There were words strewn like spilt cereal all over the kitchen floor that morning, piles of subjectivity to be pushed aside before breakfast.
What about the places that tourism prefers to avoid, places we’re told never to visit? There are unique (even amazing) sides to such places that go unnoticed. What can learn ...
Sam Dodson ponders why we are so stung when the truths revealed in a celebrity memoir turn out to be lies. Conversely, why do we willingly watch, read and engage ...
“One of my pupils had Alice horribly injured in a car accident and then caught up in a zombie outbreak. Another decided that she would become a gangster’s moll and ...
It’s astonishing how much time you can sift away doing nothing. Just yesterday, from your place six thousand miles from home, you told two people on the phone that your ...
These days there seems to be a literary prize for everything. Having an argument with another author? Start your own literary prize. Don’t like one prize’s shortlist? Start your own. ...
In the Chinese Lunar Calendar, 2011 has been the Year of the Rabbit, whilst the United Nations designated it the International Year of Forests and the International Year of Chemistry; ...
The Tour de France is the most sought after crown in the cycling world. This epic race covers 2200 miles, takes 22 days to complete, has men with shaved legs ...
If writing was a sport, with a poem being a sprint and a blog article the 400 metres, then doing NaNoWriMo would be the equivalent of running the marathon flat-out ...
Pushing myself to try new things is one of the most important exercises as a writer. For me it is like skateboarding, I spent ages learning how to ollie and ...
Photograph taken by Alex Thornber
This post has taken a little while to write because it has taken me a while to decide if I should write it ...
The last couple of weeks have all been about writing and publishing etc, but there is something that is so at the core of writing that I ...
Inevitably, every story acceptance is accompanied by multiple rejections; sometimes a story will be accepted first time, sometimes there will be a re-write request and sometimes the ...
Getting published
Towards the end of my time in Cambridge I got the email I’d been waiting and hoping for. The magazine I’d sent the moth story to ...
My time spent in Cambridge was a catalyst for more than just improving my writing, it was also an important time for my photography.
I have been taking ...
Photograph taken by Alex Thornber
I was asked to look after a friend’s house for a couple of months. He lived in Cambridge, a city I had never ...
In Act II, Scene II of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the young lovers call into question the importance of our given prenomens, with Juliet questioning “What’s in a name? That ...
The first stories I tried to write and the book that started it all: continuing the brief history that foretells the work I am currently writing.
One night I couldn’t sleep, ...
For many writers, winning an award will be the crowning moment of their career: much needed proof that all the sleepless nights, hours of hard-work and effort spent editing and ...
I’ve written a few blogs before in recent years on different topics and the thing I’ve always found difficult is starting it off. Do I do the whole, ‘Hello reader, ...