Bibliophile Heaven: locked in at Waterstones

Last week a story went viral about U.S. tourist David Willis. After browsing on one of the higher floors of Waterstones in Trafalgar Square, Europe’s biggest bookshop,  he came down and found the place deserted. He promptly realized he was locked in. He attempted to open the door, which set the alarm off. Then he…

Annie Proulx: Why Do We Write?

The gloriously tough-minded and tender-hearted Annie Proulx gave the keynote address at the AWP Conference & Bookfair in Seattle this year, entitled Why Do We Write?. One of my favorite authors, she’s also a fine speaker, as you can see here. Her keynote is full of gems worth excavating. “If the e-book had existed during…

Night Writers: authors and parenthood

PG Wodehouse dedicated his short story collection The Heart of a Goof to “my daughter Leonora, without whose never-failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been finished in half the time.” Ninety years later, novelist Mohsin Hamid wrote in the New York Times Book Review (here): “The banging on my door with which my…

Electronic literature. Beep squeak boom.

What on earth is electronic literature? It’s literary art created through the use of computer capabilities. This could mean poetry that uses Flash images, literature generated by computers, stories in the form of text messages, art installations with words, etc. And – here’s the big news – some of it is very very cool. Don’t…

Mailbox Chronicles no. 2: Tales of the Trash (Peter Hessler for The New Yorker)

The writer Dan Chacon once said that when you’re writing (he meant really writing, not just thinking about it or imagining that you’re a famous writer), the whole world conspires with you. Images appear, snatches of overheard conversation find their way into your manuscript, metaphors jump out at you from every source. This week, The…

“Damnificados” to be published, Sept 2015

Good news. My novel, Damnificados, will be published by PM Press in September 2015. The novel is based on the true story of the Tower of David in Caracas, Venezuela. This structure stood in the heart of the city, unfinished and empty. Its owner, David Brillembourg, a millionaire businessman, died before it was completed, and…

Low White Page: three poets

White page. Sounds like the writer’s biggest challenge. Low white page. Sounds like an abstract crossword clue. Or the beginning of a haiku. Denise Low, Orlando White, Jeremy Page. Three poets whose work I’ve just read. Bone Light by Orlando White I encountered Orlando White a year ago at the Southwest Festival of the Written…

Mailbox Chronicles no. 1: Mission at Tenth

‘Mission at Tenth’ Volume 5 arrived in my mailbox last week. It includes an extract from my novel, Damnificados (page 49, if you really want to know), so I’m a little biased, but I think it’s an excellent publication. I haven’t read it all yet, but I particularly enjoyed a brilliant story by Josip Novakovich…