Talking to the New York Times in 1936, Cole Porter took an unsentimental view of his work when it was completed. 'The moment the curtain rises on the opening night, I say to myself: “There she goes” and I’ve bid...
Read moreToday's the birthday of Bob Dylan. Here's a piece I wrote in 2005 when Dylan was nominated (unsuccessfully - again) for the Nobel Prize: It was an odd kind of funeral. The deceased had lived a full and somewhat rackety...
Read moreEvery now and then, perhaps once or twice a month, a new cause for concern is discovered. From some distant campus, a research paper is published which reveals that something we had previously taken for granted is, in fact, deeply...
Read moreIt was April 1998. I was living in a flat in London after my marriage had gone belly-up. I had been working on my novel Kill Your Darlings and was so stuck that it felt as if it was killing me....
Read moreI am feeling a little bit jilted. An important relationship has recently come to an end. Already I find I am missing the old familiar things we did - our meetings once or twice a week, our plans, our outings,...
Read moreIt is the time of the year when, in homes across the country, moods will be on the turn. The cards, decorations and little lights which, a matter of hours ago, conveyed seasonal jolliness now represent yet another dreary housekeeping...
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Beyond the daily grind of the thousand words, there is a rhythm to life as a writer. The commission of the moment (if there is one), the pressure of the work in progress, the seductive possibilities of those what-if, why-not?,...
Read moreThe thousands of brave, rash souls around the world who have been participating in National Novel Writing Month will have typed their last word by midnight on Monday. According to the rules of the competition, they should have completed a...
Read moreThe smile was almost the same. Those heavy-lidded dark brown eyes may have become a rather warier over the twenty years since we had last met. The handsome black face was a little more lined, but still conveyed interest, affection,...
Read moreThe page before you is blank. When you try to write a sentence, it is like dragging your feet through a quagmire. With every slurpy step, the idea that you are a writer seems more absurd. Story? Hah! Who is...
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