Archive | August 2012
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Reality Writing
Over the past decade or so, the fashion has been for reality television and fantasy fiction. There’s so much reality on television that readers have clearly decided to give it a wide berth in their fiction. They’ll consume reality in book from all right, but mostly, it’s non fiction. But in recent times, the winds […]
Oranges: The Writer’s Fruit
When I’m giving creative writing classes, I think it’s important to waken up the senses. It blows off the dust of everyday life and gets everyone in the mood for writing. And there’s no better way to set your senses on fire than eating an orange. I bring a punnet of small oranges into class […]
Write What You Know
When it comes to deciding what to write, writers fall into two camps. The first is the Maeve Binchy camp. Maeve Binchy made no secret of the fact that her fiction was entirely based on things she had experienced. She felt that if she hadn’t experienced something, she had no business writing about. And it […]
The Great Maeve Binchy Interview
I held a crumpled piece of paper in my hand. A Dublin phone number was written on it, along with a name. Maeve Binchy. I took a deep breath and rang it, expecting to battering-ram my way through a phalanx of publicity girls. A voice answered, friendly and instantly familiar. I nearly dropped the phone. […]
