I did a brief poem – which ended up shortlisted on the Wordsworth page in this week’s Listener. (March 7-13, 2015) We were required to take a well-known poem, and boil it down to 4-5 lines. I boiled down Dylan Thomas. It ain’t a bloody ‘good’ night mate, and – I don’t anticipate, Doing anything …
February 2015 archive
The Vet (My Wild and Wonderful Friends) by Luke Gamble
Hardcover, published 2011 by Two Roads, (UK) I always enjoy a good ‘vet book’, no vet runs a practise for long without having some great stories to tell so the only question becomes, can the author tell the stories well? And that ranges from adequate to terrific. This book happily falls into the terrific category. …
Mystery
Sadly it isn’t the usual mystery we get around here. They tend to be mostly amusing, this isn’t. Last year a friend gave me a gorgeous and very large rooster named Oscar. Oscar was a good rooster, quiet, gentle, and not a nuisance. But about a week ago he canished, and there’s been no sign …
A Pubic Character by Steve Johnson.
I do wish that some publishers would do a better job on copyediting. I’m happy to say that those who publish my friend Lyn’s books do, but here and there over the years I’ve spotted some very mixed outcomes in books by favourite authors. I always enjoyed Corgi’s J.T.Edson westerns, but wondered over the years …
New Story Accepted
Yes, UGLY GIRL has just sold to THE DRAGON’S HOARD anthology to appear from Sky Warrior Books. Happily not only do they have a knack for chosing inmteresting themes, I seem to have a knack for writing stories they’ll like, and long may that continue.
XIII edited Mark Teppo, published Resurrection House, February 2015.
theme anthology of stories and poems. Reviewed by Steve Johnson. This anthology wins on both counts. The appearance of the anthology is stunning. It’s stark, a mere three colours, but it makes you stop and look and that is exactly what cover art should do. And as for the work, I really liked stories by …
The Water Is Wide by Liz Gilbey.
Hardcover, published Robert Hale (London) 2010. I can only say that this is an excellent example of a book that while ostensibly a romance, has all the ingredients that grab someone like me who isn’t that fixated on romance books. The background of a canal and canal boats is authoratative. The characters are real people …
Best Quote
I ran across this quote the other day and it amused the heck out of me. SO true! “There are worse crimes than burning books. One is not reading them!”
Magazine item
yup, SALT OF THE EARTH, a short humorous item appeared in THAT’S LIFE magazine early January 2015.
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‘Thunderous’ Applause.
28 February 2015
Here in New Zealand we may have slightly different cat food available, I’m not certain. But my Ocicat, Thunder, gets a three-way mix in cat biscuits – he refuses to eat almost any other form of cat food, although he’s happy to occasionally steal something from my plate if I’m not watching closely enough. I …
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