I’m a latecomer to Lovecraft. I knew who the man was when I first dabbled in horror and SFF when I was a schoolboy, but for some reason passed him by, maybe labouring under the idiotic impression that he was too pulpy for my tastes. The irony was that the many things I did spendContinue reading “Literature Long Read: Gott ist tot, but Yog-Sothoth Lives! The perfect historical oddity of H.P Lovecraft”
Category Archives: Culture
It Takes A Village To Raise A Book
It’s been almost a week since Chris and I went official with our announcement of the Official SFF Chronicles Podcast (which reminds me; we will definitely be working on a snappier name for it…) and the response has been overwhelmingly positive so far. One of the initial reasons I had for wanting to do aContinue reading “It Takes A Village To Raise A Book”
Announcement: The Official SFF Chronicles Podcast!
A little while ago I mentioned the notion of beginning a podcast, and I’m really delighted and excited to announce that my friend Chris Bean and I will be launching the official SFF Chronicles Podcast in early 2022. The creative industries are hellishly competitive, and especially so in publishing, where the artistic merit of aContinue reading “Announcement: The Official SFF Chronicles Podcast!”
Literature Long Read: The Female (And Male) Myth in Beauty And The Beast
One of the advantages of having daughters is that one becomes extremely well-versed in the canon of Disney movies, and particularly Disney Princess flicks. As a cornerstone of modern culture, this is no bad thing (though upon watching Frozen for the forty-seventh time this assertion does buckle somewhat), and the fact that many of theContinue reading “Literature Long Read: The Female (And Male) Myth in Beauty And The Beast”
The Ten Year Plan, And A Podcast.
As I’ve set about organising my thoughts and reassessed how and why I write, and how and why we publish, I’ve thought about different ways of reaching an audience. What strikes me about writing is that, even though by the very nature of writing something long-form like a novel, or a screenplay, or whatever, isContinue reading “The Ten Year Plan, And A Podcast.”
Literature Long read: Drowned Books
At the end of my as-yet unpublished novel The Green Man there is a sort scene that echoes one of Prospero’s final lines from The Tempest, “I’ll drown my book.” Prospero (and the character from TGM) realises that investigative rationality (symbolised by his book), and the ability to control aspects of the world with theContinue reading “Literature Long read: Drowned Books”
Books Must Live!
I last wrote about taking control of your narrative in the face of rejection, being told that what you are offering the world is deemed insufficient, or unworthy. Worse than that, it’s rejection by the exact same people whose favour you’re attempting to garner through your activities. So no wonder it smarts when it comesContinue reading “Books Must Live!”
Literature Long Read: The Parable Of Nehushtan, The Bronze Snake
A lot of the background research for my novel The Green Man has involved reading The Bible. That’s perhaps unsurprising given that the story is about a group of Benedictine, Franciscan, and Dominican monks from the 14th century. One of the Biblical stories that I ended up using as a reference point in TGM isContinue reading “Literature Long Read: The Parable Of Nehushtan, The Bronze Snake”
Literature Long Read: Another Brick In The Dead-Wall: Pink Floyd and Melville’s ‘Bartleby’
Before the completion of Moby Dick in 1851, Melville suffered the traditional artists’ existential crisis: a lack of money coupled with being pulled this way and that by competing interests. Most of us who’ve chosen to pursue some degree of success in the arts have felt that Real Life frequently gets in the way. MelvilleContinue reading “Literature Long Read: Another Brick In The Dead-Wall: Pink Floyd and Melville’s ‘Bartleby’”
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