Slowly savouring the short stories of Katherine Mansfield this week, I’ve decided she’s my new favourite writer. As I read more and more expertly written short stories I, in turn, have become more and more of a fan of the shorter work of fiction. They require a different type of writing expertise and although you sometimes want to read more […]

‘Katherine Mansfield’s claim on out attention rests on the subtlety, emotional depth and originality of her gifts as a short-story writer. [She] brings her imaginative gifts to bear on many kinds of lives in quite disparate settings with an artist’s feeling for the angle and light that would bring her stories to life.’ It goes […]

‘The children felt tremendously excited. At last they were at the very top. Jo carefully pulled himself up the last branch. He disappeared into the purple hole. Bessie and Fanny followed him. ‘The branch came to an end and a little ladder ran through the cloud. Up the children went – and before they knew […]

An article ‘revealed’ this week what writers, I’m sure, have always known. Most of us earn very little. If you want to put an exact figure on it, the average yearly salary for an author was quoted at around the £11,000 mark. The cited research indicated a drop in the number of full-time authors but did, however, offer […]

Far in the north of Canada, nestled close to the Arctic Circle, lies Dawson City – a creative hub which is now home to the recently launched online literary journal, One Throne Magazine. Published quarterly (always on the first day of each season), One Throne Magazine showcases ‘the foremost in writing, spanning genres, and running the gamut from […]

The third and final part of the recent Ways with Words event, kindly organised by LitNet NI as part of the Belfast Book Festival, saw us enter the rather exciting world of self-publishing. I’ve spoken before on this blog about my hopes of getting published the traditional way, that is, via an agent and publishing deal, […]

“If we write, we have to enter another world… A poem is that space we can inhabit.” So said Ciaran Carson at the recent performance event of Reading and Writing for Peace: A Poetic Celebration, which saw a collection of participants from the peace poetry workshops attend the Brian Friel Theatre at Queen’s University to […]

After a whirlwind introduction into the, quite frankly, heady world of modern-day writing and publishing from Ian Sansom, the next part of our Belfast Book Festival event  – LitNetNI’s Ways with Words – saw some of the key players take to the stage. The agents and the publishers. So, those who are more usually just a […]

“I think the opportunities for the writer have never been better. All sorts of boundaries have been broken…” So said former publisher and widely published author/academic, Alison Baverstock at the weekend, when I had the opportunity to attend LitNet NI’s Ways with Words Literature Development Day at the Crescent Arts Centre as part of the […]

At the weekend I enjoyed the official launch of The Incubator journal (link on the right of my blog), which saw contributors read their short stories, flash fiction and memoirs to a packed crowd at the Black Box venue in Belfast. I’ve written a review of the event for Culture NI, so I won’t go over the same […]