Writing
Mike touched my hair. I thought what had touched my hair was some furry dust that had gathered into a kind of dirt stalactite, which you often find hanging from the deep recessed window frames in the now disused prison at Shepton Mallet, but it was Mike. “Oh yeah, they
Writing
Any vaguely rigorous account of this, my most recent February, must be at least partly swimming-themed. Swimming dominates my thoughts right now. I do it almost every day and can feel it changing me - physically, but mentally too, more. But I’ve never been particularly adept at it, in
Writing
I was talking to my mum, a little prematurely, about what I might do when my tenancy is up at my current house. I’m not quite sure how we got onto the topic as originally we’d been talking about the time we went on holiday to Dentdale in
Writing
I have been doing more reading this month than I have for a long time. I read some amazing stories by Steven Millhauser, whose writing I first fell in love with at 24, and which now seems even more sprinkled with flakes of deft magic. One story was about a
Writing
“I would have genuinely expired by now if I’d moved house as much as you,” a friend said to me the other day. She is probably not far off the truth: I have moved a lot (twenty three times over the course of my life, and three times -
Writing
It was morning - not one of those crisp misty punctual ones that were still happening a few weeks ago here in Avalon but one of the ones that have barged gracelessly in and replaced them and don't fully happen, if they do happen all, until about eleven
Writing
I was in London a couple of weeks ago to do a couple spoken word events around the launch of my new book. I suppose I am guilty, like many people who have spent most of their life living in rural areas a long way from the capital, of not
Writing
I did a spoken word event recently in Tiverton, Devon, at a lovely shop called Liznojan Books, an independently run mother-and-daughter outlet with delicious cake. At this event I was asked two questions which I've given a fair bit of thought in the intervening hours: one question that
acid folk
Although 21st Century Yokel isn't a music book, music was a hugely important part of the writing of it. If I was trying to emulate anything during its creation, it was less other books I love and more the colour palettes and moods of my favourite songs: exploring
cats
I don't really have regrets in life. I'm not giving myself some bollocks motivational pep talk here, or coercing myself to view it that way; I just find it hard to have a regret, because I find it hard to view most events in my life
