My thoughts about books, writing, life and so many other things….Judy Leigh/ Elena Collins.
I've never had writer's block.Smashing out three thousand words in a morning isn't difficult. I started my second novel towards the end of the summer and I'm now on over 65 thousand words. Writing is like plastering a wall: slosh it out and then sand it down and paint it later. Or like making a cake: whack …
Sue Monk Kidd's The Invention of Wings is about the brutality of slavery in America's deep south, at the point when some attitudes had started to change. The novel charts the period between 1803 to 1838 and the first person perspective moves between Handful, a ten year old slave, and Sarah, the girl to whom she is given …
I've never been a real crime novel fan although I did enjoy Into the Fire by Manda Scott, mainly because of the sustained tension and the gripping and likeable characters. I heard about The Widow from Madeleine Milburn at a writers' conference and she lauded the book because of its immediately interesting and arresting voice. The …
It's something I hear quite often and I don't mind at all when people say it. 'It must be really hard being a vegan' 'You have to give up so much.' 'I could live without meat but exist without cheese? Never.' I can understand why people make these comments. I'm less anarchic than I used …
'The One in a Million Boy' is a novel by Monica Wood, telling the story of unlikely protagonists, misfits who become close to each other, finding out about themselves as they explore new relationships. Ona Vitkus is 104 years old and her friendship with the eponymous unnamed boy is the central focus: he is interviewing her about …
So many crises have been screamed from newspaper headlines this summer. We’ve read about the post-Brexit panic and the disharmony in both major political parties as new leaders put themselves forward. Politicians have been maligned and rejected and new leaders have emerged. We’ve read about the queues at Calais, the dreadful attacks in Nice and …
Continue reading Happy September! Let’s bottle summer and keep it alive through the cold months
A writer never stops learning. I always feel that I have so much more to learn about the skill, the art, the craft of writing, and reading widely is always a good way to prompt thinking, learning and improving. I've just read three books, each good in its own right, each very different. Ian McEwan's …
Continue reading McEwan, Cannon, Kent: it’s all in the writing.
Mary and Max is a 2010 stop motion animated film by Adam Elliot. It is narrated by Barry Humphries: Mary is voiced by Toni Collette and Max is voiced by Philip Seymour-Hoffman. Mary is a young Australian girl with a distant, overworked father and a kleptomaniac, alcoholic mother. Mary is bullied at school and lonely. …
Continue reading ‘Mary and Max’ – ‘All humans are imperfect’
Have you ever seen a trailer for a film and thought 'This looks brilliant. I must watch it.' Then you watch it and all the best bits were in the trailer and the rest of the film is just not for you? That's Francis Ford Coppola's black and white film, 'Tetro'. It's quite an old film now …
Love the poem, love the man, love the film. 'Howl' is a 2015 film about the landmark obscenity trial in 1957, concerning 'Howl', Allen Ginsberg's signature poem. It features excerpts from the poem as we see beat poet Ginsberg reading his work to an adoring audience of famous writers such as Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac. …
That quintessence of dust 