Thursday 4 August 2011

Welcome to the 21st century prodigal blogger! I shall be blogging daily (ha) about books, writing, creative prompts, creative retreats and workshops. Right now I am reading the Booker longlist, starting with Carol Birch's Jamrach's Menagerie, and I'm loving it. It's a bit like Rose Tremain meets Yann Martell, though Birch has her own distinctive voice, and for me she follows Tim Winton's Cloudstreet which is a hard book to follow, so I'm hoping she will make it onto the Booker shortlist.

Here endeth the first blog...

2 comments:

Claire said...

So this blogging is taking a bit of getting used to. I'm not sure whether this constitutes the next blog-bit or will appear as a comment, or indeed what the difference might be. Am about half way through Jamrach's Menagerie and still beguiled by it, though there are moments when Jaffy's voice strains credibility for his character. He's a great character though. I'm particularly loving Skip. Birch writes with great affection for her characters.

As far as my own writing goes, I've been revisiting my novel Quantum Behaviour. Strange to be looking at it again after such a long time. It's almost like looking at old photos - recognisable but no longer familiar, faintly nostalgic. It reminds me of the absorbing pleasures and puzzles of writing. Lots of new ideas mulching, ah but isn't the summer a great place to write?
And how lovely to be able to transmute the glum February skies, or the gusty chill days of March into the brilliance of summer. I'm planning the next Moroccan writers retreat: a time of deep creative immersion and new discoveries. Even planning it is thrilling. So, I'm going to post this now and see how it comes out: comment or blog or not at all...

Claire said...

This week's writers' group was an abstract adventure around A: all aboard anspiring and achieving, ad-libbing and ascending according to A.

Adorned, adrift and aglow we adventuresses alluded to adroit alignments, allowed amatory alliterations, arranged august ambiguities and arrived abundantly at an ambrosial address of atonishing artistry. An amazing assembly of the authorial avant-garde!