Welcome back to this slow process of reviewing every short story written by Jorge Luis Borges. So far, we’ve looked at the stories of Lazarus Morell, Tom Castro, and the Widow Ching. Today it’s a story of another villain, the New York gangster Monk Eastman. Reading these stories again made me wonder why I enjoyed them so much. These first… Read More
I had a short story published recently in Storgy magazine. It’s available to read free online, so do check it out if you’re interested. It’s about two women caught on opposite sides of a militarised border wall: one in Europe, one in Africa. They develop a tentative friendship that is soon put to the test by the harsher realities of… Read More
Before I read Borges, I used to think there was a sharp dividing line between fiction and nonfiction. In my own writing, there’s a huge gap between the serious, diligently factual articles I write for The Wall Street Journal and the entirely invented worlds of my novels and short stories. But Jorge Luis Borges is constantly blurring the lines and… Read More
Belated news that I had a short story published earlier this year by a small Australian publisher, In Short Publishing. The story is called Boy, Dog, Accordion, and it’s published as a pocket-size book.
Read More
One evening in Crete, a couple of years ago, I saw something that made a lasting impression on me. A small boy, maybe eight or nine years old, sitting in front of a large green rubbish bin, with an accordion in his hands and a mournful-looking dog by his side. He wasn’t playing the accordion, but just holding it and gazing… Read More
I was happy to hear that one of my short stories has been translated into Turkish and published in a literary magazine. I was even more tickled to see the list of names on the cover – amid the Turkish names, a couple of foreigners. Andrew Blackman and Marcel Proust. Don’t worry, I’m not getting delusions of grandeur. I know… Read More
An interesting thing happened to me this week. I ended up being featured in a photography exhibition at Foyles bookshop in central London. Before you ask – no, I haven’t suddenly developed a talent for the visual arts. I remain, as I always have been, pretty much visually illiterate. It’s actually one of my short stories that’s being hung on… Read More
I’ve been busy writing this week and haven’t been online much, so it was great to see that I was featured on a couple of other sites while I wasn’t looking! They’re both things I knew about and had participated in, but wasn’t sure when they’d come out, so it was a nice surprise. First there’s a Q&A with me… Read More
My short story Night Bus was recently published in issue 13 of Smoke: A London Peculiar. Among all the young, drunk people on the top deck of the night bus, one quiet, middle-aged man stands out as different, and starts to attract unwelcome attention.