February 2013 - Andrew Blackman

The Crises of Multiculturalism

Reading 24 February 2013 6 Comments

Multiculturalism has come under increasing attack in the past two decades. It began with a backlash against affirmative action in the US in the 1990s, and intensified after 9/11 and subsequent terrorist attacks in Europe. Now it’s routine to see multiculturalist excess derided and mocked. In this book, Alana Lentin and Gavan Titley do a good job of charting the process, and also exposing the true reasons for it. Multiculturalism is a straw man, the authors argue. Despite what you read all the time in outraged newspaper columns, there was… Read More

First review for A Virtual Love

A Virtual Love 20 February 2013 8 Comments

Delighted to see the first review of A Virtual Love today, on book blog The Innocent Flower. Here’s a snippet: A Virtual Love is an engaging, brilliant story capturing the almost impenetrable emotions and issues cropping up in a fairly new digital age. Blackman has made me take a long, hard look at myself and how I choose to portray myself not only online, but everywhere else too. Read the rest of the review here. It’s strange to know that people are reading the book already, since I haven’t even… Read More

The endorsements are in!

A Virtual Love 15 February 2013 17 Comments

Wanted to say a big “thank you” to James Miller and Alex Wheatle for being among the first readers of A Virtual Love, and for providing some great feedback. Their words were truncated to fit on the cover, but here are the extended versions: A compelling tale, told from several perspectives, about the identity that people project about themselves in the social media world and the real life identity that we all cannot escape from. A fascinating, modern story that had me gripped. — Alex Wheatle A compelling and very… Read More

Different kinds of writer

Literary events 1 February 2013 17 Comments

I have a bad habit, sometimes, of generalising about what “writers” are like, mostly based only on my own experience. Last night I got a good reminder that there are many different kinds of writer. I was performing at an event called “Stand up for Books“, organised by the Society of Authors and the Society of Young Publishers. I was one of six authors reading from their work. Not only was the writing itself very varied in style and subject matter, but the way we behaved on stage was very… Read More