Authors Electric

I have a friend who’s currently an ESL teacher living in Turkey. He’s also a retired professional photographer who used to supplement his business by selling photos of his lunch – but that’s a whole different story! Steve messaged me the other day and asked if I had any stories he could use on his YouTube channel .  I’ve never come across this kind of thing before and it struck me as such a good idea – for those learning English as a second language, for reluctant readers or those wanting to increase their vocabulary or just want simple, engaging and easy to understand stories in audio format. Steve reads short stories aloud and the accompanying words appear on the screen. Didn’t Jackanory or other such children’s tv programme do this many years ago? I’m sure I remember watching television in the 1970s or 80s – after Play School and before the ‘infant’ offering (what were these? I can’t recall), John Craven's Newsround and then the ‘junior’ offering (a children’s drama or Blue Pete...

On most days I know how lucky I am to work with words everyday, and in doing so, meet some of the most creative minds of the world. On other days I think I should be coding alone in a basement so that I can be paid without ever making a public appearance again. Don’t get me wrong...I teach and write, so I am quite comfortable pontificating in front of large (captive) audiences. The problem starts when I am being recorded doing so. As I write about Asia, and Asian audiences are right at the forefront of embracing our digitally visual world, I am finding it hard to avoid YouTube. I can, of course, always decline being videotaped, but I find myself more and more on camera, whether it is my publicist wanting a YouTube video, or a radio station in Chicago telling me that folks are much more likely to click on a YouTube link than an audio podcast (and then taping a  Part I and Part 2 !)  So I found myself at Star Malaysia’s TV studio in Kuala Lumpur in May; not only ...

Author's note: I have been fairly busy this week working on my annual self-evaluation at work. This is a yearly purging ritual in which I examine everything I did this past year and everything I didn't do this past year and then make the case that I am worthy to continue teaching the kiddos how to write and read. In theory this is a simple task that should take no more than a couple of hours. In practice, however, it looks more like this: I am thus behind in my monthly column here at Authors Electric. Fortunately, though, I have another blog I haven't written for in years (and that no one read anyway), so I am re-purposing an older column from there. I hope you enjoy it. YouTube Poetry Making Garble A few years ago, I did  some consulting work for a textbook company; I watched some teaching videos and wrote summaries for the company's web page. I discovered that  YouTube has a transcript function for most of its videos, so I thought I could cut some corners...

Hope it's a good one! It falls to me once more (and it comes round scarily quickly) to wish you all a very happy new year, and a good year to come. To celebrate, Authors Electric are not charging you to read this blog… but then we never do. Nor do all the other bloggers I know of. In fact, our online lives, lucky us, are crammed with Free Stuff. Woohoo! Spoiled rotten, we are. Facebook? Free. Wikipedia? Wonga-less. Google? Gratis. Amazon? Amazingly free to publish with and awash with free Kindle books. Youtube? Yes, buckshee as well. And yet, and yet… Something odd happens when people get things for nowt. On the one hand, they start to resent paying for stuff. On the other hand, they have less respect for the free stuff. They take it for granted. An example. When you are holding a poetry reading or a book event, if you sell tickets in advance even if they are just £3, people are more likely to turn up on the night. Give away the tickets, and if it rains, they’ll stay away in dr...

Coventry Writers' Group, the wonderfully supportive and excellent writing group to which I belong, has just, for the second year running, put on a performance of our work as part of the Coventry Literature Festival. We performed at the Criterion Theatre, Earlsdon, Coventry, who very kindly hosted us and even made some of our costumes. We read and acted out a variety of short stories, short plays, poems, factual articles and timely advice from Coventry City Council on how to deal with a zombie invasion. And that was just the start! The photo below shows us in action at our dress rehearsal. Photo by Derek Medcraft My offering was a short and (I hope) humorous poem about the trials and tribulations of an aspiring writer who is rather premature in trying to sell her work. She is enthusiastic and slightly mad (so lots of acting needed there!) It has some slight relevance to what we Electric Authors are trying to do... so my apologies and please don't be offended, anyone. I...