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Only a creator culture can save us
I arrived in Leicester in the late ‘90s as a student, a year after losing my mother to cancer. Having little support, I worked my way through university as a street sweeper, a factory worker, a waiter, a barman, a door-to-door salesman, a cleaner, recycling operative and grill chef. I wanted to be a writer [...]
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Writing and the attention economy
As a writer you are asking for the most valuable commodity your readers have. Time. Each of us gets a finite portion. No sum of money can buy us any more. And the demands on it are ever greater. The novel evolved at a period in history when the constituency of its readers had much [...]
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Damo’s Sci-Fi prophecies for 2013
2012 has been a year of transition for science fiction and fantasy literature. SF’s reputation as home of the Bearded White Male hides a more interesting story. SF is the literature of geeks, and today, geeks run the world. Geek culture isn’t infiltrating the mainstream: it is the mainstream. And geeks come in all ages, [...]
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Do you know why you write fantasy?
In his 1916 essay (not published until 1956) The Transcendent Function the psychologist Carl Jung describes his system of ‘active imagination’, the technique at the heart of the psychological process he named individuation. Put very simply, active imagination means to dive down in to our imagination and to bring back from it visions, dreams and [...]
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London Gothic
Mystery is the doorway to fantasy. Dark forests, far away galaxies, roads that wind into the distance: any space that allows our imagination to play without the interference of mundane reality can be a portal. And there are few places more expectant with mystery than cities. Every road, building and doorway is a new unknown. [...]
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Ursula K Le Guin : stories for the ages
The power of Le Guin’s work will surely guarantee it an audience for centuries to come. A century from now people will still be reading the fantasy stories of Ursula K Le Guin with joy and wonder. Five centuries from now they might ask if their author ever really existed, or if Le Guin was [...]
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Live-writing challenges the writerly ego…which is a very good thing
The rules were simple. Keep to the scheduled study hours, always wash your mug, and under no circumstances touch the coltan. So far Aidan had kept a clean sheet on all counts. Now he was planning to commit the only serious possible infraction. And that did not mean coffee rings on work surfaces. Aidan’s Rock [...]
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Star
First published in Universe #1 Star by Damien Walter Heinrich always volunteers for class activities. The last two study periods of Friday afternoon are put aside for a visit from a policeman. The students ask him why he does not wear a uniform. His answer makes everyone laugh. Criminals, he says, do not wear uniforms. [...]
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The battle for geek culture
As a fan of fantasy fiction, it’s been entertaining watching mainstream cultural critics’ baffled responses to Game of Thrones, which has surprised many by becoming the biggest show on TV this year. Gina Bellafante of the New York Times was among the first to come a cropper when she made the rash statement that no [...]
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7 signs you are ready to self-publish (a checklist)
For my work at The Guardian I spend a lot of time looking at new books, and I’ve gone out of my way to look at new books by indie published writers. And my conclusion has been that the vast majority of independently published writers aren’t ready. The books aren’t ready and their authors aren’t [...]
Star
Heinrich always volunteers for class activities. The last two study periods of Friday afternoon are put aside for a visit from a policeman. The students ask him why he does not wear a uniform. His answer makes everyone laugh. Criminals, he says, do not wear uniforms. The policeman asks for volunteers.
Cthul-You
When I first heard about Cthul-YOU I was skeptical to say the least. Like most people I thought anything that promised so much had to be bogus. Like the sites for BDSM fanboys populated by 24,753 lonely I.T. technicians seeking submissive female slaves, and…NO submissive females waiting to be enslaved.
Circe's Bar and Grill
Feliks Duda has eight weeks left in country on the morning the letter from the Home Office arrives. He fishes the ugly manila envelope from its hiding place amongst the glossy junk mail. 0% interest loans and 12 inch pizza offers accumulate around the door like drifts of snow. They have misspelt his name again.
Chaser
For four years I didn’t eat. Not like you eat when you really want feeding anyway. I nibbled at things. I took crumbs left on plates. I surreptitiously sipped from other men’s cups. Then when I was thin enough that I could have slipped between the bars, they let me out.
Momentum
When great uncle Peter came to live with our family in the house by the sea I asked my mother why it was he never spoke. My mother explained that great uncle Peter had always been silent, that when he was born he came out without even a scream.
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UPDATE : Joining me on my walk through Weird London will be Tom Pollock, author of The City’s Son, Geraldine Beskin, owner of the Atlantis bookshop, and none other than M John Harrison, arguably among greatest writers of science fiction and fantasy literature of all time. On Thursday 16th May I’m taking a psycho-geographical tour [...]
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A guest post in a series form students on the BA Creative and Professional Writing at Nottingham University. A friend texts me an invite for coffee, but spends the next two hours continuously checking her phone. She isn’t receiving calls or emails from work – she’s refreshing her Facebook live feed. I ask her why [...]
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Are older generation writers missing out on the power of social media to further their work? GUEST POST : Carolyn Doudge is a late-comer to fiction writing. She is currently studying for a degree in Creative and Professional Writing at Nottingham University. You would think that upwards of half a life-time hanging out on the [...]
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Is Internet Use Disorder a 21st century mental illness? GUEST POST : Helen Durham is a part-time undergraduate of the University of Nottingham’s BA in Creative and Professional Writing, trying to learn Mindfulness to alleviate the stress of assignment deadlines piling up http://peaceinafranticworld.wordpress.com/ The fifth edition of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [...]
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GUEST POST : Elaine is a Doctoral student in Education and also nearing the end of her BA in Creative and Professional Writing at the University of Nottingham. She runs Strange Alliances, a blog exploring different ways of creating narratives through different forms of media and can be found on Twitter @EMAldred. Next time you [...]
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In this ever-increasing self-publishing explosion, how can you get yourself noticed? GUEST POST : Angela Foxwood is a budding author, singer, poet, part time student at University of Nottingham and mum of one. It is a truth universally acknowledged that every writer wants the world to know how brilliant they are. This used to involve [...]
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The debate over ebooks and their printed ancestors rages on. I see no reason for them to be at war with each other. GUEST POST : Emily Cooper (rusticwriter) is a freelance writer, typesetter and editor. She is a soon-to-be-graduate of ‘Creative and Professional Writing’ at Nottingham University and enjoys capturing the strangely beautiful and [...]
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The onslaught of online information is endless. Is the time thirsty sponge of social media just wasting your time? GUEST POST : Sadie Greening is an aspiring crime author, creative writing student and mother – follow her on Twitter @octaviagrey If it is then you are not alone. I’m new to the social media side [...]
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Imagine you are a doctor. The population you treat are sick. You have two medicines. One tastes bad and has some horrendous side effects but will over time make your patients better. The other tastes like honey and gets you high as a kite but has no real medical value, unless you count dying with [...]
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As a writer you are asking for the most valuable commodity your readers have. Time. Each of us gets a finite portion. No sum of money can buy us any more. And the demands on it are ever greater. The novel evolved at a period in history when the constituency of its readers had much [...]
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For the last few days I’ve been following the editorial pains of friend and fellow British Fantasy Award judge Hal Duncan on Twitter. I don’t know what it is Hall is editing, I’m just glad its not me having to do it! Like, actually, I think the Turkey City Lexicon should start with the Guessing [...]
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In his 1916 essay (not published until 1956) The Transcendent Function the psychologist Carl Jung describes his system of ‘active imagination’, the technique at the heart of the psychological process he named individuation. Put very simply, active imagination means to dive down in to our imagination and to bring back from it visions, dreams and [...]
Walk with me through Weird London