GETTING
IN PRINT - the need, the sweat, and just a little luck
Staple
Magazine,
2008
Getting
in print is damn hard these days, and you’re always going to need
a little luck! If you’re not a celebrity – and preferably
one that is a chef, model, singer, footballer, media pundit or talent
show judge – then chances are you’re going to struggle. And
even if you do manage to – to get an agent and convince a publisher
to take a punt – you’ve next got to battle it out on the high
street, a ruthless place where publishers and retailers increasingly tend
to bet on just a few books...
more>>
DON DON
Arena,
2007
When
I set about writing my second novel I realized I had to get deep into
the hearts and minds of two very different men – one, a brash and
bullish American millionaire with a formidable appetite for self-gratification
and excess; the other, a wise and noble Thai Buddhist monk who lives a
life of compassion and restraint – and that in order to do this
I had to, quite literally, become them. Imagination, though a critical
tool for the writer, has its limitations: it does not enable him to get
inside the bellies of his characters. For this, actual experience is required.
The writer must attempt to transform himself, to live his characters’
lives, in order to capture the labyrinth complexity of their innermost
natures...
more>>
THE BROKEN-HEARTED
Roof,
Shelter's magazine, Sep/Oct 2006
The
plight of the homeless first really dawned on me when I was twenty-one
and living in America. My friend, Justin, and I were fast running out
of money and needed work: we’d prepaid the rent on a short-term
let – a poky studio flat just big enough to swing a cat in –
and had just a few weeks remaining before we were out in the cold. Well,
at least we were in Los Angeles, we told ourselves, the sun is nearly
always out in southern California. But, thankfully, work came in the nick
of time...
more>>
WHERE ARE YOU BRITS?
Society
Today, Vol. 1, No. 3, Mar/Apr 2006
With a new world order where money is placed above all else, British corporations
are increasingly looking beyond the Great Isle – to the international
market of talented executives – in order to recruit the best person to
drive up share prices and maximise profits: the candidate’s professional
competence and business acumen is judged to be far more important than whether
or not he or she is native-born, a British citizen...
more>>
WHY ARE THEY BEGGING?
Society
Today, Vol. 1, No. 2, Nov/Dec 2005
This is the question on our lips when we walk past a man or woman huddled in
the doorway of a shop front like some desperate animal, wrapped in a dirty blanket
clinging to it for warmth, hiding a face smeared with grime and shame, and clutching
a polystyrene cup with a few coppers in it...
IT'S ME EDDIE, BY EDUARD LIMONOV
Zembla,
No. 9, Winter 2005
An obscure book I'd like to tell you about is Eduard Limonov's autobiographical
work, It's me, Eddie (or, in Russian, Eto ia - Edichka). Limonov
was the enfant terrible of Russian letters in the late '70s and '80s,
an identity he openly welcomed. His purposeful, vigorous and flamboyant assault
both on Mother Russia's sacrosanct literary canon and her moral consensus makes
even Michel Houellebecq seem rather tame, even - would you believe - conservative...
MY CURE IS BETTER THAN YOURS
Openmind,
No. 117, Sep/Oct 2002
Amidst this grand therapeutic debate I felt rather lost. The only thing
I was sure of was that these different treatments could co-exist rather than
stand proudly alone, and that their integration would greatly benefit the user,
and would provide more thorough and wide-ranging care...
THE LIMITATIONS OF LYING ON THE COUCH
Human
Givens, Vol. 9, No. 2, Summer 2002
I want to recount my experience of psychoanalysis in the hope that I can determine
exactly how effective and therapeutic it was for me. Did it alleviate my mental
distress? Did it make me feel less miserable? Did it make me happier? I do not
conduct this inquiry solely in the spirit of a former patient’s rebellion
against his analyst. I am not just writing to make trouble with him and the
psychoanalytic institution. Rather, I make this examination because I believe
that this psychological process, like any other, ought to be scrutinized and
contemplated. It should be able to withstand the critic’s eye, and even
the contrarian’s challenge...
IT'S US AGAINST THEM
Fan
the Flames, No. 6, Dec 2001
Wednesday 12th September 2001: I’m in my car on my way to work. I won’t
forget this day. Why? Because the day before was one of the worst days in American
history...
NIKITA MIKHALKOV'S BURNT BY THE SUN
Slovo,
Vol. 9, No.1, 1996
Mikhalkov's tale of life in the Russian countryside in the mid-1930s is an apparently
idyllic one. A man and a woman deeply in love, a child they adore, and a family
they cherish. The characters sing and dance in a beautiful and harmonious setting.
But the destructive glare of Stalin gleams over them...