I have just published two new episodes on my "Walking Thru' Fire" podcast; both are short stories. "Downsizing" - sometimes short stories can surprise you, emerging not from specific ideas or experiences, but growing organically from seeds which you are later unable to identify or remember. “Downsizing” is one such story. It will be included … Continue reading Two New Podcast Episodes
Category: Reading
New Podcast Episode: “The Homelessness of a Child”
I have just added readings of poems from my collection The Homelessness of a Child to my podcast "Walking Thru Fire". You can find this episode - and many others! - on Buzzsprout, and it should find its way onto other podcast platforms - such as Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music etc. - in the next … Continue reading New Podcast Episode: “The Homelessness of a Child”
“Tea at the Midland”
The stories in David Constantine's "Tea at the Midland" are a little like stained glass windows: sometimes you see fully formed portals through which the sun shines, and on other occasions just a fragment or two of glass glinting in the sun. As a consequence - and as I may have said before - don't … Continue reading “Tea at the Midland”
“Lockdown Journal”
At the beginning of the UK's first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, Hamish Wilson began writing a series of sonnets. With one a day for the first twenty-five days of the period, these poems eventually became "Lockdown Journal". Many single Covid / lockdown poems written at the time seem to me to fail for two main … Continue reading “Lockdown Journal”
“Klara and the Sun”
I was left strangely underwhelmed by Kazuo Ishiguro's "Klara and the Sun". It wasn't the quality or style of Ishiguro's writing (which to my mind has only failed to come up to scratch in "The Unconsoled"), nor in the inventiveness of the basic premise. I think I felt left down by the way the plot … Continue reading “Klara and the Sun”
New Podcast Episode
I have just added readings of a few selected poems from my collection First-Time Visions of Earth from Space to my podcast "Walking Thru Fire". You can find this episode - and many others! - on Buzzsprout, and it should find its way onto other podcast platforms - such as Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music etc. … Continue reading New Podcast Episode
“The Field”
Often the challenge with 'portmanteau' novels such as Robert Seethaler's "The Field" is one of maintaining a cohesive narrative thread throughout the work in order to prevent it from fragmenting into discrete and inadequately connected portraits. The premise behind "The Field" - the deceased, all buried in the same graveyard in a small European town, … Continue reading “The Field”
“The Angels of L19”
It is difficult to like Jonathan Walker's "The Angels of L19" - in the sense of the novel giving you a warm, comfortable, fuzzy feeling - but impossible not to admire it. Without doubt it is a real pressure-cooker of a book: intense, unrelenting, dark, ominous, ambiguous, challenging. Perhaps the latter most of all. Not … Continue reading “The Angels of L19”
“In the Night Wood”
You know those TV programmes that are naturally about 45 minutes long but which, in order to fit them into a schedule, are padded out to fill an hour? Well, Dale Bailey's "In the Night Wood" struck me as a little bit like that: it would perhaps have benefitted from being a little shorter, losing … Continue reading “In the Night Wood”
New “Walking Thru Fire” Podcast Episode
I have just added a reading of the first chapter of my 2019 novel, At Maunston Quay, to my podcast "Walking Thru Fire". You can find the episode immediately on Buzzsprout, and it should find its way onto other podcast platforms - such as Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music etc. - in the next 24 hours … Continue reading New “Walking Thru Fire” Podcast Episode
Ian Gouge - Writer 