In the quest for recognition as a writer it can sometimes seem that life is full of disappointment and rejection. (Don't worry, life IS full of disappointment of rejection...just not all the time!) So I was thinking of some of the tangibly good things that have happened to me as a writer. Here are a few from over the years.
1. First Publication
I didn't really know how to get into magazines in the mid-1990s. So when I had a poem published in the delightfully named little magazine "The Affectionate Punch", in - I think - 1996, I was dead pleased. "Curly Wurly" the poem that was published there was aimed at being a publishable one - a nostalgic childhood poem, that I'm still proud of.
2. Being Shortlisted for the Lichfield Prize (Twice!)
Novelists have it hard - in that its all or nothing. So I'm still not a published novelist, but early on in my writing career I came close (twice) with shortlistings for the Lichfield Prize, a prize for "unpublished novels". In 1995 "Lineage" made the shortlist, but I wasn't able to attend the ceremony as I was in America (typical of my life - the first holiday in years and it clashed!) but I had another shortlisting in 1999 with "In Search of Sally Johnson" and thoroughly enjoyed the prize ceremony in a marquee outside of Lichfield cathedral. I remember thinking: this might be the only time I'm ever up for one of these, so enjoy it. To date, it is, and I did.
3. Selection for the M.A. in Novel Writing at University of Manchester
Back in 1996 when I applied there were less than half a dozen creative writing courses in the country. I'd applied the year before to UEA and got told to try again in 1996 which I did and got an interview, but not the place. A few weeks later I had an interview with Richard Francis at Manchester. I'd already handed my notice in at work even though I hadn't a definite place. I must have looked worried at some point, because he said, "don't worry, you're on the course." Thank you Richard.
4. "The Four Hills of Manchester"
City Life magazine - through literary editor Ra Page - was looking to produce some pamphlets of stories by Manchester writers inserted into the magazine and had agreed to have a call out for new, unknown writers. I had this idea in my head for a slightly surreal story about Manchester, set around the bookshops on Shude Hill. I was on my M.A. at the time, and intensely prolific. I wrote "The Four Hills of Manchester" in a couple of days, and to my surprise it got chosen and shortlisted.
6. Blogging at "Worlds"
For three years I was invited by Chris Gribble, director of Writers' Centre Norwich, to be blogger-in-residence during the "Worlds" festival - a symposia and literary festival taking place at UEA and Norwich every year. I met a great range of writers there - including big names such as J.M. Coetzee - but it was particularly meeting writers on the rise, such as Jen Ashworth, Jon McGregor, John McAuliffe and the Australian novelist Chloe Hooper that made it a real pleasure.
7. "Playing Solitaire for Money"
I had entered Salt Publishing's poetry prize a couple of times but not got anywhere. No surprise, these things are very competitive. I'd made some comment about giving up on poetry which prompted their editor Chris Hamilton-Emery to contact me. He was starting a new pamphlet series to try and capture writers who weren't quite ready for a full collection or were developing side projects. He asked me to be part of the series and "Playing Solitaire for Money" duly appeared in 2010 - a small, but nicely formed collection of which I'm still very proud. So, thanks Chris. (And thanks also Alec, who published 4 of my long experimental poems with his Knives, Forks and Spoons press the same year.)
8. Reading at Whitworth Art Gallery
I'm still not sure how this one happened. But I was approached to read some poetry at Whitworth Art Gallery during their show "Dark Matters" - which aligned with my subject matter of the digital and the spectral. I even managed to get a nice piece in the Manchester Evening News about it. I learnt that if you're going to read in a dark space its best to have a light with you.
9. Unthology 4
My story "The Cat" was one I had high hopes for - and it got picked up pretty quickly for "Unthology 4". I include it here as I realise it was the first time one of my stories had been featured in a book.
10. Best British Stories 2018
Back to Salt again, and I got an email from short story editor and fellow Didsbury resident Nicholas Royle last year that he'd like to include my story "Life Grabs" which had just appeared online, in the next edition of the annual Best British Stories anthology.
So ten highlights over a period of 23 years, and all things that make this weird "job" of writing imaginatively worthwhile. And thankfully, they weren't the only ten, just an important selection.
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Sunday, July 22, 2018
Art in July
July used to be the month that the art world went into slumber - or at least on its holidays. I've not been over to the Liverpool Biennial which opened a week ago, but I have been catching a bit of art, both local and otherwise.
At Castlefield Gallery, the current show is a selection of recent graduates from the MMU School of Art. Recent graduates are always at an interesting cusp: out of the need to create art that will also get them their degree, they also may find themselves removed from some of the opportunities that being part of an art school provides. This latest show, (on until 12th August) gives an early career opportunity to showcase work. The three chosen artists are all female, and all mainland Europeans, a coincidence around the selection, but which gave an added coherence to their work when put together. Given the opportunity not just to show pre-existing work, but develop concepts and ideas, the three artists share concerns around the personal, the political and the sense of longing for home - whether in the remembered smells of a relative's kitchen, the resonance of found objects repurposed, or a previously forgotten bit of history in Maite Pinto's discovery of the story of children evacuated from Spain to the UK during the Spanish Civil War. The Basque artist's work resonated particularly with me, as I'm currently writing about how we remember things, and the Franco regime's rewriting of history, to find no place for those on the war's losing side, was part of my own research. Well worth a visit.
It's too late now for the Sonia Boyce retrospective at Manchester Art Gallery - I've visited twice, once on the opening and last week, but the show closed today. Although a "retrospective" the show felt anything but historical, partly, I think, because Boyce is a curatorial artist - curating a room full of black female cultural items over a period of years - or setting up juxtapositions in some of the other works. That she had previously photographed Mancunians at the old Cornerhouse in the late 1990s wearing an afro wig was a nice piece to revisit, as faces, familiar and unfamiliar, were in the pictures two decades on. The best piece but also the most problematic was 2015's Exquisite Cacophony, a closely observed film of a live performance between two very different artists. It's an exciting, exhilarating piece but the art seemed very much in the two performers - what role had the artist here other than as documentarian? As a collaborative work I liked it alot, marred only by the staging in the art gallery, where the sound from the the various film pieces made it difficult at times to concentrate on the one piece. The new work - a series of interventions in the gallery followed this theme of setting up confrontations and worked very well, as a series of short films created a split screen montage that was funny, chaotic, and intrigueing, and put into context the contentious removal of "Hylas and the Nymphs", a controversy that erupted earlier in the year as part of the creation of the new piece. So, a good, brave show that possibly deserved a more sympathetic install.
For artists working in their studios, the role of studio as gallery is always an interesting one. With Rogue Studios closing and being replaced by a new site in Gorton, and a takeover of a building in Salford - Paradise Works, the latter at least has been developed with an eye on how to present as well as to make work. Richard Shields was commissioned to be an artist in residence at the Curfew tower, in Cushendall in Northern Ireland. His current show brings this work back to his studio space. Featuring artefacts and a mural, as well as a documentary film, it - like Boyce - shows art as process, as well as end result - and that's increasingly fascinating as artists explore both their identity in culture and in their work. "The Future is Bright the Past is Colourful" plays with the idea of a "colour" being appropriated for political reasons. Shields has created a character that is made of various archetypes which both satirises and recognises the symbolism inherent in cultural identity. The show will be open next weekend or by appointment till early August.
Meanwhile, I found myself in Nottingham during changeover of their current exhibitions at the Nottingham Contemporary and so went along to the launch. I was very impressed by Mexican artist Pia Camil, whose solo show, is incredibly playful, but also uniquely her own. In "Split Screen" - covering two of the gallery spaces, you go behind the curtain and find yourself in a surreal world of the artist's imagination, where material is repurposed extravagantly, and, like with Richard Shields, a series of characters are presented - a bit like following Alice into Wonderland. A fine retrospective of Swiss design and architectural practice Trix and Robert Haussmann runs alongside the Camil exhibition and again blurs the boundaries between art and design.
Earlier in the month, and last, but definitely not least, I went to the ever wonderful Bury Art Gallery for a new show, "Shonky: the Aesthetics of Awkwardness", a touring show from the Hayward, which is a cornucopia of the delightful, the bizarre, and the downright hilarious. Like a cabinet of curiosities played out across two galleries, it is an assault on the senses, as well as a beautifully chaotic mish-mash of old and new artists working with some kind of kitsch aesthetic. On until mid-September, it is highly recommended.
Finally, this weekend to come sees one of our more design-led publishers, experimental press Dostoyevsky Wannabe, stage an independent book market at PLANT, near Shude Hill in town. Come along on Saturday afternoon for launch of new books on Manchester and by Richard Barrett and Steve Hanson amongst other small interesting publishers.
At Castlefield Gallery, the current show is a selection of recent graduates from the MMU School of Art. Recent graduates are always at an interesting cusp: out of the need to create art that will also get them their degree, they also may find themselves removed from some of the opportunities that being part of an art school provides. This latest show, (on until 12th August) gives an early career opportunity to showcase work. The three chosen artists are all female, and all mainland Europeans, a coincidence around the selection, but which gave an added coherence to their work when put together. Given the opportunity not just to show pre-existing work, but develop concepts and ideas, the three artists share concerns around the personal, the political and the sense of longing for home - whether in the remembered smells of a relative's kitchen, the resonance of found objects repurposed, or a previously forgotten bit of history in Maite Pinto's discovery of the story of children evacuated from Spain to the UK during the Spanish Civil War. The Basque artist's work resonated particularly with me, as I'm currently writing about how we remember things, and the Franco regime's rewriting of history, to find no place for those on the war's losing side, was part of my own research. Well worth a visit.
It's too late now for the Sonia Boyce retrospective at Manchester Art Gallery - I've visited twice, once on the opening and last week, but the show closed today. Although a "retrospective" the show felt anything but historical, partly, I think, because Boyce is a curatorial artist - curating a room full of black female cultural items over a period of years - or setting up juxtapositions in some of the other works. That she had previously photographed Mancunians at the old Cornerhouse in the late 1990s wearing an afro wig was a nice piece to revisit, as faces, familiar and unfamiliar, were in the pictures two decades on. The best piece but also the most problematic was 2015's Exquisite Cacophony, a closely observed film of a live performance between two very different artists. It's an exciting, exhilarating piece but the art seemed very much in the two performers - what role had the artist here other than as documentarian? As a collaborative work I liked it alot, marred only by the staging in the art gallery, where the sound from the the various film pieces made it difficult at times to concentrate on the one piece. The new work - a series of interventions in the gallery followed this theme of setting up confrontations and worked very well, as a series of short films created a split screen montage that was funny, chaotic, and intrigueing, and put into context the contentious removal of "Hylas and the Nymphs", a controversy that erupted earlier in the year as part of the creation of the new piece. So, a good, brave show that possibly deserved a more sympathetic install.
For artists working in their studios, the role of studio as gallery is always an interesting one. With Rogue Studios closing and being replaced by a new site in Gorton, and a takeover of a building in Salford - Paradise Works, the latter at least has been developed with an eye on how to present as well as to make work. Richard Shields was commissioned to be an artist in residence at the Curfew tower, in Cushendall in Northern Ireland. His current show brings this work back to his studio space. Featuring artefacts and a mural, as well as a documentary film, it - like Boyce - shows art as process, as well as end result - and that's increasingly fascinating as artists explore both their identity in culture and in their work. "The Future is Bright the Past is Colourful" plays with the idea of a "colour" being appropriated for political reasons. Shields has created a character that is made of various archetypes which both satirises and recognises the symbolism inherent in cultural identity. The show will be open next weekend or by appointment till early August.
Meanwhile, I found myself in Nottingham during changeover of their current exhibitions at the Nottingham Contemporary and so went along to the launch. I was very impressed by Mexican artist Pia Camil, whose solo show, is incredibly playful, but also uniquely her own. In "Split Screen" - covering two of the gallery spaces, you go behind the curtain and find yourself in a surreal world of the artist's imagination, where material is repurposed extravagantly, and, like with Richard Shields, a series of characters are presented - a bit like following Alice into Wonderland. A fine retrospective of Swiss design and architectural practice Trix and Robert Haussmann runs alongside the Camil exhibition and again blurs the boundaries between art and design.
Earlier in the month, and last, but definitely not least, I went to the ever wonderful Bury Art Gallery for a new show, "Shonky: the Aesthetics of Awkwardness", a touring show from the Hayward, which is a cornucopia of the delightful, the bizarre, and the downright hilarious. Like a cabinet of curiosities played out across two galleries, it is an assault on the senses, as well as a beautifully chaotic mish-mash of old and new artists working with some kind of kitsch aesthetic. On until mid-September, it is highly recommended.
Finally, this weekend to come sees one of our more design-led publishers, experimental press Dostoyevsky Wannabe, stage an independent book market at PLANT, near Shude Hill in town. Come along on Saturday afternoon for launch of new books on Manchester and by Richard Barrett and Steve Hanson amongst other small interesting publishers.
Monday, July 16, 2018
A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman
In David Grossman's award winning (it won the International Booker for novels in translation) novel "A Horse Walks into a Bar", a 57-year old comedian comes on stage at a supper club in the Israeli town of Netanya. In the audience is a man who he has invited, to bear witness, a retired judge, who the comedian, Dovaleh G, was at school with. This was the area where he grew up and there is another person who remembers him, a tiny woman, whom he was once kind to. Yet this is not a triumphant homecoming gig, but a matter of catharses. Over an hour and a half, or longer as the reader rather than an audience member, this one man show starts funny, but turns scabrous, sad, searing, until there are only a handful left in the audience to witness his pain. The novel is not quite a single monologue. The judge is our narrator and interjects as the going gets tough (and the going does get tough) and gives us something of a back story. For Dovaleh's own back story is one told sparingly, furstratingly through many discursions.
The audience are there for jokes and there are jokes here - old jokes, good ones, but in the old style. The man who offers a ticket to the game to a stranger. "Can't your wife go?" says the stranger, "no, she's dead." "What about her friends?" he asks, "They'd all rather be at her funeral." Humour is such a strange beast that its risky to erect a novel on top of a bed of such jokes. But they provide light relief. There's some mileage in the fictional comedian. "The Entertainer", "The King of Comedy" come to mind - though its older archetypes that Dovaleh reminds us off: his tale, a shaggy dog story of sorts, but one that is avoiding, circling round the thing he wants to tell - the terrible thing that was done to him nearly half a century before which led to him becoming a comedian, led to his broken marriages and distant relationships with his own children. That circling away from the tale is there in some of Shakespeare's more contemplative heroes, but finds its comedic home in that early English novel by Sterne, "Tristram Shandy".
The retired judge didn't recognise Dovaleh when he first called and asked him to come. He didn't remember the incidents that Dovaleh prompted him to remember. But his own wife has died, and he has his own loneliness to feel regret so he turns up - but early in the performance he doesn't understand why he is there, why he has any responsibility to this man. He almost leaves, but of course, he stays to the end, as we do, as readers.
For Dovaleh is not a nice man, he is misanthropic certainly, possibly misogynistic as well. He is a clown but he has a dark side. At the same time his craft is such that he can pull the audience back from the brink. He talks directly to them in a way that probably makes other members of the audience not want to be picked on. Its an older crowd, and this is an old kind of humour. Its the endurance act of certain music hall comedians, surviving on a high wire act of their own making. As the night goes on the jokes drop away and he begins to tell his story - of when he was away at an army training camp for kids, and whilst away one of his parents died, and he has to go back to them - but in the all chaos - he is never told - or never listens - to hear which one has died. During the long journey, with a driver who is himself an amateur comedian, whiling away the ride whilst telling jokes, he has his own judgement of Solomon to make: which of his parents does he want to be alive, and which to find in the coffin.
In some ways the nature of this horror is spun out - there is no plot as such - but its using this cathartic night to look back on the worst moment in a person's life and from it try and construct what went wrong and how. Dovaleh the child was happy but somewhat insane - he walked on his hands, which stopped him being bullied (how could you a hit a kid walking on his hands?) until his dad found him doing it and banned him from it. His mother was a Holocaust survivor, his father loved her but loved work even more, and saw the two entwined - so making a business from nothing and work took the place of loving his son. We know some of this because the narrator tells us. A shy, lonely boy, he finds that talking to Dovaleh on their walks back from some tutoring classes, gave him his first friend, and also took him away from the rules and regulations of his home life and adult world. The world intrudes of course. How can it not in Israel throughout the seventies, eighties and nineties? But the darker jokes, about the Holocaust, about the Palestinians, bring out only sharp laughs from the audience who are naturally enough wanting a good time.
The novel has been highly acclaimed, and its no doubt that the original and the excellent translation are both a tour de force, but its also a difficult novel, hard to like, that asks a lot of its readers, just as Dovaleh asks alot of his audience. Firstly, we know early on that this is what we are going to get, and Dovaleh is not a pleasant man. He has a hectoring style, its full of hate, but also self-hate. He's a 57 year old man, but doesn't feel like someone who could have come of age during the disco and punk era, but an older archetype, like the miserable protagonist of Heller's "Good as Gold." We hear nothing about his wives and children, collateral damage it seems. And we are with him for the duration. The narrator can hardly bear it, and we wonder if we can as well. There's a point when those in the audience no longer want the jokes, they want to hear his story, however terrible it might be - I guess the reader settles in for the same thing. Yet, it seems a little alien to me - I can't place Dovaleh, I can't make sense of his upbringing, his world. There is no description, other than of the comedy club, so it feels an arid world that he describes, and its as if he and us are surrounded by ghosts. Most of the reviews I've read of the novel since finishing it reference a tragedy in Grossman's own life, as well as the troubles of the Israeli state - but without this biographical background (of the writer, not the character) - we only have what is here to go on, and though one eventually feels some sympathy for Dovaleh, it falls far short of empathy. We can see the man he has become - an ill man - prematurely aged - but also a successful one, making a career from his humour and his foibles. The payback to the reader - or at least this reader - didn't really come - in that I still felt unknowing about why we were here, with this character. It feels an old fashioned novel in some ways, despite the brave structure, and though one can appreciate its seriousness, I'm not sure I ever bought into its artfulness. Dovaleh seems to belong to a different time, a different world. Somehow, his story didn't resonate, and the somewhat pained execution, though masterfully done, meant this short book felt much longe than it was.
The audience are there for jokes and there are jokes here - old jokes, good ones, but in the old style. The man who offers a ticket to the game to a stranger. "Can't your wife go?" says the stranger, "no, she's dead." "What about her friends?" he asks, "They'd all rather be at her funeral." Humour is such a strange beast that its risky to erect a novel on top of a bed of such jokes. But they provide light relief. There's some mileage in the fictional comedian. "The Entertainer", "The King of Comedy" come to mind - though its older archetypes that Dovaleh reminds us off: his tale, a shaggy dog story of sorts, but one that is avoiding, circling round the thing he wants to tell - the terrible thing that was done to him nearly half a century before which led to him becoming a comedian, led to his broken marriages and distant relationships with his own children. That circling away from the tale is there in some of Shakespeare's more contemplative heroes, but finds its comedic home in that early English novel by Sterne, "Tristram Shandy".
The retired judge didn't recognise Dovaleh when he first called and asked him to come. He didn't remember the incidents that Dovaleh prompted him to remember. But his own wife has died, and he has his own loneliness to feel regret so he turns up - but early in the performance he doesn't understand why he is there, why he has any responsibility to this man. He almost leaves, but of course, he stays to the end, as we do, as readers.
For Dovaleh is not a nice man, he is misanthropic certainly, possibly misogynistic as well. He is a clown but he has a dark side. At the same time his craft is such that he can pull the audience back from the brink. He talks directly to them in a way that probably makes other members of the audience not want to be picked on. Its an older crowd, and this is an old kind of humour. Its the endurance act of certain music hall comedians, surviving on a high wire act of their own making. As the night goes on the jokes drop away and he begins to tell his story - of when he was away at an army training camp for kids, and whilst away one of his parents died, and he has to go back to them - but in the all chaos - he is never told - or never listens - to hear which one has died. During the long journey, with a driver who is himself an amateur comedian, whiling away the ride whilst telling jokes, he has his own judgement of Solomon to make: which of his parents does he want to be alive, and which to find in the coffin.
In some ways the nature of this horror is spun out - there is no plot as such - but its using this cathartic night to look back on the worst moment in a person's life and from it try and construct what went wrong and how. Dovaleh the child was happy but somewhat insane - he walked on his hands, which stopped him being bullied (how could you a hit a kid walking on his hands?) until his dad found him doing it and banned him from it. His mother was a Holocaust survivor, his father loved her but loved work even more, and saw the two entwined - so making a business from nothing and work took the place of loving his son. We know some of this because the narrator tells us. A shy, lonely boy, he finds that talking to Dovaleh on their walks back from some tutoring classes, gave him his first friend, and also took him away from the rules and regulations of his home life and adult world. The world intrudes of course. How can it not in Israel throughout the seventies, eighties and nineties? But the darker jokes, about the Holocaust, about the Palestinians, bring out only sharp laughs from the audience who are naturally enough wanting a good time.
The novel has been highly acclaimed, and its no doubt that the original and the excellent translation are both a tour de force, but its also a difficult novel, hard to like, that asks a lot of its readers, just as Dovaleh asks alot of his audience. Firstly, we know early on that this is what we are going to get, and Dovaleh is not a pleasant man. He has a hectoring style, its full of hate, but also self-hate. He's a 57 year old man, but doesn't feel like someone who could have come of age during the disco and punk era, but an older archetype, like the miserable protagonist of Heller's "Good as Gold." We hear nothing about his wives and children, collateral damage it seems. And we are with him for the duration. The narrator can hardly bear it, and we wonder if we can as well. There's a point when those in the audience no longer want the jokes, they want to hear his story, however terrible it might be - I guess the reader settles in for the same thing. Yet, it seems a little alien to me - I can't place Dovaleh, I can't make sense of his upbringing, his world. There is no description, other than of the comedy club, so it feels an arid world that he describes, and its as if he and us are surrounded by ghosts. Most of the reviews I've read of the novel since finishing it reference a tragedy in Grossman's own life, as well as the troubles of the Israeli state - but without this biographical background (of the writer, not the character) - we only have what is here to go on, and though one eventually feels some sympathy for Dovaleh, it falls far short of empathy. We can see the man he has become - an ill man - prematurely aged - but also a successful one, making a career from his humour and his foibles. The payback to the reader - or at least this reader - didn't really come - in that I still felt unknowing about why we were here, with this character. It feels an old fashioned novel in some ways, despite the brave structure, and though one can appreciate its seriousness, I'm not sure I ever bought into its artfulness. Dovaleh seems to belong to a different time, a different world. Somehow, his story didn't resonate, and the somewhat pained execution, though masterfully done, meant this short book felt much longe than it was.
Saturday, July 07, 2018
What a Time to be Alive
Being a writer of contemporary fiction I always try and keep a keen eye on the zeitgeist. As you get older its interesting that ones concerns change a little: I'm not so much perplexed by the success of say, Drake, the Greatest Showman, and Love Island, as disinterested. Had I kids then I guess I'd be sharing their enthusiasms, as it is I realise that my own interests and fascinations aren't necessarily stuck in amber, but are perhaps a different pace, a different timbre.
Where that leaves one as a writer is another question. I'm just reading David Grossman's "A Horse Walks into a Bar" and finding it a little dated in its protagonist, and its concerns, and its way of telling them - yet I suspect my own approach is also not as contemporary as my material. The appreciation of fine wines as one gets older is also accompanied by an appreciation that too much of a good thing can kill you, or at least give you health problems.
Ah well, we are what we consume: and so I'm glad to be missing Love Island at least. I've been busy, and I've been too busy - the latter meaning I've not really much to say about literary matters. Yet I'm also acutely aware that the usual "end of year" sense of the British summer, is heightened this year by two things: by the unexpected and uninterrupted hot spell (the longest winter is just a distant memory now), and by the England football team overperforming in the World Cup. Its now an all European competition after Belgium lived up to their potential and beat Brazil last night. England have Sweden this afternoon before a potential semi-final against either Croatia or Russia. All three sides are eminently beatable, or, lets not forget we are England, eminently able to beat us. Despite Pickford's penalty shootout success, we've not yet to have a clean sheet at this World Cup - lucky that most of the goals against us have been late ones that have meant less.
The summer is already one that is burning into memory like that of 1976, with the accompanying moor fires of Saddleworth leavening an acrid burning smell over Manchester city centre for over a week, it feels like a moment when you could set a story, live a life. It's also interesting that the hot weather and the football make one put other things on hold a little - its better to stare at the unexpected moment: this is the new plan, whatever your previous ones were.
But I have stepped out to a couple of things. I enjoyed the launch of the Banned Books exhibition at the Anthony Burgess foundation last week. Worth a look. Pleased to see I'd got a few of the pulpier ones - Dennis Wheatley, Lesley Phillips. Burgess had moved to Malta with his second wife Liana, in the late sixties avoiding high tax rates amongst other things. Malta was (and is) a censorious place - and his books were impounded and burned. They've recreated the collection as much as they can (some titles are ambiguous). He was in Malta for a few years, and only left after getting into more trouble politically, and having his house briefly impounded by the authorities. Malta is the model for the start of "Earthly Powers" which he began writing there.
You can do a nice little tour round that part of town at present - as a new show opened last night at HOME, a mix of retrospective and new work from Phil Collins, and 3 MFA graduates from Manchester School of Art are included in a group show at Castlefield Gallery, minimalist work mixing the personal and political.
A couple of fascinating literary events are coming up: a talk about his book on depitctions of terrorism in 1970s novels from Joe Darlington particularly interests me this Thursday - whilst the following week, Carcanet have a summer party, taking place in Castlefield Gallery.
Finally, I'm very pleased to say that I've a story in Best British Stories 2018 from Salt, alongside the usual fascinating mix of writers - out next week.
Where that leaves one as a writer is another question. I'm just reading David Grossman's "A Horse Walks into a Bar" and finding it a little dated in its protagonist, and its concerns, and its way of telling them - yet I suspect my own approach is also not as contemporary as my material. The appreciation of fine wines as one gets older is also accompanied by an appreciation that too much of a good thing can kill you, or at least give you health problems.
Ah well, we are what we consume: and so I'm glad to be missing Love Island at least. I've been busy, and I've been too busy - the latter meaning I've not really much to say about literary matters. Yet I'm also acutely aware that the usual "end of year" sense of the British summer, is heightened this year by two things: by the unexpected and uninterrupted hot spell (the longest winter is just a distant memory now), and by the England football team overperforming in the World Cup. Its now an all European competition after Belgium lived up to their potential and beat Brazil last night. England have Sweden this afternoon before a potential semi-final against either Croatia or Russia. All three sides are eminently beatable, or, lets not forget we are England, eminently able to beat us. Despite Pickford's penalty shootout success, we've not yet to have a clean sheet at this World Cup - lucky that most of the goals against us have been late ones that have meant less.
The summer is already one that is burning into memory like that of 1976, with the accompanying moor fires of Saddleworth leavening an acrid burning smell over Manchester city centre for over a week, it feels like a moment when you could set a story, live a life. It's also interesting that the hot weather and the football make one put other things on hold a little - its better to stare at the unexpected moment: this is the new plan, whatever your previous ones were.
But I have stepped out to a couple of things. I enjoyed the launch of the Banned Books exhibition at the Anthony Burgess foundation last week. Worth a look. Pleased to see I'd got a few of the pulpier ones - Dennis Wheatley, Lesley Phillips. Burgess had moved to Malta with his second wife Liana, in the late sixties avoiding high tax rates amongst other things. Malta was (and is) a censorious place - and his books were impounded and burned. They've recreated the collection as much as they can (some titles are ambiguous). He was in Malta for a few years, and only left after getting into more trouble politically, and having his house briefly impounded by the authorities. Malta is the model for the start of "Earthly Powers" which he began writing there.
You can do a nice little tour round that part of town at present - as a new show opened last night at HOME, a mix of retrospective and new work from Phil Collins, and 3 MFA graduates from Manchester School of Art are included in a group show at Castlefield Gallery, minimalist work mixing the personal and political.
A couple of fascinating literary events are coming up: a talk about his book on depitctions of terrorism in 1970s novels from Joe Darlington particularly interests me this Thursday - whilst the following week, Carcanet have a summer party, taking place in Castlefield Gallery.
Finally, I'm very pleased to say that I've a story in Best British Stories 2018 from Salt, alongside the usual fascinating mix of writers - out next week.
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