Life is full of so many good things to soak up and you really don’t have to look far to find them -here are 3 – no, make that 4 – that I’m getting excited about at the moment:
1.Jeanette Winterson’s wonderful memoir – full of rage and love, wit and reflection – Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal – I am reading it just now and will be reviewing it for a new book blog. I already know it’s a must read, sometimes I think she’s climbed inside my head and knows exactly what I thought and felt as a child especially about books and writing!
Here is a taste: Books for me are a home. Books don’t make a home – they are one, in the sense that just as you do with a door, you open a book and you go inside. Inside there is a different kind of time and a different kind of space. I’ve always felt like this about books and about writing too. That’s why for me, whatever happens, the act of writing is the most important thing.
2.Jacinda Little – Creative Ghostwriter’s post Naked Public Recycling Cures Bone Valley Hauntings – a beautiful piece about the writer’s graveyard which will convince you to unearth that old writing. And if you need any further reason then read Lifetwicetasted’s Wind From the Sierra
3. David Hockney at the Royal Academy – Can’t wait to see it. Have it on the best authority that it’s stunning. Likewise if you’re in London Anselm Kiefer and Nicolas Gambaroff: at White Cube Bermondsey – (Thanks Jan)
4. And finally – Write Poetry – Matthew Sweeney and John Hartley Williams – a great ‘teach yourself’ for aspiring poets full of amazing workshop ideas to get you writing.
*Some more Anselm Kiefer images here on minimal exposition blog
Thanks for the links, Avril – although I haven’t got round to all of them yet.
I enjoyed your talk at Nottingham Writers last week. I hope you made your way back across Newark Railway Station o.k.
Thanks Keith. I made it back fine. Good luck with your stories. I’m sure you can build on your current success. It’s great to have people pay you to write.
So much inspiration I don’t know where to start. One thought. Writers and artists make the world as much as view it. Lovely w
Absolutely Wendy – and making the world is the exciting bit!
I found your website through Jacinda Little’s post — the very post you link us to above — and I thought your comment there was so articulate that after replying to it, I clicked on through.
Love your website.
Hi Ray, I’m so glad you clicked through and thanks for your reply to my comment. Love your website too (have put it on my blogroll) – its unusual and intriguing. Love literary crime, have written some myself, so hope to read you soon – when I get through my current virtual pile.
Hi Avril, The image you’ve included is intriguing. It reminds me of a dream I once had that I have not yet shaken. I enjoyed the art link, too. The Winterston books sounds especially interesting to me. I shall look for it. Thank you for the suggestions.
Hi Teresa, It’s really interesting that you should say this – my connection with the image is about a dream I had years ago but have never forgotten , although recently I’ve been trying to write a poem about it. I think there is a haunting quality to Keifer’s work – inevitable perhaps given the connections with the holocaust.
Thank you for these titles, Avril. You sound busy, busy. PS Congrats on making the short list!
Thanks Barb – I am busy but in the nicest of ways
A x