Breaking into the States, Again

Here I am, back in Boston. I’m here to see my beloved Number 2 Son and hang around with The Big D while he goes to some meetings. Then next weekend, I’m off to Washington D.C. to go to the wedding of my friend’s daughter. So given that schedule, I...

Teaching Writing

When people generally think about how writing is taught they tend to think of workshops, small rooms filled with large handfuls of students sitting around tables doing exercises suggested by a tutor. I often teach that way as well. But the teaching I’m now...

What's So Great About Being a Writer?

This week I had my first official event as Writer-in -Residence at SOAS. I hosted a public reading by the Malaysian fiction writer and poet, Shivani Sivagurunathan. Shivani read from her recently published short story collection, Wildlife on Coal Island. I loved this...

What's on the Radio?

I have lived in the UK for over twenty years now, and still I’m occasionally caught out by subtle differences between my adopted country and the country of my birth — or even more to the point here, my adolescence — the US. Growing up in the States...