May 2012
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Things Unswept: An ENO Mini Opera
This is a piece I have written for the ENO Mini Opera Competition. It is a response to Neil Gaiman’s ‘The Sweeper of Dreams’, which you can read here. The writing phase of the competition closes tomorrow, but you can read more about the musical and video parts of the comp over at the Mini Operas website. My Mini Opera is called ‘Things Unswept’.
I hope you like it.
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April 2012
8 posts
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Chinese Checkers and Grapes (Artist In Residence...
“Lyndon, do you know what the meaning of life is?” “I’ve got an idea of what makes me happy mate, but I don’t think anyone knows the meaning of life, do they?” “I do. It’s Chinese Checkers. And grapes.”
Whenever one of the students says something like this to me - something wild and surreal and impossibly funny - I write it down. Now...
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It Will Be Sunny One Day... →
Letters of Note collects Stephen Fry’s remarkable letter to a young fan suffering from depression.
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The Ultimate Guide To Writing Better Than You... →
This article by Colin Nissan on McSweeney’s, is both incredibly funny and incredibly true:
Mark Twain once said, “Show, don’t tell.” This is an incredibly important lesson for writers to remember; never get such a giant head that you feel entitled to throw around obscure phrases like “Show, don’t tell.” Thanks for nothing, Mr. Cryptic.
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The Poetry Prizes (Artist In Residence Blog #2)
I’ve been attending all the K-5 assemblies while I’ve been in my residency at St. Helens, to give me a chance to look at what the kids are doing, and to celebrate their achievements with them. In these assemblies the teachers give out a couple of certificates to students who cannot be awarded academically. I suppose you might call them ‘citizenship awards’, usually for un-instructed kindnesses of...
“Suppose, instead of waiting for a job offer from The New Yorker, suppose next...”
– Robert Krulwich (via Discover)
(via gracebello)
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The Most Important Y.A. Novel of 2012: John...
This post was written for the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Tasmanian branch, of which I am currently acting as judge. The organisers of their official blog have kindly allowed me to reproduce the post. You can find the original here.
A few weeks ago I received a package from America. I was rightly ecstatic, because it came from an independent bookstore in North Carolina,...
March 2012
3 posts
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Small Town, Big Deal (Artist In Residence Blog #1)
“There are no secrets in St. Helens,” I was told, and I didn’t quite believe it.
Shopping for my first meal and finding teachers and students lining the aisles, however, I soon realised that the tightness of this school and its community were unparalleled by anything I had seen before. I don’t mean to be critical or dismissive of the school’s smallness, but instead...
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A Quick Word... On The Harry Potter Alliance
When Andrew Slack finished the Harry Potter books he felt, like most of us, a little disappointed. Not because the story was bad, but because it was kind of awesome. And now suddenly it was over, and all that magic was gone from his life. Why couldn’t the real world be more like Harry’s, with forces of evil and darkness to be overcome? Why couldn’t we be in Dumbledore’s...
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Anonymous asked: Is The Hectic Glow a real band?
February 2012
3 posts
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Happy Birthday Charlie D
I can still remember my first experience of Charles Dickens. I was at the Palladium Theatre in London, aged 5, about to see my first ever live theatre show. It was a massive revival for the musical Oliver! which had been out of circulation since 1983, and was being brought back in grand style and to much acclaim, with a young Sam Mendes as director, and a killer performance by Jonathan Pryce...
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“More than ever we need to recognise the worth of our own fiction that tells us...”
– Richard Flanagan (from “Sheep Management” in And What Do You Do Mr. Gable?)
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The Seemingly Obligatory Birthday Blog 2012 (Part...
22. Mum calls it the two little ducks.
And after turning 21 the year before, 22 feels like a funny number. Like it doesn’t mean anything, or maybe just means less. But of course as much has changed about my life in the last year as any year that has preceded it. And the 12-months ahead promise to be some of the most exciting (and busy) yet. I’ve picked up a scholarship to work...
January 2012
6 posts
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What is LSATWQ.com and why should we be scared? Or... →
I submit myself to the demands of this VERY FAKE DOSSIER.
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Walk To Mordor - Fitness Challenge 2012
I recently bought a Jawbone UP fitness band, and since buying it I’ve been excited about the idea of doing a fitness challenge for 2012. I thought about trying to walk the equivalent distance from one city to another, or around the world, but then thought: Wouldn’t it be interesting to walk somewhere I could never go in real life?
Within a minute, the Walk To Mordor challenge was...
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A Nameless Grave
On New Year’s Eve I went to the cemetery looking for inspiration. I found more than a hundred characters amongst the tombstones of that afternoon, and I sat and wrote my own biographies for a handful of them. But there was one tombstone which I couldn’t do one for. It had cracked and degraded to the point that it was unreadable now, and yet I liked its character more than any of the...
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December 2011
7 posts
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A New Year's Benediction
Neil Gaiman often writes a New Year’s benediction for his fans, and reads them publicly, before posting them on his blog. You can find an example of one, turned into a poster, here.
This year I decided, inspired by Neil’s own versions, that I would write you one of my own. So here are my hopes for each of you in the year ahead:
I hope next year is slightly better than you are...
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The Heart of Christmas
This afternoon I had an email of the kind you don’t get often. It was a true story, beautiful and gentle, and a reminder of the way Christmas can bring into sharp focus the absolute power of human kindness. I fought back tears. I was, in fact, broken a little by the end of it, and then I was put back together again. Its author wishes to remain anonymous, and I respect that wish, and hope...
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“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that...”
– Charles Dickens
(via decrepito)
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A Quick Word... Goodbye To Stories Bookshop
Stories Bookshop has changed far too much to be considered the same shop that it was when it first opened. Nonetheless, in its many disguises and locations it has served teachers and children all around Tasmania for forty years - no small achievement. I started working at the shop just over six years ago. It was my first job, though perhaps to call it one job would be a gross...
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WatchA really fantastic short film by Nick Scott and Michael Berliner, starring Jonathan Rhodes, called ‘School Portrait’.
Keep smiling.
November 2011
9 posts
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Death of the Book
he finds her lying dead that day, her ribboned hair now gone astray, her tattooed body strewn away, her spine, her blood, across the floor.
no longer feeling her pages turning, no longer knowing her words all burning, no longer cared for, no longer yearning, no longer wanted, anymore. he says: “well mate, this is just it, it’s a whole new world and some don’t fit. the pace,...
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“How do you do it? You do it.
You write.
You finish what you write.
You...”
– It really is as simple, and as difficult, as this.
http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/FAQs/Advice_to_Authors (via neil-gaiman)
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A Quick Word... On Adaptations
Today I threw open the doors, and appealed to friends and followers for ideas for today’s post. I’ve selected my favourites from the list for what has become a many-topic-Monday, and I’m going to comment on a few of them as the week goes on. I think this is probably good for everyone. These are not always things that I would typically write about, and they’re probably...
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The Same Room (A Half-Minute Horror-Story)
I have been reading Susan Rich’s Half-Minute Horrors, which features stories by Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, Holly Black, and others, and I have really enjoyed these quick, fun scares.
So I decided to write one of my own. It’s called ‘The Same Room’. I hope you like it.
The Same Room:
When I was five, there was a lady who called herself ‘Auntie...
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October 2011
9 posts
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A Quick Word... On Erin Morgenstern's 'The Night...
Reading Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus is a bit like reading a clockwork dream.
I promised myself that I wouldn’t write that sentence, but that is simply how it is. Everything in The Night Circus is bright and colourful and more magical than life could ever hope to emulate - jumping from moment to moment in the way of only the most impressive and bizarre night-time fantasies. ...
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“In short, quit. Writing a novel is a tiny candle in a dark, swirling world. It...”
– Lemony Snicket (via cafeofthedamned)
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'Get To Robert McKee'
You may be interested to hear that Tasmanian online journal Islet has published another one of my guest posts, this one about my experience at the Robert McKee STORY Seminar in Sydney earlier this year.
The piece begins:
His students have gone on to write stories as diverse as Sex and The City, Toy Story 3 and The Fighter, and include talents that range from William Goldman and Geoffrey Rush...
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A Quick Word... Hello
Hello.
Today, after three years of writing a blog at http://lyndonswords.blogspot.com, I have moved to Tumblr.
At Blogger I kept a (sort of) weekly collection of musings that steadily got more and more readers, and eventually made me very happy indeed. I’m hoping that they will move over here with me, because it would be very sad to be without them.
What you should know, if you have just...
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tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST HUMAN MEMORY?
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Hello Tumblr
Hello Tumblr.
I’ve been watching you, from a distance, silently and anonymously for some time now.
And now I’m speaking.
It’s lovely to meet you.