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...

“Kingston Connections” is a three year project about storytelling. It is a joint venture between Kingston University , The Rose Theatre, Creative Youth and the local council. The reason I bring this up is that in amongst their extensive programme of talks, debates, projects and performances, I am appearing on a panel for a discussion entitled “Becoming Your Own Publisher”, which might well be of interest to readers of this site. My role on the panel is to talk about where ghostwriters can fit into the whole process. I was recruited for the project by the redoubtable Dr. Alison Baverstock, who not only runs an extremely well respected MA course on publishing at Kingston University but is also a prolific writer on matters pertaining to publishing and is the author of “The Naked Author”, by far the best book so far on self-publishing, (although ironically published in the traditional manner by Bloomsbury). The talk is happening on Monday 24 th June at 5.30 p.m. in the Cultur...