books – Page 15 – don't confuse the narrator

Easter gifts

It’s Easter and I’ve realised that I don’t remember any of the Easter eggs I was given as a child, though I’m fairly sure there must have been some and I’m sure I was quite excited about them at the time.

Later on, I may have been given chocolates, flowers or other gifts by friends and lovers; no doubt they put a dutiful amount of thought into the choosing and the giving.

Perhaps I even gave presents to other people. If I did, though, I don’t remember.

In fact, from all the Easter gifts given and received during more than fifty years, I only remember one – the book in the picture.

The dedication inside shows just how long ago I was given it:

Half a century from now, how many people will reach for their e-reader and bring up a digital file that will have the power to connect them to the past in the way this book connects me?

on the edge of memory

A few days ago, I read a poem by a friend which reminded me of a short story. Sadly, I can’t remember who wrote it: it might have been Saki; perhaps it was Wilde; there’s a very slight chance it was Lovecraft. (I’m fairly sure it was unlike most of the other stories I know by the same author.)

I’m a long way from my own bookshelves, so after racking my brains unsuccessfully, I have had to resort to trying to find the story via the web.

I think the scene was a domestic drawing-room as the afternoon slips towards dusk.

I half remember beautiful scenery, or it might have been the view of a garden through French windows; it could even have been potted plants, I suppose, though I think they would have been perfumed, not simply aspidistras.

There was music; probably celestial, though it might have been a piano. There was a dreamer and a dream, perhaps of classical gods; a promise of immortality, or of life in a different dimension…
Continue reading “on the edge of memory”

the next big thing: “hope street”

Lance Tooks drawing from Sketches from Spain

Fellow-writer Karin Bachmann has asked me to join in “The Next Big Thing”, an internet project where authors from different countries, different ways of life and different writing backgrounds answer the same ten questions about a work in progress.

For her own contribution, Karin talked about Mord in Switzerland, an anthology of crime stories from around Switzerland; you can read about it on her stories47277 blog in the post The Next Big Thing.

As part of the project, I, too, will invite five fellow-writers to write their own TNBT page and will link to them on this page below my own answers. As Karin put it: “It’s like a chain letter, only that no bad luck will come out of your not participating ;-)”

So, here are my answers about an up-coming poetry book:
Continue reading “the next big thing: “hope street””

poems from the pueblo

Some of the short poems from this blog have been brought together with others in an eBook: Poems from the pueblo: Haiku & assorted fragments.

There are several formats available for download:

• FREE iPad-only version from the iBookStore. Watch the publisher’s video to find out more about this fully-enhanced ebook:
(The video has music, so you may want to check your volume control.)

Just read/watched/listened to your #PoemsFromThePueblo. What a little treasure box! And love the whole interactive thing. – Elizabeth Hopkinson, fantasy writer, sent via twitter from her Hidden Grove.

• Download the FREE ePub version direct from Tantamount. (This version includes embedded sound files which will only be accessible if your reader supports sound.)

• Or buy it from Amazon.

I’m hoping there will be more poems from the pueblo – both further collections of fragments and, eventually, a collection of the more substantial poems I have written while living in the Spanish hinterlands.

You’ll find full information about my books over on my website. Feedback and reviews are always appreciated.

gatsby-mail and the green light

Gmail chat screenshot (LHS status lights only)

Whatever program(s) I’m using on my computer, there is almost always a narrow strip of another window showing on the left hand side where I can see if I have new emails. (Yes, I’m sure I could set up an audio alert, but we all have our idiosyncracies.) Not only do I see when new messages arrive, but I also see the little green lights flicker and I know when contacts around the world log on and off.

Perhaps the “g” in gmail stands for Gatsby.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And then one fine morning —

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

I’m not sure where “the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us” fits into things, but I can see my attempts to keep up with everything that’s happening on the web mirrored in that quote.