Category: value of the arts
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A new Kick-Start course to encourage you to dive into your creative writing
I’m holding a new creative writing series of workshops soon. See the poster for details and booking. It’s for the usual eight weeks but this time I’m experimenting with a new afternoon time slot of 2.00-4.00 because some people asked for that alternative to the evening one. I’ve been reading some books on writing and…
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Taxtopia by The Rebel Accountant
Why haven’t I written a blog for so long? It’s because I’ve been teaching another creative writing course and because I’ve contributed my collages to two more exhibitions (the one still on till the end of the month is in Dojo’s bread shop, main street of Braidwood) and I was cheered when one man stood…
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Tools for self-destruction – Max Fisher’s The Chaos Machine
The manipulation of neural pathways The weekly radio co-hosting preparation was swallowing too much time and compelling me to spend most of it on current affairs. I’m doing it only once a month now. Without the radio over-commitment, I limit current affairs consumption to basic knowledge of what’s going on. What’s going on is always…
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In the arms of the angels: How To Be An Artist and On Connection
Courage and the imagination ‘Every good work of art has courage in it somewhere,’ writes Jerry Saltz in his How To Be An Artist (Hachette, 2022). He also claims that ‘Courage is a desperate gamble that will place you in the arms of the angels.’ (p. 81) Is the concept of courage relevant when we’re…
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Alba Donati: a cottage full of books
Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop by Alba Donati. Trans. By Elena Pala. (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2022. 193 pp) People want stories In December 2019 Alba Donati opened her bookshop in Lucignana, her home town, a village of 180 people. The bookshop sat on a two and a half metre site on a craggy hill. Just…
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Thirty Two Words for Field and Sand Talk – Irish and Indigenous wisdom
Connecting with a better world Apart from reading some fantastic books, I’ve been having fun with my new Kick-Start creative writing workshops. They’ve been zipping along with the poetic contributions of talented students, filling the BRAG room on Tuesday nights with laughter and creative verve. BRAG stands for Braidwood Regional Arts Group and you can…
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Irish secrets: Trespasses and Truth Be Told
The intensity of the forbidden Sleeping with the enemy. The intensity of the forbidden. Always a topic to set the mind questioning and the heart racing. The protagonist of Louise Kennedy’s Belfast novel Trespasses, Cushla Lavery (whose given name derives from the Irish phrase A chuisle mo chroi – the pulse of my heart) is…