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I wasn’t looking forward to Venice. I know – sacrilege, right? I wondered at myself. What did it say about me? Did it mean I was tired of life, as Samuel Johnson once said of London? But on our [...]

I’d like today to write a disquisition on walking.  The subject might fascinate me because I am myself so bad at it. Whatever the reason, though, I’m sitting now on a turn of the Rio Malcanton, a [...]

However grand your story idea, however vivacious your characters, the success of any writing project always boils down to the sentences you write, and the words you use to do so. This is, of [...]

Writers observe. Their observations serve as the foundations on which characters are built and stories developed. We’re in Venice at the moment on our annual retreat – rudely interrupted by Covid [...]

Creative writing is not, as some suppose, an arcane art over which only the select few are ever granted mastery, or to which there is access via a magic key, a secret skill available only to the [...]

I’m sure I share at least one idiosyncrasy with many millions of my fellow human beings: I love to watch people. I could quite happily spend an entire morning on a sidewalk café simply eyeing my [...]