Clik here to view.
Part-time wise man
Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself. – Tom WilsonI should be wise by now, at my age – beginning to be at least. But I'm not. Not especially. I have my...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Five years after
Rory: Are you still going to school too? Dean: Part-time, but everything's good, I've got a five-year plan. Rory: Five years? Cool... I've got about the next two-and-a-half hours planned... then...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lucia on Holiday
Truly, Lucia was the irresistible force for which no immoveable object seemed to exist. – Guy Fraser-Sampson, Lucia on HolidayAfter having found occasion to dream up collective nouns to suitably...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In the Country of Last Things
Our lives are no more than the sum of manifold contingencies, and no matter how diverse they might be in their details, they all share an essential randomness in their design: this then that, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Ossians
[I]t’s not as simple as “It’s shite being Scottish.” The truth is, it’s both shite and great being Scottish, often simultaneously. – Doug Johnstone, The OssiansIf you’re thinking of taking a tour of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What's a 5-star review worth?
So what is a 5-star review worth these days? About five bucks it seems but I’ll come back to that.Have you ever noticed that as soon as someone comes up with a good idea someone else will be looking...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fourteen Threadless Needles – an introduction to the poetry of Vito Pasquale
A journey of a thousand miles often starts with you barking up the wrong tree. . . – Koe Whitton Williams, November 20, 1955All poems cause side effects – ‘Always Read the Label Before You Read the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Fall of the Stone City
The name of the Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare regularly comes up at Nobel Prize time, and he is still a good bet to win it one of these days. . . . He is seemingly incapable of writing a book that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Heart Broke In
It would be ugly to watch people poking sticks at a caged rat. It is uglier still to watch rats poking sticks at a caged person. – Jean HarrisOf all the books to spring to mind when reading The Heart...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Is writing a hobby?
A hobby is a defiance of the contemporary. It is an assertion of those permanent values which the momentary eddies of social evolution have contravened or overlooked. If this is true, then we may also...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ancient Lights
[I]t’s the nakedness that poetry implies that cancels it out as a respectable creative option. In an increasingly inarticulate world that communicates in cliché & jargon, there is no place for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mormon Diaries
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ – Mahatma GandhiJustice is a good idea; lawyers not so much. Politics is a good idea; governments not so...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Great Gatsby
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them – William Shakespeare, Twelfth NightModern Library lists The Great Gatsby as the second-best English-language novel...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Am I an antipoet?
The true poet is willing to give up poetry in order to find poetry– Henry RagoSTOP RACKING YOUR BRAINS nobody reads poetry nowadays it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad– Nicanor Parra[1]A friend of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Beautiful Image
Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eye are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monkeys with Typewriters
Writing is a thinking job, not a typing job. – Scarlett ThomasOf the millions of drivers on the road I wonder how many are qualified lawyer-mechanic-physicists? To be honest I wonder if anyone out...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Journey to the End of the Night
The usual thing. Always getting shoved out into the night like this, I said to myself, I'm bound to end up somewhere. – Céline, Journey to the End of the NightA bald summary of Céline's first novel is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Article 7
Music is the soundtrack of your life. – Dick ClarkAs a writer it’s generally taken for granted that I would be passionate about books and I am but if you asked me if I had to live without words or...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Too Much Too Young
On the Book Slam website they describe themselves as follows: Book Slam is London’s first/ best/ only literary nightclub, which features all the top writers, the finest live music and a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Talulla Rising
Talulla Rising is Murphy’s Law cranked up to eleven. Everything that can go wrong does, and in a spectacularly bloody fashion. – Alex Brown, Tor.comIs Aliens a better film than Alien? I know, I know,...
View Article