I always love fun and completely pointless things like this: the Independent has asked 100 ‘literary luminaries’ to nominate their favourite fictional character. I immediately thought of three and of course, three other b******s have already snaffled my beloved characters. They are:
TintinHe’s so honest, so plain, so lucky and just so teeth-rottingly good. And [...]
Omigod, I’ve seen it all now. For those times when you just don’t know what to blog about head on over to blogideas and they’ll give you some ideas. Hey presto. Allegedly interesting blog post. It’s like a creative writing exercise: you’re given a theme, and idea or an object and asked to write about [...]
You know those little boxes of (hideously expensive) words that you can stick on your fridge and make little bits of poetry? Now you can do it online. Your masterpiece will even be saved online. (Via Cordite)
A couple of bookish blogs are rolling out their ‘used bookstore horror stories‘. (This link contains all the others, if you get my drift). That is, horrific for the customer. Some of them reckon people who work in second-hand bookstores don’t like to smile. I can think of a couple of places around here where [...]
There’s a ‘new’ volume of Larkin poems out, his ‘Early Poems and Juvenilia’. It’s reviewed in the Guardian by Blake Morrison. And Morrison rightly asks, do we really need more Larkin?
What next – the collected
library memos? A bibliography of the betting slips and off-licence
receipts? An anthology of extracts from his favourite porn mags?
Although his [...]
A few other blogs have already mentioned it but hey, what do I care if I’m slow on the uptake of this one. Camille Paglia’s new book, ‘Break, Blow, Burn‘ is her attempt to save poetry from the cultural theorists. I’m thinking perhaps she’s a little too late. Like all Paglia books though, as Clive [...]
If you’re feeling a little masochistic, submit your work to the Fiction Bitch and she will tell you what she really thinks about it, not what your friends have been telling you. Apparently the Fiction Bitch is:
an experienced writer/editor with a loathing of bad
writing and a heart of stone.
