May 4, 2012 • 12:29 pm 0
Heads up! My pocket-sized mini-collections of short fiction, Tiny Fictions, are only going to be available in the overall collection form soon.
Still available
This means I will be withdrawing from sale Tiny Fictions #1, #2, #3, and #4, at the end of May, both in physical and eReader formats.
Withdrawn from sale at the end of May 2012
Filed under: book covers, content: artwork, content: publishing, books, publishing, short fiction, withdrawal
April 17, 2012 • 8:18 pm 0
New Savagery
Our first foolishness was to adopt
the god of a desert tribe
to rule a land of green forest,
wind-raked moor, and
infinite coastline;
we should have worshipped a fish
hurtling upstream
for eternities,
not listened to an old man
whose dissipated sons
can only bicker and divide;
we should have made sacred
the colours of our mud:
black loam, grey chalk downs,
red sandstone, and the moorland’s
thin brown.
We ought have touched only
our skies full of clouds
and knelt only to sow, and to raise up
our fallen children.
Now we sow blood for the world
and make sacred
the hue of wars
in deserts.
– Delilah Des Anges
One of the great challenges of writing both prose and poetry can occasionally be the task of keeping them out of each other. When you are in the habit of writing rhythmically for poetry, it can quite easily seep into your prose as a matter of habit; thinking in beats is a hard habit to shake, as are bursts of alliteration or internal rhyme. However, these tics in prose can be surprisingly useful if you are writing a specific genre: fairytales. Far from being distractions or sounding unnatural, the sing-song intonation that accompanies poetry (often iambic pentameter works best for this) carries over to fairytales in a very organic fashion and makes the story pleasing to repeat; a great feature retained from the fairytale’s origin as an oral story.
There may be occasions when writing a story when it becomes apparent that what is actually necessary is to turn it into a poem because the cadences and rhythms are too poetic for the subject matter in prose; this occurred with Shots in the Dark. Originally a short story, it was reborn as a narrative poem after a friend read it over and said she could “see the poem lurking in the prose”.
Conversely, there are times when what is intended as a poem takes on a life of its own and characters, bursts the boundaries of poetic tropes and forms and demands to be written as a story. The important thing is listening to what form a piece of narrative wishes to be presented in, because if you force it, the end result will not be as good.
Throughout this month I will be nagging readers to donate to MSF
Filed under: content: essay, content: poetry, content: publishing, freeform, april, creative, creative writing, doctors without borders, medecins sans frontiere, msf, national poetry month, poems, poetry, prosody, writing
March 26, 2012 • 6:49 pm 1
As I’ve previously mentioned, one of the great joys of having even a little spare money knocking around is the opportunity to commission artists to illustrate my work. Now, I’m not exactly flush at the moment, but I can spare enough to bring some beautiful black and white art to my living room, and to help an artist who needs money very fast.
I was so impressed with B.L. Becotte‘s work on the last commission (an illustration for a key scene in my most recent, first-draft-stage novel, As Simple As Hunger) that I immediately jumped for another; this artist’s style is perfect for the darker, gothic turns that some of my novels have taken, and it’s art with a real grasp of the dramatic in terms of angles suited to storytelling.
Another of my books which was crying out for some illustrations and which I thought was perfectly suited to B. L. Becotte’s inky, Bisette-esque style is The Other Daughter, and so I eagerly flung a section of prose at the artist with a note reading “anything from this bit would be wonderful”.
I was right about it being wonderful.
Polly Mazlowsczy attacks Nancy Oakes, by B.L. Becotte
I just can’t get enough of those thick, solid, deep shadows, and the delirious and alarming sense of action this low angle gives to the scene. The indignity of the violence, Nancy’s position, the way Polly is standing with her chair-leg raised; everything here screams of a situation gone terribly awry and tells you you’re right in the middle of something. It’s masterful.
(You can buy The Other Daughter if you like – and you should, it’s a terribly compelling story – but I’m afraid this illustration isn’t in it!)
Filed under: content: artwork, content: publishing, content: review, art, artwork, b l becotte, black & white, black and white, books, commissions, illustration, midwest, patron of the arts, revenge, revenge tragedy, the other daughter, tragedy, violence, violent themes
March 5, 2012 • 12:10 pm 0
Well ahead of the August deadline, I’ve received a couple of submissions to the Icarus Anthology that I plan to put out in aid of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders this autumn, which is excellent (and if you are interested please check out the link for more information).
It’s also coming up for April, which is National Poetry Month, although I’m not sure which nation that’s in and have adopted it as my own regardless.
Since 2009 I’ve used April’s status as National Poetry Month to challenge myself in the same way that I use November’s status as National Novel Writing Month to challenge myself (along with millions of other people!), and to raise money for MSF. For the duration of April, each year since 2009, I’ve written one poem a day and asked people to donate to MSF on my behalf at the end of the month, based on factors like “how much did I enjoy these poems” and “how much can I afford to give”. The latter is important since I certainly don’t want people to ruin their household budget with donations!
However, just posting a poem every day for a month with no explanation is probably going to bore and annoy people, so this year I’m going to try to diversify a bit. First, I’m going to discount all the poetry books up for sale on House of D, because I am pathetically committed to encouraging people to read more poetry; second, I won’t just post poems for 30 days but also write a bit either about the poem and the prosody employed in it, or about poetry in general. Something along those lines!
And of course I will be hassling people to donate to MSF/DWB, but that part was a given.
Filed under: content: poetry, content: publishing, content: real life, charity, creative writing, doctors without borders, medecin sans frontieres, medecins sans frontiere, msf, national poetry month, plans, poetry, poetry marathon, prosody, sponsor, writing
February 20, 2012 • 1:15 pm 0
When a 40-year-old cold case opens unexpectedly on a sleepy island, John Hennessey (perpetually-on-the-brink-of-being-fired) finds his past comes back to haunt him, too. This unconventional tale is told in the first person to an unseen reporter, and through the eyes of a not-wholly honest observer.
Already available in print and EPUB format, now that I’ve got the hang of Kindle Direct Publishing a little better this unusual mystery story (that isn’t really a mystery) is also available for Kindle for £2.64; I promise it doesn’t contain as many Bergerac references as the Lulu.com tags may make it look like.
Filed under: book covers, content: artwork, content: publishing, bergerac, books, cold case, creative, creative writing, dark romance, detective, ebooks, fiction, first-person narrative, jersey, kindle, literary fiction, mystery, noir, thriller, writing
February 17, 2012 • 11:27 am 0
Already available for those with other eReaders, Year of the Ghost: Collected Poems 2011 is now available on the Kindle for the princely sum of £1.01 (the extra penny is for luck, you know), just in case you need an emergency collection of recent poetry to see you through your long commute, or are struck with the sudden need for a poem about the plagues of London while stuck in a traffic jam.
Year of the Ghost: Collected Poems 2011 is only available in electronic format for the foreseeable future. Naturally, if a print edition comes out you’ll be the first to hear about it!
Filed under: book covers, content: artwork, content: poetry, content: publishing, amazon, book launch, books, collection, creative, creative writing, ebook, kindle, new poetry, poems, poetry, publishing, writing, year of the ghost
February 12, 2012 • 12:06 pm 4
Polly Mazlowczy has returned from a fictitious conflict in North Korea a changed woman. Just how changed, her strange and insular family and the people of an isolated Midwestern town are about to discover. The Other Daughter is a revenge tragedy of the old school given a modern twist.
This book is already available in print (and you can learn more about the book at that link too) but now that I’ve got the hang of Kindle Direct Publishing it’s also available as a Kindle book too. Because there are no printing costs to cover I can offer it a lot more cheaply for the Kindle (as should all publishers, which is another grumpy rant for another day but honestly, if the physical book is £7.99 the eBook shouldn’t be £7.99 as well! Come on, guys!), and The Other Daughter for Kindle is available for the cheap-as-chips £2.64.
Filed under: book covers, content: artwork, content: publishing, books, ebook, fiction, horror, kindle, mid-west, publishing, revenge, shakespeare, stories, tragedy, trauma, voodoo, writing, zombies
February 10, 2012 • 10:53 am 0
This does exactly what it says on the tin: collects up every single poem I wrote in 2011 and puts it online as an EPUB available from Lulu.com (and also I believe the iBook store and Barnes & Noble or something). Some of them are exceptionally silly (I mean, some of them are about the X-men, I wasn’t po-facedly composing pastoral literature here), some of them are very personal, some of them are good, some of them are … less wonderful.
Stand-out poems that I recall include the title poem year of the ghost, reflecting on quite how many people had died already when I wrote it in early 2011; it is a sestina, and it was unfortunately more prophetic than I realised. Another was thule, related to the horrific shootings in Utoya, and Pyrexia as revolutionary fever seemed to grip large segments of the world. I’m not usually given to writing political poetry as I’m always worried about coming off sounding like Rik from the Young Ones (BBC), but it’s hard not to want to process real-life events through art; the year closed with Stop, You’re Killing Me, which linked together all of the protests of the year under one banner.
I’ve also written more about science in the last year than is usual, and after watching Wonders with the delightful Brian Cox embarked on an ambitious attempt to mimic structurally the lifecycle of a universe in poetic form, imaginatively titled Life Cycle; I spent a while learning about sound technology and the related physics, which came through in poems like FM and wave.table; I learnt about Victorian London in more depth and produced This Pestilent City.
London, along with fairytale and mythological imagery, and viscera, is a constant source of inspiration and a good number of poems have been devoted to it this year as in previous years.
The cover is a departure from the usual Gothic masterpieces or piles of papers that make up my poetry book covers, but I think there’s something quite bold about the minimalism of it. What do you think?
Collected Poems 2011 by Delilah Des Anges is available for £2.99.
Filed under: book covers, content: artwork, content: poetry, content: publishing, arab spring, books, brian cox, death, design, ebook, ebooks, epub, minimalism, poems, poetry, prosody, protest, publishing, science, sestina, utoya, writing, x-men
February 3, 2012 • 11:53 am 0
Click through to Amazon.co.uk
How Not to Write by Someone Who Doesn’t is a collection of essays and exercises designed to help you suck less at writing, or feel like you suck less at writing after having read about the awful mess that I perpetually make of it.
It is already available in print and PDF formats, but I’ve now got around to making sense of Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (in part thanks to Melanie Clegg‘s helpful guide) and have put up a Kindle special addition with two further essays included by way of enticement.
The Kindle edition is a humongous and bank-breaking 77p or $0.99 if you’re American (I can’t quite recall what the price is on various EU Amazon sites but “less than 1 Euro” is likely).
Filed under: book covers, content: artwork, content: publishing, $0.99, books, ebooks, guide, how not to write, how to, kindle, non-fiction, publishing, satire, special edition, writing
January 28, 2012 • 12:15 pm 0
With any book promotion it’s difficult to find something to say about my work without immediately giving into to compulsive self-deprecation (according to Kate Fox this is a perfectly normal symptom of Being English and nothing pathological at all), and with postcardsfromanexplosion it becomes even more tricky because it’s an art book.
It comprises a series of close-ups of mundane settings and light conditions rendered alien by the intense scrutiny this mimics, and a series of pseudo-cut-ups and genuine cut-ups numbered from a far wider pool (I selected each via an extremely silly method involving several scuff marks on my bathroom wall from throwing shoes at a pile of paper slips. It sounds fine in theory but in practice when you’re lobbing trainers at fragments of poetry you feel a bit of a tit).
postcardsfromanexplosion is only available from Lulu.com, it is a 36-page full-colour paperback (which is why it is so embarrassingly expensive), and as I cannot bring myself to tell you that it’s an in-depth examination of the human pysche and the randomness of fate contrasted to the alienation of city life or whatever I’m supposed to say in order to sound duly pretentious, I will say this: it’s a collection of written images which I thought were cool, lined up with some photos I took which I thought looked cool. Hopefully you will also think they look cool.
This is why I am not an art critic.
postcardsfromanexplosion is available from Lulu.com only, for the princely sum of £9.99.
Filed under: book covers, content: artwork, content: publishing, art, avant-garde, bollocks, books, cut-ups, harringay, highgate, photography, poetry, post-modern, publishing
