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Thursday 16 October 2008

Unlocking Shakespeare

On Monday I managed to make a rare connection between my day job as a teacher and the writer alter ego (or is that the other way round?) by attending a one-day workshop by Guy Roberts called Unlocking Shakespeare. What made this so great was that it appealed to me equally as a teacher and as a writer/wordsmith. Greatly to be recommended for erudition, inspirational value and incredible value for money. I have already started using the material I gained at the workshop for my English classes at school, and even seem to have convinced the sceptics among my students that Shakespeare is NOT an instant sleeping tablet, but a vibrant and thrilling opportunity to explore the heights and depths of human experience through the performed word. Can't wait to get my teeth into some more of those iambic pentameters.......
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Thursday 31 July 2008

Vacation

Finally I surface again after a hectic summer term in the day job, during which I was promoted to head of department, and have had a major family crisis to deal with. I have spent the last month re-editing my novel, PRAGUE EQUINOX, and am translating a children's book called AFRICAN TALES by O.D. West (from Czech into English). So although out of the blogosphere for a while I have not been idle. I have still found time to spend a few days in Moravia, go to the opera (Don Giovanni at the Estates Theatre in Prague) and have some pleasant walks in the park at Pruhonice, just outside Prague. I am off to Moravia again for the weekend tomorrow. Oh, and today I get the key to my new flat, so I can start moving!
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Wednesday 26 March 2008

The Story of Stuff

Somewhere it all has to hang together. There is a connection between what we feel and how we live, or at least try to live. After a long time of not writing at all, mainly because I was too exhausted and stressed to, I found myself writing poetry. Even I was surprised at how vehement it was. The Story of Stuff is telling a story that needs to be told. In my novels I find myself writing about individuals and communities who have lost their sense of connection with their past and with their surroundings.
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Monday 17 March 2008

Poetry

Click here to read some of my poems. Lately I seem to be thinking quite a lot about identity under siege in the workplace, and about the way language is used for content or for packaging.
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Sunday 16 March 2008

The Ghost Muse?

I am writing a book called Numinosity. It is about how we enchant (and disenchant) the places we live and move in, and how relationships with places affect our growth as people. Prague Equinox, Volume 1 of Numinosity, is now complete. I am now writing Volume 2, On the Bridge. The bridge referred to is the Charles Bridge in Prague, one of the most enchanted places in Europe.
........... It all started when I was staying at a hotel just near where this picture was taken. As I was dropping off to sleep I was visited by a ghost. It did not "appear", but rather made its presence felt. It was quite scary . I did not know then that Lilliova Street, near the Old Town Square in Prague, is said to be haunted by the ghost of a barber who abandoned his wife and daughters to become an alchemist. After a rather troubled night's sleep, I was browsing the next morning in a nearby bookshop when I found the fascinating book Praga Mysteriosa, which mentions this ghost story. That was three years ago. The Barber-Alchemist, is evolving, it seems, into a trilogy!
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