Authors Electric

I am writing this having just had the delightful experience of teaching creative writing at the British Council/Kingston University Summer School in Athens.     It was a great experience because it was in Athens; because it was in the Summer; and because I got to see the Acropolis for the first time. Need I go on? It was also great because I really like teaching as it obliges me to think about writing in a slightly more analytical way, to formulate different ways of expressing familiar ideas and to challenge some of my lazier habits.   The main reason it was great, however, was because the people I met were all amazing. The majority were native Greek speakers whose grasp of even idiomatic English was phenomenal.This always makes me feel inadequate and humble because all I do is write in my native language and these ‘students’ have jobs which involve specialist knowledge, in engineering, business and God knows what altogether and yet they can also writ...

Ancient cities needed walls for defence. The Long Walls of Athens were the inspiration of their great statesman, Themistocles, who persuaded the Athenians to build in the teeth of Spartan hostility, enclosing not only Athens itself, but the port of Piraeus and the road between the two. When the Spartans invaded Athenian land, as they did many times during the long Peloponnesian War, they were forced to camp out at the base of these Walls. Athenian watchmen at their posts could look down upon the cooking fires of the invaders, perhaps roasting livestock stolen from Athenian farms. As the weather turned cold, the invaders would withdraw, only to return the following summer. When the Spartans finally destroyed the Athenian navy, the Long Walls allowed the Athenians to withstand a lengthy siege. Blockaded from the sea, they were starved into submission at last, and one of the conditions imposed by the Spartans was the destruction of the Long Walls. This humiliation was carried out by ...