The art of making paper was kept secret for hundreds of years.
Read MoreThe art of writing originated from a very prosaic need, not a creative impulse
Books I'm reading or about to read
in Quick looks, Reviews, Bookshelf
I’ve been sent the following books by publishers, and will review them in due course. Here is some information about them.
Read MoreIf you learnt how to write well at school, maybe you're lucky
The typical school writing assignment involves working in a way that no real writer does.
Read MoreLet's hear it for the introverts!
This review was originally published in Teach Secondary magazine, and so is aimed at teachers rather than writers, but as writers are often called upon to speak in public I thought this might be useful for them too!
Read More
Click the image to see this book on Amazon (affiliate link)
Review: 99 Variations on a Proof
It was, surely, only a matter of time before someone would take Raymond Queneau’s idea of exercises in style and apply it to mathematics.
Read MoreYe olde book signing
I’ve recently finished a course on Macbeth and Othello, and I’ve been doing some research.
Read More
A blogger, by Terry Freedman
AI for bloggers
In my recent blogging course, I abandoned my carefully-prepared lesson, or part pf it, threw caution to the winds, and suggested to the class that we experiment with using AI for writing blog posts. Here’s a partial blog post it came up with, which you will agree is utter rubbish…
Read MoreAn intriguing interlude on the Underground
Travelling back from my saxophone lesson on Saturday, a very attractive young woman kept looking at me. Did I finally have sax appeal I asked myself.
Read More
Photo by Terry Freedman
An embarassing interlude on the Overground
Last week, Elaine, a friend of hers (D) and I went to an art gallery. On our return we caught the Overground train at Highbury and Islington, heading towards Stratford….
Read MoreWhat makes a great and successful writer?
in Creative Writing, EiS
This is a transcript of a conversation between Fred Terryman and myself. It’s been lightly edited, with the pauses taken out for ease of reading.
Read More
Click the image to see this book on Amazon (affiliate link)
Review: Adventures in Maps
This beautifully illustrated volume has relevance to several different curriculum areas, containing as it does accounts of intrepid historical journeys that range from 16th century seafaring voyages to Arctic crossings and even the surveys undertaken to facilitate the moon landings.
Read More
Click the image to see this book on Amazon (affiliate link)
Review: Write, Cut, Rewrite
Perhaps the second hardest thing for a writer to do (after commencing work in the first place) is to delete parts of what they’ve written.
Read More
My writing-related filing cabinets, by Terry Freedman
Creative writing using constraints: a bit of a post-mortem
I think evaluations are very odd devices to be honest. Someone once “marked me down” on her evaluation of a one day course I was running on the grounds that the traffic was terrible.
Read MoreExperiments in style: Art critic
in EiS, Creative Writing
One of the things I’ve been trying out is reworking a piece of text into a completely different style. In today’s experiment I’d like to tell the story in the style of a review of an art exhibition.
Read More
More about the creative writing course I'll be teaching: books
In London on June 8th I’ll be teaching a course called Creative Writing Using Constraints, an introduction to the world of the Oulipo. This is a round-up of some of the books I’ll be referring to and talking about.
Read More
Terry Freedman. Photo by Elaine Freedman.
How I prepared for one of my courses
in Handy hints
On the 8th June I’ll be teaching a course called Creative Writing with Constraints. (Note the word “constraints”, not “restraints”.) This article outlines how I prepared for it.
Read MoreCould a book on time travel be useful for English teachers?
A book on temporal adventures may seem like an odd inclusion here, but it can actually be used in many ways.
Read More
Click the image to see this book on Amazon (affiliate link)
Review: A Date with Language: Fascinating Facts, Events and Stories for Every Day of the Year
David Crystal has triumphed again. This is a fascinating book containing hundreds of concise entries on quirky occasions, literary facts and significant events.
Read MoreThe case of the disappearing noble: A Sherlock Holmes mystery
in Creative Writing, EiS
Holmes and I were in our lodgings in Baker Street. He was drawing out a melancholy tune on his violin, whilst I was reading the latest edition of The Lancet. The silence was unexpectedly broken by the ringing of the bell.
Read More
Review of Triggered Literature -- useful for English teachers
At a time when even Noddy books have been declared ‘problematic’ due to their use of archaic terms such as ‘swot’ (since changed to ‘bookworm’), some of us might may feel the temptation to unleash our inner ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’ in response.
Read More