SWF25 – Stockholm Writers’ Festival 2025 – A Diary Entry
I’m just back from the Stockholm Writers Festival 2025, three packed days at the Swedish National History Museum. This is my attempt to capture the experience before the details blur.
Washington Black: Journeys, Tethers, and Loose Ends
A review of Washington Black by Esi Edugyan. Some novels carry you across continents; others leave you suspended between questions. Washington Black attempts both …
Schrödinger’s Lottery Ticket and a Real Gambler
Finding my Schrödinger’s scratch card from last Easter reminded me of the first successful gambler I ever knew. I imagine a conversation.
Gamifying Character Development
This is a tie-in with my latest YouTube video about a roll-the-dice game for writers to use in developing fictional characters.
Film Festival Highlights: Winter, Orkney, Bird
My highlights from the 2025 Gotheburg Film Festival, from the end of January to beginning of February – in cinemas and on-line.
My writerly resolutions and how I keep them
Do you make New Year Resolutions? In this post, published Monday on the website of my Writers’ Group, I share my writerly resolutions – and the secret of how I keep them.
From Cold Comfort to a Swim in a Pond – books read in 2024
My annual round up of all the books I read in 2024, from Cold Comfort Farm to A Swim in a Pond in the Rain.
Another New Year, another new plan
My annual post about writing (and other creativity) resolutions for the coming year, and a look back on my plan and what I achieved in 2024.
Merry Christmas and Happy 2025
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and my best wishes for 2025. Here’s hoping it won’t be quite as interesting as it’s shaping up to be. (Thinking of the supposedly Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times.)
The 12 best poetry titles of 2024 (that I want to read next year)
My ‘best poetry in 2024’ list, for reading in 2025: why I make it, how I make it and where I find the books I eventually buy.