I love to collect inspirational quotes.  I really do find them incredibly, well, inspirational.  But I usually hate articles that ask writers for their lists of do's and dont's.  So often those articles do little more for me than make me feel discouraged or even...

A while ago, my friend Tasoulla Christou, asked if she could set one of my poems to music.  Tasoulla is a very talented musician and was studying advanced composition at The Royal College of Music after obtaining degrees in composition from University of London and...

This week I was asked to be an official blogger of Jewish Book Week.  From the 27th February through the 7th March, London will be hosting its largest literary festival of the year.  This year some very big names  will be participating, such as  Jonathan Safran Foer,...

It's my blog's birthday again.  How can that be? It crept up on me, unsuspecting, while I was hurtling through my life of airplane journeys and notebook scribblings.  Life and work get so intense sometimes that I forget to stop and breathe.  I think I spend too much...

It's been a wonderful and productive trip. I've spent lots of time with family and friends, I've gone to a few museums, seen a movie ("Crazy Heart" which was fantastic) and a concert (the incredible South African singing group Ladysmith Black Mambazo), eaten in...

CurvingRoad, the arts charity I founded several years ago with my friend, Sonja Rein, is in a very exciting mode which I can finally discuss!  Some may remember how  our efforts brought us into the West End in 2008 with our production of Leo Richardson's play,...

Thanks to Chez Aspie, I woke up to find that I had been given the "Happy 101" Award.  What a great way to start the day!  The rules are:  1. List 10 things that make you happy.2. Try to do at least one thing on the list today.3. List 10 bloggers who brighten your...

I’m a cheap drunk.  One glass of wine and my face becomes numb, my mind wanders.  This is especially true in an airplane, which is where I wrote this, hovering over the Atlantic halfway between London and New York.  In between films, I’ve been reading my book, Haruki...

The New York Times ran two annoying articles yesterday.  The first, on the front page below the fold, was titled, "On Kindle's List, the Best Sellers  Don't Necessarily Need to Sell." It seems one way publishers are dealing with the panic about ebook pricing is to...

    I figured it out.  It’s been over five years since I wrote a short story.  In the meantime, I’ve written countless poems, two novels, two plays and journalism galore, but no stories.  Very strange.  And to be honest, although I have always loved both reading and...

So we've gone from the chair lift to the dentist's chair.  Number 2 Son's wisdom teeth extraction is all over  but for the ice packs and the tv watching.  And tomorrow, I go for a scan of my very dodgy shoulder which has been troubling me since August.I'm really just...

We've been taking our family ski trips most every year for the past sixteen winters.  I do love being in the mountains. I love the air, the scenery, the food, the wine.  Probably what I like the least, though, is the skiing.  I came to it quite late.  The first time I...

Just a quickie to say hi and that you won't be hearing much from me this week because I'm here:I usually only ski in the mornings and then after a wonderful lunch come back to the chalet and veg out. I do have plans to do other writerly things while the rest of the...

My last post, here, was about resolving not to resolve (among other things).  But as I was preparing to write this post, I looked back to see what I was thinking about around this time last year.  This is what I found, a list of New Years Resolutions for 2009: 1. To...

I've been thinking quite a lot about what to write in this, my first post of the decade.  I tend not to use the arrival of a new year for resolutions.   Rather, it offers me a chance to think about what is working in my life and what  isnt.  Like all of us, my life is...

Came home last night after a wonderful and exhausting Christmas holiday.  Lots of family, lots of wine, cookies, chocolates, treats of all kinds, some wonderful gifts, lots of laughter and a huge lot of snow. The best part of all, though, was having the four of us...

So this is me signing off for the holidays. I wish you all the best of holiday seasons, whether you celebrate or not.  May all our days be filled with joy, peace, love, health and...if it's not too much to ask, a big dollop of rock n roll.Here's a little something to...

Hello from cloudy Ireland!It's been an amazing few days.  I suppose I'm always amazed at how much I accomplish when I come up here to Anam Cara. But this time was even more ridiculously productive than usual.  I came here hoping to break the back of my new play, a...

Forgot to mention the next leg of Marcus' blog tour is going on here right now.  It's an interview with RossMagicHoward.  Go on.  What are you waiting for?                                                                                                                 ...

Ladies and Gentlemen,The winner of today's We Need to Talk about Kelvin quiz is Lane.  Congratulations!!!! Your signed book will be winging its way through the cosmos very soon.And here are the answers in bold:1.  The scientists who won the Nobel prize for detecting...

Many of you know that I love science and love reading about science, especially when it's hard to understand. (Go figure...) So I jumped at the chance to have an early look at Marcus Chown's new book, the cleverly titled We Need to Talk about Kelvin.  It's a...

Given that with December comes a plethora ( a word I love to hate) of listings -- the best this-and- that of the year, plus this December we get all those best-of-the-decade lists, too -- I thought I'd put my week's thoughts into list form, just for fun. So, in no...

I've been thinking on and off all week about Zadie Smith's article, "The Essay v The Novel," in last Saturday's Guardian. Basically, Smith talks about her new book of essays, and how more and more fiction writers are turning away from the novel and towards more...

I just looked back at last year's Thanksgiving post, and what a happily mushy post it was. I fear this one may get a bit mushy as well, so if that sort of thing annoys or offends you, turn away now...  I feel a bit more melancholy this year -- it seems everyone does. ...

I was feeling sorry for myself last night.  It has been a very busy, crazy couple of weeks.  I've been fighting a cold for most of it, plus I have somehow wrenched my shoulder out of place and am fitting physio appointments into everything else.  And there I was, on...

Tuesday night saw the launch of Elizabeth Baines' new novel, Too Many Magpies.  I can't wait to read it.  It looks like a small-gem-of-a book.  Elizabeth read from the beginning, then took questions, and then read some more from the end.  The audience was so...

Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away (or so it seems), I was a Classicist, studying and teaching ancient Greek, with a bit of Latin thrown in for good measure.   Even then many asked why I would be pursuing such a line of study, what it could ever possibly do for...

So many people are sick right now.  I know I've been battling my semi-annual sinus infection all week, too.  But it's been a very busy week and I've managed to do several things that I want to share with you.First, I went to a fundraiser for a very worthwhile charity,...

I woke up this morning, looked at my diary, and it clearly said "write blog." I knew exactly what I was going to write about, but as I read my friends' blogs over my morning coffee, I saw this scare-mongering article alluded to over and over: How Waterstones Killed...

Based on all the blogs, tweets and facebook statuses I've been reading lately, it seems that writers and artists are really struggling right now.  Lack of confidence, frustration, impatience, "What's it all about, Alfie?" It is certainly difficult times out there, not...