A writer’s life
Writing burrowed itself into a chamber in my heart, building underwater castles and princesses to live in them, when I was around seven years old. This world of words has lived with me now for over two decades, present and…
The worst job in the world
When Barack Obama was elected US President in 2008 “The Onion” ran the headline “black man given nation’s worst job”. Much as I found their take on events amusing, even being President during this period of such economic misery can’t…
Earl Lovelace at Bim Literary Festival
Trinidadian writer Earl Lovelace was the second attraction last night at Bim Literary Festival. For my report on the first part of the evening, with Austin Clarke, click here. Lovelace was asked about the themes of his writing and spoke…
Learning from Derek Walcott: Bim Literary Festival, day one
How often do you get to meet a Nobel Prize winner? That was my main rationale for going along to a Master Class with Derek Walcott yesterday – that and the prospect of seeing Earl Lovelace and Austin Clarke afterwards.…
How to write a book review
Just saw a nice post on Read.Learn.Write which goes into the methodology of writing book reviews, using my novel On the Holloway Road as a model. I’ve never really thought about a method for writing reviews before – I tend…
Beauty is a sleeping cat
So, a post in honour of one of my favourite book blogs. My wife and I have adopted a little kitten here in Barbados. Well, not sure if that’s the right word — she was hanging around the house, and we…
Today I’m at Read.Learn.Write
Yes, I’m back! Fresh from my guest posting debut yesterday on The Undercover Soundtrack, I’m over at Read.Learn.Write today, talking about Why Reading and Writing are Inseparable. In the post, I talk about how I used to read widely but passively,…
Finding some inspiration
Sometimes, as much as I like writing, I get tired of it. Towards the end of last year, it became difficult, and I started to dread it, and I wasn’t happy with what I was producing, and I let myself…
The ingredients of fiction
Writing fiction is not really about making stuff up. It’s more about making sense of what you already have stored somewhere in your memory or subconscious, dusting it off, ordering it and making it intelligible to the rest of the…