Copycat: does originality exist?
Share As a child, my love for reading led to my love for writing which in turn led to my first attempt at writing a short story. In primary school I wrote a story entitled, The Fat Cookie, which was, in my mind, a captivating tale about the travels of a chunky choc chip cookie....
Twitter death-rumour mill: Màrquez the last victim.
Share Few days ago a Twitter account purporting to belong to the Italian author and academic Umberto Eco stated: “Gabriel García Márquez dies. I received the news now from New York.” The news quickly spread and literary social media went into mourning – until doubts started to surface about its veracity: everything comes up to...
Of Human Jam, on the Regents Canal, by Padraig O Loingsigh
Share Of Human Jam, on the Regent’s Canal There’s a poem by Tomas Hardy, bout a lady and a strumpet, and her fear that in the cemetery their bones would mix indecently. “There’s not a modest maiden elf But dreads the final Trumpet, Lest half of her should rise herself, And half some local strumpet!...
From a File to a Fortune: the self-publishing experience
Share In April 2012 my debut book, Statue in the Square, entered two best-seller charts on Amazon, the world’s leading bookstore. It peaked at no. 7 in the States and no. 11 in the UK in its listed genre, placing my book alongside renowned international bestsellers. This was achieved without a PR company, a publishing...
trembling
Share beauty is the rain falling on puddles making perfect circles at our feet timid is the mouse hiding in the kitchen whiskers twitching in the shadows soft is the dog sleeping on a cushion a patch of darkness on the bright cloth of day and happy are the children playing...
Writer interview: Martha Haversham
Share Martha Haversham is an English artist and writer. She has just published an ebook entitled Haversham in your Head. What is your name? Martha Haversham Where do you live? Wivenhoe What is your website address? www.marthahaversham.com What is your latest book? Haversham in Your Head Where can we get it? Amazon How long have...
Hearing the voice of the voiceless at Betty Abah’s Abuja reading
Share The April edition of the Abuja Writers’ Forum’s Guest Writer Session had a poet whose work captured, not just personal, but some of the far-reaching effects, on ordinary people, of the challenges that confront the nation, TUNJI AJIBADE writes. “I planned to read the poem, and I had thought that maybe it would make some in the audience cry.”...
Tempest by Giovanna Lucarelli
Share Tempest And all the world is threatening. Thunderstorm. Black Clouds of imperfection Loom immanent. Imminent, like the Angel Of Death, himself. Killing, your foetal rhymes Dead, before they’re even born. Giovanna Lucarelli is a soon-to-be-graduate of an English Literature and American Studies degree from the University of Birmingham. She’s a culture vulture, writer, dreamer,...
Poetry Review- Six Days in Iceland by Alyson Hallett
Share It is wonderful to discover unique poetry projects that combine a variety of elements. During the course of my Masters research I came across several such books, including Cynthia Hogue’s book of interview poems on Hurricane Katrina When the Water Came, and Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, both of which combine unusual...
Ginevra addresses Leonardo
Share The darker the shadow, the brighter the light… ‘I’m painting with colours not with black and white. I have to use colours to make you shine, Ginevra.’ I never said the shadow’s black and the light white, dear. ‘You didn’t…’ You need your shadow to be dark, but warm. A warm shadow is...
Not with a bang but a whimper: ‘The Cleft’ by Doris Lessing
Share ‘The Cleft’ by Doris Lessing Harper Perennial No. of pages 260 While purchasing books, it is possible to be blinded by our love for some authors. Even if the back cover and the synopsis promise no excitement. For me, Doris Lessing is one such name. ‘The Cleft’ has a brazenly feminist hypothesis about...
The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles – a book review
Share I have a thing for New York City… OK, perhaps it’s more than a thing – I fell in love with that city when I was there at the end of 2010 (and I’m going back this December!) It certainly had more than a little to do with my choosing The Rules of Civility...
Quoth The Raven
Share Using a blend of murder mystery, elements of the horror genre and bloody violence, The Raven tries to offer up a reason for the death of the well known poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe. Introducing the audience in its opening scene to 19th century Baltimore amidst a bloody murder, the tone...
Piecing Together Los Angeles: An Esther McCoy Reader
Share edited and with an essay by Susan Morgan “No one can write about architecture in California without acknowledging her as the mother of us all.”—Reyner Banham McCoy was a keen literary stylist and attentive witness to the birth of midcentury modernist design. She lived from 1904-1989, her impressive writing life spanning sixty years and charting...
unspoken
Share the sky is so cold but who are we to tell it otherwise we pollute our mouths and stream catalogs of colors of sin before our eyes picking mistakes and choosing our shortcomings from a prepackaged list she loves until she runs dry and bitterness floods in to take the place of her blood...
Don’t Keep Reading
Share I have always charged through books at break-neck speed, when I’ve had the time. I love becoming totally absorbed and losing hours to reading. However, I have also carried on reading many books that I just wasn’t enjoying. Granted, sometimes this was due to it being on my course syllabus, or because I felt I...
Review: “To your health: Humanities Diagnosis” by Jeremiah Walton
Share With poetry making a come-back among the young we are arguably on the verge of a new literary era – or so we hope. Poetry is cheap, and explosive. So few words can expand the mind a millennia – or so Emily Dickinson taught us – and explosion is certainly present in Jeremiah Walton’s...
Broken Toy Soldier
Share I found him on the street: green, like camouflage, I almost overlooked him, among the brown October leaves by the gray sidewalk. One arm raised but the raised arm broken off at the shoulder; whatever it held had dropped. One hand to his open mouth broken off, too, his mouth frozen in strained silence....
Thought Pollution
Share Thought Pollution Have you ever had pollution of the mind? When smog fills your head and you can’t unwind When all of the toxins from this pollution Prevent you from finding a sensible solution. The thoughts set in and they leave such a rancid smell Fumes dispersing in your head convince you all...
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