26 mins; the rest is audience Q&A.) It’s always worth listening to what Ali Smith says about writing.
Am I reading too much?
August 22, 2012
Occasionally, an email arrives via my website with a question about books – my books, or any books – and about writing. Recently, a writer – who I’m calling “K” because it sounds literary and mysterious – emailed to ask whether he should avoid reading fiction while writing his own in order to avoid being …
On "thinking things through before opening your goddam piehole."
August 20, 2012
On “thinking things through before opening your goddam piehole.”: You should know J. Robert Lennon from his Pieces for the Left Hand. (No, really. You should.) Here, he tackles the recent debate on whether social media has made the world of writers and critics too comfortable and, well, nice, by means of explaining the right and …
A discussion about whether Hemingway actually wrote his famous six-word story. For more on Roland…
March 22, 2012
A discussion about whether Hemingway actually wrote his famous six-word story. For more on Roland Barthes’ concept of the writerly and readerly text, see his essay, From Work to Text, in the collection ‘Image, Music, Text’. Lydia Davis, ‘Collected Stories’, Hamish Hamilton. Donald Barthelme, ‘Some of us had been threatening our friend Colby’, taken from …
Reading aloud and writing aloud.
March 15, 2012
On a number of occasions recently, I’ve been asked to stand on a stage and read my work to an audience. One of the rewards (and difficulties) of doing this is that it confronts you with the tangles and slacknesses in your prose; it’s easy to sense, by the dips in an audience’s attentiveness, where …
Can you still get ribbons for that thing?
November 2, 2011
Apparently, the last typewriter manufacturer recently closed down. So no more new typewriters. Luckily, if you’re interested in getting hold of one, the typewriters which were built throughout the 20th century were built to last: mine was made in 1945 and works a treat. Show me your MacBook Air in 2075 and let’s compare notes. …
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