A lovely writer

I'm reading Peter Carey's His illegal self; the back cover blurb put me in mind of Bliss, my favourite of his novels. I have been mightily impressed (again) with his transitions: slick, poetic, expedient. Look at this one, paragraph 3 of chapter one, it follows 2 paragraphs of context and background on the boy (who is one … Continue reading A lovely writer →

Trafficville ~ USA: players and played

Trafficville posits a world - a game space - of shifting possibilities; an ambiguous merging of real and not-real. A series of questions, really: Who is played and who is player? Who is in control: of themselves, of others, of place and time? Should someone be in control? Who accepts the blame should things go wrong? Is … Continue reading Trafficville ~ USA: players and played →

A wee bit more from Trafficville…

Part II - Release Beta release - you're playing Chapter ~ A Sort of Good Day It was a Saturday morning and Norman Mene rode his bicycle past Mr Verdure’s greengrocery. It was exactly the sort of bicycle you’d expect a nerd to have, right down to it being a girl’s bike with a basket set atop … Continue reading A wee bit more from Trafficville… →

Scrivener

Forgive the pop up ad'; but this is how I got a discounted version of SCRIVENER. I was recently told about Scrivener* as a writing program which is particularly suited to longer works because it can organise all your notes and research and drafts in one place and allow you to work with split screens. I've … Continue reading Scrivener →

Seeing the mountain and other stories…

Just remembered I've also had this title on Kindle for a while now. Happy to email anyone who wants a free copy one in PDF format - if you'd care to have a look. The cover, I now realise, is awful.

The sun rose in the west

The sun rose in the west and coloured the hills. First they were velvet dark, not quite black, then burnt umber, flaming orange-red, limpid platinum. Light gathered. The hills became distinct, hard dry mounds that the sun reached from, taking hold of the day, making it hard and brittle too. A party of men came … Continue reading The sun rose in the west →

Little Hatshepsut

Like a miracle, a light rain had drifted in from the sea. The sea was a long, long way off and Ahmes looked at it as if it was strange emissary from Hapy[1]. Rain was rare in her world. Little pock marks on the river below her. It looked pretty but she still thought the … Continue reading Little Hatshepsut →

Top 10 teachable novels – a list of sorts

Here's my list (the order is not important.) Tomorrow when the war began. For year 9 or 10. Students, even reluctant readers, respond to this book and it would be eminently teachable given that there is now a recent film. Holes: Easy reading, big themes; an apparently simple book but the result of skilled writing - for … Continue reading Top 10 teachable novels – a list of sorts →