writing – nature – supernature
The plants and ecoregions of the world are under threat from urbanization, deforestation, mining, landfill, fire, climate change, plus air, water, and soil pollution. Much fine non-fiction nature writing addresses these issues, but is it preaching to the converted? What of the people for whom these concerns are too factual, too serious, too much to […]
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LOST & WAITING A genre-bending Chilean adventure The discovery of a Victorian journal sets in motion a high-octane adventure fusing past, present and myth. When Evangeline comes across a Victorian plant hunter’s journal at Kew, it is the sign she’s been waiting for. Its author, Edwin ‘Chile’ Morgan, claims to have discovered a living myth: […]
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If you are confused by the term ‘magic realism’, you’re not alone. The wide variety of novels and short stories all claiming to be magic realism can be bewildering, ranging as they do across romance, family saga, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, surrealist, fabulist, slipstream, absurdist and weird fiction. How can this be? In literature, […]
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Header photo: Joachim Munter This post looks at how the fox is portrayed across cultures in folklore and myth, and how this has influenced language and literature. The fox appears in the folklore of many cultures as a trickster with a double-identity, often with magic powers and the ability to transform. Its nature, cunning yet […]
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by Will Storr Essential resource for writers of fiction. Storr writes in an engaging and informative way, effectively interpreting the science for the layperson. He draws on research by story theorists, mythologists, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, biologists and social genomicists to explain how stories work. Each point is amply demonstrated with examples from literature, film, […]
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Here are some suggestions of how you can stimulate your creative writing. It is a work in progress, so check back from time to time for updates. Please bear in mind that not all the suggestions will be right for you. The list is not meant to be prescriptive: the thing is to find what […]
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So you’ve written the last scene of your novel. Give yourself a pat on the head. Better still, give yourself a holiday – get away from your manuscript. Two weeks is good, two months even better. When you come back to it, you want to read it with fresh eyes. Read through your manuscript and […]
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To improve your writing, you have to work at it. If you have the discipline to scribble away on your own, that is great. However, very many people lack the discipline, confidence, or know-how to go it alone. For those people options are available and this post attempts to cover the different kinds of offerings, […]
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‘The holly and the ivy Now both are full well grown, Of all the trees that are in the wood, The holly bears the crown’ (Trad.) Ivy (Hedera helix), clinging and compliant, is associated with the feminine. Used in wreaths for weddings and Christmas, it represents everlasting fidelity, There is a problem with […]
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Zeus, father of the gods, transformed his love, Io, into a cow for fear of discovery by wife, Hera. She, knowing her husband well, saw through his ruse and begged Zeus for the cow, exclaiming how beautiful it was. Hera bade Argus of the hundred eyes to watch over the cow. Desperate, Zeus sent Hermes […]
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Ginkgo biloba, Corsham Court, Wiltshire Nature writing, that is, non-fiction or fiction prose or poetry about or inspired by nature, is no new thing. Indeed, as far back as Hippocrates (490-370 BC) people were writing about nature. But latterly, it has experienced a resurgence. The meaning of the term ‘nature writing’ has shifted such […]
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All living organisms interpret (make meaning of) and represent (communicate) their world through a series of signs and codes. A plant may sense a change in daylight hours (photoperiodicity) as a sign which it encodes as a prompt to initiate flower-bud formation, just as a human might sense the sign of hot weather and encode […]
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