Relearning How to Write
It's occurred to me that only after I’ve finished a novel can I confidently say that I know how to write a novel. And then I forget. In...
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Paul Read
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Paul Read
Mar 21, 2021
Fearing the Notebook
Today I bought myself a new notebook. There’s something intimidating and sublime about bound, blank pages. The world of possibilities....
Paul Read
Feb 17, 2021
Writer’s Block: A Cautionary Tale
From time to time, I edit other people’s fiction. Fellow writers send me passages of a work-in-progress and it’s obvious to me what the...
Paul Read
Jan 25, 2021
The Pram in the Hall
‘There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.’ So claimed British writer Cyril Connolly, these days remembered...
Paul Read
Dec 23, 2020
Bah Humbug
There’s really not much I want to say about 2020. There’s not much I need to say about it. It has been, without doubt, the worst year I...
Paul Read
Nov 24, 2020
The War Against Corporate Literature
I was in Tesco yesterday (that’s an inauspicious start, but bear with me), and found myself wandering, as I so often do when in need of...
Paul Read
Nov 11, 2020
A Political (or Apolitical) Crisis?
You may have noticed the election in the United States. It’s been going on for roughly a decade now, and still shows no sign of abating....
Paul Read
Oct 19, 2020
The Waiting
- or How to Survive the Dreaded Author Feedback Paralysis “You know that foreign correspondent's ruse: in the days when you had your...
Paul Read
Sep 18, 2020
Writing and the Art of Home Decoration - a Tenuous Metaphor
Having spent a large part of the summer writing and decorating, I couldn’t help but see parallels between the two. Preparing the Room -...
Paul Read
Aug 12, 2020
Writing Spaces
Where Authors Do Their Thing This blog entry is a little different. I’m writing it at thirty three thousand feet, and I’m drunk. I don’t...
Paul Read
Jul 12, 2020
The Ten Greatest Books of All Time* (Part Two)
*According to me Before we start, because you probably won’t still be reading by the time I get to the end, I’d like to point out that...
Paul Read
Jun 28, 2020
The Ten Greatest Books of All Time (Part One)
Probably. In objective terms, any list such as this one is nonsense. What I really mean to say is My Favourite Ten Books, or Ones That...
Paul Read
Jun 18, 2020
What Now?
Graham Greene, in Ways of Escape, writes candidly about his early literary failures. His first published novel, The Man Within, was ‘the...
Paul Read
Jun 7, 2020
Lockdown Misreading
The world is burning and humanity repeatedly learns bugger all from the lessons of history, so I figure what we really need right now is...
Paul Read
May 29, 2020
Dear Reader…
Lying to Ourselves and Petitioning the Absent - Whatever Happened to the Epistolary Novel? Rewind to 2007 and picture an American woman,...
Paul Read
May 22, 2020
Paul Read
May 10, 2020
Covid-19, Creativity and Copying
I’m going to whisper this because what I’m about to announce is by no means a fashionable opinion. I’ve been quite enjoying this...
Paul Read
Apr 26, 2020
New blog!
I have decided to go ahead and embrace history with both hands and join the world of blogging. This may or may not be a terrible idea. My...
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