Alan Rain

Great story telling, Daeds, congratulations.

Another interesting blog, Richard, thank you.

Jeez that’s some incident. I did not know about this at all – thanks for telling the story so vividly, Richard!
It just shows that human nature – our inability to foresee and avert disaster until something truly catastrophic has happened – is unchanged over the years/decades/centuries.

It certainly is. Mindboggling that such a catastrophe could have come about through a momentary lapse by a single person. Less mindboggling that the means of preventing such a catastrophe had long existed but not been implemented.

As Ath says, the parallels between this incident, along with many of the others you’ve written about over the y…[Read more]

Thank you Raine. Yes it turned out to be a pretty cunning ploy.

Jeez that’s shocking behaviour. Both from your agent @Hilary and @janette.
I’ve never got that close – I mean, I’ve had full requests but no more than that – but I’d have thought you could at least rely on agents to be honest.
We’ve all been blanked on a submission – which is par for the course, even if I don’t particularly like it. But to bring…[Read more]

Wow, thanks Libby! Well done to the other participants. I’ll think up some devilishly difficult competition for March and post later tomorrow.

I’m late to this debate, but it’s a very interesting one, so I hope no-one minds me resurrecting it.

My view on this is very utilitarian (I think), in that I always – consciously or unconsciously – try to work out whether the value of the book/music/art/movie/whatever is greater to me than the cost of reading/listening/watching it.

And the…[Read more]

New Day

The smoke from cooking fires lay like a grey blanket over Alexandra township and a tangerine sun rose behind it, then burst clear and threw its warming mantle over the land. The windows of the high-rise buildings on the distant Johannesburg skyline glinted like slabs of molten gold. A typical autumn dawn on the highveld but this was not a…[Read more]

Just seen an interesting twist on this. A bookshop is making a donation to a charity supporting trans kids every time they sell a book by JK Rowling

I agree with what you say, Raine. I should have clarified what I meant by problematic. For instance there are readers who boycott writers just on someone else’s sayso – I think you should always do your due dillifence and try to find out the whole story in as far as you can. Three independant sources of verification and I won’t boycott a book…[Read more]

This is something that I end up discussing a lot with my co-dragon on Dissecting Dragons. Ultimately, I think it’s fine to read and enjoy problematic art by problematic artists. The important thing is that you are questioning both within your own mind. I’ve boycotted certain YA authors because they’ve been involved in horrific online bullyimg…[Read more]

I wouldn’t put up with a thousandth of the crap Michael Rosen gets every single day for all the tea in China. The man is.. I was going to say saint, but you know what I mean. I didn’t mean you to alter or amend the original blog by the way, it’s at the very least a widespread view of Dahl and I wouldn’t say it was any less valid than mine (and I…[Read more]

I know I’m a bad human being, but still. I admit the Roald Dahl thing caused me a great deal of distress – not least because some of the articles circulating about him in the last few years contain a whole lot of horrible smears as well as the couple of horrible facts. But it’s difficult to come out and say ‘well yes, he did say a couple of…[Read more]

There are also examples in art – Paul Gauguin, Picasso and Freud, for example, were not particularly nice folk, it seems.
If a writer’s work doesn’t reflect his obnoxious views, does that make it OK? Or if his views are expressed in a work of fiction and not an educational piece?
Some very good people write fiction that contains extreme views, but…[Read more]

It was. I have a bit of a confession actually – in the first Cloud monthly competition I ever entered, I got more than one flash of inspiration and asked if multiple entries were permitted. The competition setter said OK, but after my third entry, suggested that maybe enough was enough 🙂

No problem @Libby, it was a flippant remark on my part, not intended to be taken seriously.

I think that’s a good call @libby. Don’t want to inhibit anyone’s creativity, but you’re right about the increased possibility of success