These Tangled Webs
Last week I spent the morning working with a composer on a contemporary oratorio, ‘Song of Dina’ that meshes music, spoken word and song. A week before, I spent a...
A Mirror To Life
I used to resent books that required me to make a lot of effort. This was especially the case when reading poetry: I felt I could tell at a glance...
Haunted by Gesualdo
Ihave often heard playwrights asked what inspired them to write a play. Answers vary. They were invited to write to a brief in collaboration with a director or company. They...
When The Words Won’t Come
As an author what I dread most is the blank page — it is the curse of the creative writing profession.You sit down at your computer in readiness to produce...
In Praise Of Dialect
When I teach first year Creative Writing students we always have a session on voice. I use extracts from Irish, Scottish, Geordie and Afro-Caribbean writers to illustrate how dialect can...
Collaborating With Other Writers
I ‘fell into’ writing at ArtsEd. drama school as I couldn’t find any Black, northern monologues to perform, so I wrote my own. With the encouragement of my teacher I...
Nearest And Dearest
When I set out to tell the story of my parents’ divorce in my first book, Running for the Hills, I was certain that I did not want to interview...
Should I Have Heard Of You?
In an article for Collected a few months ago, Katharine Grant wrote about her dread of the question ‘where (as a writer) do you get your ideas?’ I have been...
Under The Influence
Ah, that sudden shift in perception, that moment of lucidity and unbidden clarity after a few glasses of wine. The cosy, half-inebriated sense of having discovered, finally, the knowledge that...
Walking on Bones
Vicente Leñero, a well-known Mexican journalist and novelist, died at the beginning of December. I was at the Guadalajara Book Fair at the time, and during the various homages to...