This weekend, Jude Higgins pulled off a wonderful feat in initiating the first Flash Fiction Festival in Bath. Gaining support from the Arts Council Fund, she was able to attract some of the best flash practitioners to give readings and workshops to enthusiastic participants from five countries. Vanessa Gebbie, Kit[…]
Read More »‘Icy short story’ could feature a crime, an arctic setting, or a scientific experiment – even cryogenics. These skilled stories heard by the packed audience at Story Fridays in Bath, UK. My own icy story explored the ultimate chill in a relationship. There’s a growing popularity for short stories as[…]
Read More »The recent TV production, VICTORIA, enchanted viewers in the first three episodes thanks to the girlish, if skittish character of Jenna Coleman’s princess. The appearance of the awkward and distant Albert added drama, if not as much attraction, as riveting Rufus Sewell, Lord Melbourne. I discovered that the ridiculous hair[…]
Read More »Writing stimuli. What gave you that sudden idea that made you urgently scribble it down? It’s worth exploring. The power of olfactory stimuli in activating memory is well known. But it’s much harder to ‘dream up’ a smell that might affect the character in your story, than it is a sound[…]
Read More »This is the camera lucida. I came across it when visiting the Fox Talbot museum at Lacock. Although the museum is about the birth of photography, the link between artistic forms of making images is not ignored. The original design of the camera lucida was by William Hyde Wollaston in[…]
Read More »About a holiday taken with others. If you want to choose exactly what/where to visit, go alone or become a dictator. There are some wonderful art galleries in Belgium and the most beautiful riverside areas. No, I didn’t get to many, as I’d predicted, for I was holidaying with 7 others,[…]
Read More »Some writers complain of writers’ block. Perhaps they are due for pollination from other sources. I’ve written before about how cross-fertilization within the arts is something to seek out and to treasure. A writer, performing artist, teacher, does him/herself no good by constantly giving out and never feeding the self.[…]
Read More »FILM REVIEW Last night I saw a French Canadian film, Monsieur Lazhar. It was one of those films that immerse you completely in the watching, and fails to leave you for many hours, perhaps days afterwards. Lazhar is an Algerian who sidles into an unexpectedly vacant teacher’s job. The Head[…]
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