Writing about Place: Estuary and Four Fields
09th, Dec 2016In literature place has become a category of definition and an aesthetic subject in its own right.
Blog
Autoficción – the new novel?
01st, Oct 2016‘There is no real life. It’s always the story of your life that you’re living.”
– Aleksander Hemon
What will Brexit mean for nature?
30th, Jul 2016The effect of the recent Brexit vote on Britain’s nature policy hardly seems to be at the top of anyone’s list of post-referendum worries. In the news there has been scant attention given to the prospect of the withdrawal of EU legislation to protect the environment.
Theatre in the Wild - RSPB Strumpshaw Fen
27th, May 2016Steve Waters, my colleague at UEA, and I have assembed a cast of talented writers and actors to mount a site-specific, open-air theatre experiment at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Strumpshaw Fen reserve in Norfolk.
The Novel: a survival skill – reading fiction with Tim Parks
29th, Feb 2016For the last six weeks at UEA we’ve been fortunate to have Tim Parks as UNESCO City of Literature Visiting Professor.
Ice Diaries - an Antarctic memoir
31st, Jan 2016In March 2016 I will publish Ice Diaries - an Antarctic memoir. It's a book about ice and its properties, both emotional and physical - a tale of ice and the polar regions and a travelogue filtered through a personal climate change story.
M is for Memoir – what makes memoirs work?
21st, Dec 2015Christmas is upon us, and this year I’ve been given two memoirs as gifts: Instrumental by James Rhodes and M Train by Patti Smith.
Because the Night – orders and disorders of the dark
20th, Nov 2015It is late November in London. The sun rises at around 7.20am and sets around 4pm, giving those of us who live on the latitude 52.15 degrees North just over eight and a half hours of light each day.
The Streets – dreams and reality in the city-state
30th, Oct 2015‘My photographs show something which is abandoned yet somehow invisible.’ With these words, Rut Blees Luxemburg, a London-based artist working with photography, opened the eighth annual
The Indri - on the brink of extinction?
19th, Sep 2015We hear the sound as soon as we step out of the car. A high-pitched wail, forlorn but also urgent, threads through the forest.
‘What’s that?’ I ask Mamy, our guide.
‘That’s what everyone comes here to see,’ he replies.