‘A Peanut Cruncher’s Defence: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes’ first appeared in volume 5 of Kill Your Darlings. It is reproduced here in full with the generous permission of Kill Your Darlings. Read the rest of this entry »
A Peanut Cruncher’s Defence: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes
Dec
11
‘Legacy, Memorialisation, Grief and Loss’ – Amanda Curtin’s ‘Inherited’
Dec
11
I approach collections of short stories with trepidation. Not because I dislike the short story form (quite the contrary) but because of how emotionally taxing I find collections. At the end of a novel I need time to pause, reflect and, sometimes, grieve. I need to gather up what I will take from the novel as a writer, reader and human being and let it percolate through me. For this reason I can never commence one novel immediately after finishing another. I need three or four days to let my responses simmer and settle. The short story collection requires that I undergo this process at the end of each story rather than at the end of the book. It causes me a sort of emotional whiplash. Unless I’m in peak psychological condition (sadly, a rarity) I tend to pass over collected works of short fiction.
That said, I was such a fan of Amanda Curtin’s 2008 novel The Sinkings that I could not resist her new collection of short stories, Inherited. Read the rest of this entry »
History in the Service of Fiction
Nov
19
Anna Funder, author of the brilliant non fiction Stasiland, has released a novel called All that I Am. Based on real people and events, the book set my historian self and literary self at odds with one another. Read my response to the book and my interview with Funder here http://www.killyourdarlingsjournal.com/2011/11/history-in-the-service-of-fiction-anna-funder%e2%80%99s-all-that-i-am/ Read the rest of this entry »
‘The Birthing’
Nov
13
I recently published a creative non fiction piece about the birth of my first child; an experience that was alternately profound, terrifying and comic. Read the rest of this entry »
In conversation with Andrew Nicoll
Nov
13
A
ndrew Nicoll, the author of The Good Mayor, has released his second novel, The Love and Death of Caterina. Andrew spoke to me about his new book and the intriguing relationship between art and empathy. Read the rest of this entry »