I was intrigued by the sound of this venue - a former weapons factory off Rye Lane, Peckham. Thanks to the Transport for London site maps I was more or less able to pinpoint the location -up a tiny alleyway opposite Peckham Rye railway station. The narrow passage led to a weird courtyard decorated with black and white graffitti in gothic style, featuring a huge animal skull.......

It's usally a disadvantage when an acting ensemble has no members aged over forty; here it proved an asset. A youthful cast and the nature of the venue were well-suited to a distinctive interpretation of Shakespeare's tragic tale.


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C’mon. There has to be some sort of vitamen in there. I fully understand how they add tons of sugar and milk-fats to build it into candy bar wonderment. That said, let’s take a closer look. Cocoa comes from the Cacao Bean (pictured left) which is obviously a nutritious plant. Sugar comes from Sugar Cane, Corn, or Sugar Beets – all plants. My general assumption is that milk-fats are dairy products. So far, so good in my opinion. Everything is healthy.

Extensive research (I read the candy wrapper.) shows ...Read More Here...

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One of the things you learn to take in your stride, when you're teaching creative writing, is sex and violence, on the page, at least. And then there's other "strong material": racism or misogyny in action or language which would be distasteful to some or many readers. I'm sure anyone reading this blog would agree that for writing as a creative discipline the default should be No Limits - and yet we do all have limits. And very, very occasionally the piece is genuinely ethically dubious, and hopefully the institution you're working for will have a policy that you're not obliged to read it. If you're on your own, then you're still entitled to refuse. This is not what creative writing teaching is for.

But on the whole, the "strong" material is in a good cause - having an honest try at evoking the horror of a rape scene, say. It's integral to the story not gratuitous, the writer doesn't appear to be getting off on it or breaking boundaries just to show off, and you feel that, as far as possible, it's no more voyeuristic than it can help being. And yet, even after you've steadied yourself and concentrated on the technical merit and artistic impression of the piece, it can still make you feel uneasy.

Sometimes, too, the workshop you're running reacts with dislike or even ferocious objections.

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New Jersey native, Kyle Hemmings, shares his digital artwork and original poetry today at Postcard Poems and Prose. He has several chapbooks published and countless publication credits to his name . We feel fortunate to be able to share a slice of his literary pie with...Read More Here...

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Thomas Zimmerman has a wonderful poem published at Postcard Poems and Prose today. “An Older Glory” is displayed in traditional postcard format with text on the left and an illustration on the right. The line which absolutely gob-smacked me on first reading was “a spear upon which wounded planets spin.” Give the entire poem a read and then take a look at the beautiful Greyhounds with which he and his wife share ...Read More Here...

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In the Self-Editing Your Novel course that I co-teach with Debi Alper, Week Three is about Voice, and an old friend of a question came up: "How do I find my voice?". I've blogged about Voice before, and explored how it's the combination of "What you want to say", and "How you want to say it". So at the micro or midi-level, finding the voice for a piece of fiction is about two things:

1) Fully imagining your characters-in-action and their predicament: their actions, their emotions, their experience of the world that they act within, and their take on that experience.

2) Being in writerly training: having a rich language-hoard and free, flexible, writing muscles which can respond to whatever it is that those characters-in-action do and experience. It's about read-read-reading, doing exercises on all six senses, free-writing, taking a poetry course to sharpen your instincts for sound and rhythm and to clean out the second-hand language, and then getting out of your own light.

But that micro- and midi-level work isn't enough if the voice doesn't work for the novel as a whole, leading the reader on from that opening promise, through a story which really is worth our time. You may be able to catch us with a fantastic opening, and write engaging and vivid characters and settings, but how do you find your voice for the novel as a whole?

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I've developed an addiction to Greek drama. It 'privileges' the regular viewer, just like a TV soap. At first it makes little sense - overwrought characters ranting on about horrific crimes committed elsewhere, backed up by a chorus. Mainly they blame fate, but more often they name names, which over time stand for abstract concepts such as courage and beauty - Hector and Agamemnon, Helen and Cassandra. Some you know about, some you get to know, but eventually, when you've seen a few episodes, they become familiar. You get caught up in the multiple storylines.

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Imagine a woolen-clad fiddler perched atop a snowplow on a cold January morning. You’ll have to imagine because I am a bachelor for the moment and there is no one else here to take the photo. It’s also unlikely that I will take a $3000 violin out when the temperature hovers at zero. (That’s Farenheit for ...Read More Here...

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We’re excited about the first half of February at Postcard Poems and Prose. Our diversity of contributors and material provides a sip of something for everyone.

**We are proud to publish two pieces of fiction written by Sandra Crook; a talented U.K. writer who spends half her time living on a boat in the canal system of France. We published her work because it is good and not because we are envious of her lifestyle. That said, we confess we are very envious.

**We also have digital art created by Kyle Hemmings and his wonderful poem – “Party Animals”. Kyle is a prolific author as any visitor to his blog will attest. Ask him about Stinky Cat when you get the chance.

**The inspiring piece, “Faith”, by Oonah Joslin will cause readers to reflect over what is important in their lives. Oonah, in addition to her lengthy list of publication credits, is the co-editor of Every Day Poets. Yeah, she’s kind of a big deal.

**Thomas Zimmerman teaches at a community college and edits two different publications. How he actually found time to write “An Older Glory” and pair it with visually pleasing artwork we don’t know – but we’re happy he did.

And all this happens in the first half of February. The second half of our shortest month in 2013 is a secret…for now. (But we promise it will be great.) Here is...Read More Here...

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Is It Okay to Use ‘Incorrect’ Grammar in Dialogue?

Real people obviously don’t always speak in a way you might consider grammatically correct, so should authors take a different stance on grammar in dialogue from the one they take when they’re writing narration?

The question came up for me while writing the latest instalment in my self-editing blog, Your Danglers Are on Display, in which I discuss -- yes, you guessed it -- danglers. People frequently use danglers in speech, so perhaps danglers have a right to make it into print in dialogue, too. Perhaps they also have a right to make it into narration when an author is using first-person POV and the narrator has a colloquial, conversational style of expressing himself or herself. But if you ignore grammar ‘rules’ in dialogue and even narration, don’t you leave yourself open to criticism from readers?

Click on the link to see the full blog post.

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