Short Non-fiction

"Nobody's perfect." A refrain most of us probably learned from our mothers. Could it be seen as defeatist?  Encouraging their sons and daughters toward mediocrity? No. Of course not. That's a silly notion, why would anyone even write…

Did you ever think of becoming a writer? When I was asked that question in 1975, it had never crossed my mind.  But I’ve spent the last 38 years following a vocation that was uncorked by that simple, provocative question. At the time, I…

“I wanna tell you a story”, catchphrase of deceased English comedian Max Bygraves, is it also the primary motivation for students of creative writing? According to the novelist and professor of creative writing Hanif Kureishi telling a…

The watcher sees the film begin with a failed act of writing. All through the film, there are attempts at writing; attempts at getting letters out. Words are vital in the film. Texts from the Bible are read by a benevolent slave-owner as…

What harm? You hear that a lot you know. What harm is a bit of religion. Sure it’s no load to carry. Doesn’t it give people a sense of morality, a moral compass… Well I think the whole moral compass is another day’s issue – let’s face…

?From Miyajimaguchi The resolution of ease and calm and nineteen days of determined beginnings lose to the coffee roast pittering within my toes and up to my fresh distraction-seeked pomegranate polish.  The unfamiliar bar-u-pum beat…

Christopher Hitchens was a writer, debater and all-round rational man. He wrote for many big magazines and wrote many books and through all of them you get the opinionated, no-nonsense, yet elegant style that brought him fame. He…

I suppose you’d have to ask yourself what came first. The universe or the gods. I say gods plural because apparently there’s loads of them. Imagine. All those years of praying to one and I could have been spreading the risk. All those…

I'm a very creative person. I like to express it in a variety of ways, mainly through writing and music. Music seems to be one that everyone I talk to can understand; loads of people all over the world are musicians, regardless of what…