17/12/2012 What do you buy a writer for her birthday?Why, BOOKS of course! Even though my "TO READ" shelves are crumbling under the weight of the volumes I have put on them, here comes another exciting pile of lovely reading material! Can't wait to get started! Also, a lovely little booklet entitled Writing London by the rather fab HERB LESTER ASSOCIATES containing an illustrated map and short paragraphs detailing the link between authors and places. 3/12/2012 All on boardTomorrow, I am off to France for my annual one week visit to my parents. I'm not gone and I already miss England - don't ask...
I am a bad traveller and loathe long journeys on public transport. Eurostar is quite stuffy - but National Express' Eurolines are so dreadful that I prefer to put up with the snobs (and it looks like Eurostar have put the ticket prices down from last year!). I beat them (the snobs) by being a dreadful snob myself! Hide the tattoos, put nice dress on - oh well, I wear nice dresses all the time anyway - and they don't look at you weird. I'll be burying my face in The Crimson Petal and the White to make it go quicker! The worst bit is the 20 minute Metro ride I have to do in Paris. It's smelly, people look super miserable and aggressive... Eeeek. Thankfully, I am getting picked up and driven to my destination afterwards, and therefore I do not have to add any frightful 2 hour train journey through France - it's quite something, let me tell you. *shudder* I will have to force myself to read some French language magazines so as not to lose the language entirely, after all, most of my (small) income comes from the fact that I am fluent in both languages! I will be taking my manuscript of The Book of Thoth and hope to add a few words to it... Let's see what a different environment does to my inspiration! November has been a very good writing month. I love Autumn and Winter, so it must be the season that inspires me! I get the opposite of SAD (or rather, I get SAD in Spring/Summer). Since I started writing again on 21st November after a long-ish work stint, I have written 7,600 words, but the whole of November accounts for 12,200 additional words, which is rather good! The story is slowly moving forward towards the climax, then hopefully the conclusion. It would be wonderful to start 2013 with a completed manuscript, then I can start on the second draft right way. An autumn 2013 publication would be marvellous! When I come back, I will be putting my Arcane Publishing hat on to work on getting I Am a Muse published as early as possible in 2013. 29/11/2012 Modern timesI found that fantastic extract in The Crimson Petal and The White. This is supposed to be a medical pamphlet the main character, Sugar, finds in the public library's reading room (in 1875). This reminds me of why I am who I am. I am not "healthy wife material", THANKFULLY! No woman can be a serious thinker, without injury to her function as the conceiver and mother of children. Too often, the female "intellectual" is a youthful invalid or virtual hermaphrodite, who might otherwise have been a healthy wife. Oh, and another one: There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall. Cyril Connolly
I have blogged about it on this blog (HERE) before, but Metal have just posted some more pictures and (gulp) videos on their website.
You can go and watch (in my case very, very short, I was ultra nervous!) interviews with the participants and everyone's readings... Thank you again to Christopher Fowler, Julie Myerson and Cathi Unsworth for talking to us, it was such a privilege to have you there! And thank you to everyone at Metal. I am looking forward to meeting with my fellow participants in the Spring to prepare for next year's Shorelines: Literature Festival of the Sea. I am thrilled to have been given the opportunity to participate in the second edition of this thrilling event, which will take place in the autumn of 2013. CULTURE LAB PHOTOS AND VIDEOS Scroll down to ARCHIVE. 9/10/2012 Rural NoirNames of places around Dorset are insane. Some are poetic, some are downright rude or grotesque - Scratchy Bottom, anyone? Actually, there are quite a lot of bottoms: Burnt Bottom, Happy Bottom, even an Aunt Mary's Bottom... Also, we have Shitterton and Shaggs (apparently there is a royal connection here, to prince Harry of all people) stop sniggering at the back!... For more wonderful names and facts about Dorset, you can acquire a great little book: The Little Book of Dorset, by David Hilliam (I have linked the Amazon page here, I don't think there is any website for it). I have bought mine at a lovely independent bookshop in Wimborne Minster, Gullivers. I personally love Gussage All Saints, as it inevitably reminds me of the beautifully named newt-loving P.G Wodehouse character Gussie Fink-Nottle (in the Jeeves and Wooster series). Wodehouse is my default reading at the moment: serious book / Wodehouse/ serious book / Wodehouse - not that I don't take Mr Wodehouse's writing seriously! Reading his books just make me happy, so I pick it up whenever I need a little... pick-me-up! Dorset's most famous writer Thomas Hardy famously changed all the place names and created his very own semi-fictional county of WESSEX with them. The poet John Betjeman actually wrote a poem using the evocative names of Dorset villages: Rime Intrinsica, Fontmell Magna, Sturminster Newton and Melbury Bubb, Whist upon whist upon whist upon whist drive, in Institute, Legion and Social Club. Horny hands that hold the aces which this morning held the plough While Tranter Reuben, T. S. Eliot, H. G. Wells and Edith Sitwell lie in Mellstock Churchyard now. Lord's Day bells from Bingham's Melcombe, Iwerne Minster, Shroton, Plush, Down the grass between the beeches, mellow in the evening hush. Gloved the hands that hold the hymn-book, which this morning milked the cow While Tranter Reuben, Mary Borden, Brian Howard and Harold Acton lie in Mellstock Churchyard now. Light's abode, celestial Salem! Lamps of evening, smelling strong, Gleaming on the pitch-pine, waiting, almost empty even- song{:} From the aisles each window smiles on grave and grass and yew-tree bough While Tranter Reuben, Gordon Selfridge, Edna Best and Thomas Hardy lie in Mellstock Churchyard now. {Note: The names in the last lines of these stanzas are put in not out of malice or satire but merely for} their euphony.} On our way back from Dorset last weekend, we noticed a village called Barton Stacey (OK, this is in Hampshire, not in Dorset, but we were on our way back from our holidays in Dorset, and it's still pretty rural, so there's a link!) and my partner said:
"Wow, that would be a cool name for a private detective, Barton Stacey!" It would, indeed. "Yes," I replied, "It could be the name of a character in a detective book set in the countryside. Like, Rural Noir" - rolling of the "Rs" - as opposed to the decidedly more urban genres of the Film Noir and Noir novel... And we started laughing and imagining what such a book would be about. Would the detective be wearing wellies? We could find some cool titles... "Hayfever - a Barton Stacey mystery" or "Barton Stacey and the mystery of the flying cow"... I don't know, I am not sure I could myself write a detective novel, although I have read quite a lot of them... And I do not know enough about crime, policing, etc. Also, this would have to be a spoof, and I am not witty enough to start dabbling in comic/comedic writing. But wouldn't it be fun to try and create a series of it... Who knows, maybe one day? By the way, the Rural Noir genre actually seems to exist: SEE HERE I guess you could call Faulkner's work Rural Noir. Nick Cave had a good go as well with his And The Ass Saw the Angel... It is more Rural Gothic though... 19/6/2012 Some more art and books! We love going to Saffron Walden... One can find fabulous things if one is interested in ephemera, antiques and beautiful things from other eras! Arts Decoratifs is a small shop, but it is a real treasure trove and we managed to spend absolutely AGES browsing in there. We came out clutching lovely postcards and prints, and I also purchased a stunning copy of Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market and Other Poems, illustrated by Florence Harrison (I have just stumbled upon a wonderful website dedicated to this great illustrator). The black and white as well as the colour illustrations inside are just so incredibly gorgeous... I have done a little bit of research and my book seems to be the 1910 edition, and I probably haven't paid the price I should have paid for it, as it seems to be quite special... We couldn't go to Saffron Walden without paying a visit to the lovely Fry Gallery - we go each time we are in town. The gallery is full of wonderful artworks by a variety of artists - The Great Bardfield Artists - and especially Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious. The exhibition we saw this time - ending 24th June - was put together to coincide with the publication of Long Live Great Bardfield and Love to You All, the autobiography of Tirzah Garwood, Eric Ravilious' wife. This amazing limited edition book, edited by Anna Ullman, Tirzah's daughter, is published by the The Fleece Press, a "one-man enterprise" that endeavours to publish sumptuously handmade books. Turning the pages of the copy in the gallery was a real pleasure. The book is full of lovely pictures of the artist at work and at play, with her family and friends. The reproductions of her artworks are simply gorgeous. Unfortunately, at £235 a copy, this hefty tome was not within my budget; but it is worth it, believe me... I loved her work, from her delicate paintings to her lively wood engravings. A nice article about Tirzah and some more pictures of her and her work HERE.
But a visit to Saffron Walden wouldn't be the same without going to the nearby Audley End for tea, and so we did... As we were there late in the afternoon, we had the lovely gardens all to ourselves and could really appreciate the quiet and beauty of the place... How I love my National Art Pass! We will be back for sure! I will end this blog with one of the postcards I found in les Arts Decoratifs. I have just finished reading Laura R. King's wonderful The Language of Bees, and as soon as I saw this postcard I thought of Mary Russell, Sherlock Holmes' wife. The girl in the postcard looks exactly as I imagine Mary Russell to look! (by the way, this book - and indeed the whole series - would make an/several absolutely wonderful movie(s): a strong, free-spirited, fearless scholar marries iconic detective and they have mad detective/action adventures all around the world and the country... The dynamics in their relationship are hilarious, the dialogues sharp! I have been thinking that Keira Knightley would probably be terrific in the role of Mary! For Sherlock, I still have to think...) 13/5/2012 Salon: Southend in literatureThis Salon was the first one of a new series of events at Chalkwell Hall, the Metal HQ in Southend. This series is entitled "A Sense of Place" and the 9th May event was dedicated to Southend in literature; Southend as a seaside resort, Southend as a landscape and Southend in contemporary literature.
There are several elements that come together to make the Salon events the success they are: the gorgeous, lovingly refurbished building, the informal atmosphere, the drinks and food, the pop-up book shops — The Book Inn from Leigh-on-Sea and Hoxton Books. But it is the high calibre of the guests that never fails to impress. For the 9th May Salon, host Rachel Lichtenstein had gathered a small group of readers to read extracts of the books she had chosen to illustrate the night's topic. There was Alan Dein, broadcaster and oral historian, whose lively reading of a long evocative excerpt taken from Simon Blumenfeld's Jew Boy was one of the highlights of the evening; Justin Hopper, an American artist, writer and curator — currently in residence at Chalkwell Hall — was drafted in to add an authentic American voice to an action-packed extract — set in the Thames estuary — of H.G Wells's The War of the Worlds; eminent freelance journalist, writer and editor C.J. Schüler talked about and read an extract from Norbert Gstrein’s The English Years; finally, the ever engaging writer Syd Moore read a scene from the opening pages of her excellent novel The Drowning Pool (see my review of the book HERE) set in Leigh-on-Sea. The reading list was incredibly diverse: from Jane Austen’s Emma to Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong; From Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould’s Mehalah —about which I had briefly blogged about HERE and which you can read HERE — to Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations — in order to see the landscape described in the book for yourself, you can actually do a walk around the Tollesbury area where this year’s BBC adaptation was shot. SALON 9TH MAY reading list: Jane Austen – Emma Charles Dickens – Great Expectations H.G.Wells - The War of the Worlds Sylvia Townsend – The True Heart Simon Blumenfeld – Jew Boy Paul Gallico – The Snow Goose: A Story of Dunkirk Warwick Deeping – Mr Gurney and Mr Slade Sebastian Faulks – Birdsong Bernard Cromwell - The Burning Land Simon Schama - Landscape and Memory Norbert Gstrein – The English Years Syd Moore – The Drowning Pool The next Salon event is on June 5th and will be dedicated to London in literature. 11/5/2012 Writing BritainThe ever excellent British Library in London has got an exhibition about writers and writing named Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands
This sounds exactly like my kind of thing (and it won't be too expensive thanks to my National Art Pass!). I really cannot wait! "From William Blake to the 21st-century suburban hinterlands of J G Ballard, Writing Britain examines how the landscapes of Britain permeate great literary works. It will allow visitors to read between the lines of great works of English literature, discovering the secrets and stories surrounding the works’ creation, shedding new light on how they speak to the country today. Over 150 literary works, including many first-time loans from overseas and directly from authors: sound recordings, videos, letters, photographs, maps, song lyrics and drawings - as well as manuscripts and printed editions." 2/5/2012 Sundial press, DorsetI am preparing a little Dorset blog, but it is not finished yet and therefore, in the meantime, here's a short one about a Dorset-based independent press, Sundial Press, which I discovered thanks to an article in the excellent Dorset Life magazine.
Based in the beautiful town of Sherborne, Sundial Press was launched by Frank Kibblewhite, someone who hasn't been afraid of trying out different things in his life: he has been a teacher and lecturer, a record and bookshop owner, a literary cataloguer... Most of the books published by Sundial have something to do with Dorset and its ambition is to bring back books that have been out of print for years. The press started out with books written by members of the Powys family, and has now published other Dorset authors. The Dorset Life article is now online HERE, so go and have a read as it is a very interesting story. All the books published by the press sound very interesting, and I will be keeping an eye on their shop and hopefully purchase a few volumes... This story is of particular interest to me as I wish to set up a small independent press myself one day. |
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