December 2018 - Andrew Blackman

December Reading Roundup

Reading 30 December 2018 16 Comments

December has been a good reading month for me. It’s been a good month in general, in fact, and I wanted to write a longer post about some of the things I’ve done and seen, but I don’t know if I’ll have time, so for now here are the reading highlights. (Side note: I often give extra little titbits in my monthly email newsletter, so subscribe using the quick form in the sidebar if you’re interested.) Hounded: Stories From the American Road by Alan Emmins In this collection of long-form… Read More

New Poetry Project Explores Mental Health With Tarot Cards

Literary events 17 December 2018 4 Comments

A Q&A with poet Sascha Aurora Akhtar and illustrator John Alexander Arnold about Only Dying Sparkles, a new project combining poetry, illustration and tarot cards.

WordPress Gutenberg: First Impressions

Living 7 December 2018 4 Comments

These are my first impressions of how WordPress Gutenberg works for creating a new post.

Literature and Empathy

Literary events 4 December 2018 2 Comments

As a (very) part-time journalist, I get inundated with press releases, most of which I delete. But one email subject line today caught my eye: “Step into the shoes of a migrant in the UK with groundbreaking audio experience.” In the current political climate, I think that stepping into others’ shoes—especially those of migrants—is about the most important thing we could be doing. One of the things I’ve learnt from travelling around Europe these last four years is that hate and fear come from distance. You can’t demonise someone when… Read More