60 Seconds with Marc Acito

Marc won the Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play with his comedy Birds of a Feather. He is the head writer of the musical Allegiance, which won the Craig Noel Award for Outstanding New Musical and broke the all-time box-office record at the Old Globe. He is also the book writer of A Room with a View, which played at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle.

With Tony Award-winning producer Dede Harris, he is developing a one-man “monologsical” of his first novel How I Paid for College, which won the Ken Kesey Award for Fiction and was an Editors' Choice for The New York Times. Translated into five languages the author cannot read, the novel inspired a sequel, Attack of the Theater People. Other projects in development include a mini-musical with Broadway legend Sheldon Harnick. He recently became the first writer to receive two NAMT grants in one year.

Now a regular contributor to Playbill, Marc did numerous commentaries to the 12 million listeners of NPR’s All Things Considered. He teaches Story Structure to writers of all mediums at NYU.

marcacito.com



Which work (literary, stage, cinema) most influenced you when growing up?

The Wizard of Oz. Though I still don’t understand why Dorothy wanted to go back to Kansas. I would’ve stayed in Oz.

Where do you write? What’s on your desk and why?

I don’t have a desk. I write everywhere: the bed, the couch, the table, the toilet. Since writing isn’t just typing, I do a lot of “writing" when walking my dog.

Who or what had the biggest impact on your creative life?

My husband, Floyd Sklaver. He inspires me, challenges me. He’s both my editor and my muse. He knew I was a writer well before I did.

How does the conventional theatre structure influence your writing?

When it comes to structure, it’s all (Ancient) Greek to me. Everything else is just old wine in new bottles.

Do you have tropes that you most overuse?

Maybe one of these days I’ll stop writing about repressed people finding their true selves.

What are the benefits of the collaborative creative process?

There’s someone to argue with rather than just myself.

As a coach and creative writing teacher, what would you say is the most common mistake writers make?

Don’t be boring.

You work across a lot of genres. Where are you most comfortable?

Believe it or not, scholarly essays. If I didn’t have such extreme anxiety with taking tests, I probably would’ve gone to grad school and become an academic.

As an ex-drama student, I found How I Paid For College hilarious. What makes you laugh?
I am a connoisseur of youtube videos in which stupid people fall down and hurt themselves.

Will we see more of Edward Zanni?

Edward will be gracing the stage next year in a one-man musical adaptation of How I Paid for College.

Which book/show/exhibition/TV series has impressed you most this year?

I’m in the midst of gobbling Susie Gilman’s The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street, delicious sentence by sentence, page by page. It’s like a hot fudge sundae version of two of my favorite books, Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

Would you share what you’re working on next?

It’s all theater all the time for me now. Given the stop-start, push-me-pull-you nature of that business, I’m working on several projects at once on subjects as varied as the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War Two; the adolescence of Judy Garland; a musical adaptation of E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View; and a play about Albert Einstein.


Finally, which ice-cream flavour best represents your personality?

I’d say Ben and Jerry’s Turtle Cheesecake: an unexpected twist on something traditional; a little nutty, a little flaky and swirling inside.

60 Seconds with Jonathan Gibbs

A writer and journalist born in Trinidad and raised in Essex, Jonathan did an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, and receiving the Malcolm Bradbury Bursary. Followed by a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing, which comprised Randall, or The Painted Grape, and a critical essay, Beyond Ekphrasis: The Role and Function of Artworks in the Novels of Don DeLillo. He currently teaches undergraduate modules on Creative Writing and The Writing of Journalism, and is a regular columnist for The Independent and the Times Literary Supplement. Jonathan's debut novel, Randall, or The Painted Grape, was published on 19 June 2014 by Galley Beggar Press.

http://tinycamels.wordpress.com/

Who or what had the biggest impact on your creative life?

Hard question! Parents? School? A particular author? A particular book? I don’t think I can pinpoint one person or thing that has influenced me more than anything else. Different things have had different impacts at different times. In terms of this novel, Randall, I suppose the Creative Writing degrees I did at UEA in Norwich, where I wrote it, had a huge influence. The people there, the sense of having a goal, the feeling of being part of a community all pushed me to make it the book it is.

Augusto Boal described internal oppressors as The Cop in the Head. How do you silence the reviewer to leave the writer in peace?

Oh boy, that cop. They’re useful, of course, but you need to keep them at bay for huge stretches of your writing time. I use two things that I know other writers hate: music, and alcohol. A glass of wine, or two, when writing late at night, banishes the usual inhibitions – that any particular set of words you happen to get down on screen look useless, the moment you see them – and lets me get the scene done. Not all the time, and not during the day, but it can give you that extra burst of energy you need at the end of a tiring day, and make the process of first-drafting more fun that is often otherwise is.

Music I use during the day when I’m writing. Particular types of music, particular albums – and usually one album on repeat, so that it sinks into my unconscious, and I can listen without hearing. I love the rhythm of it, it helps the rhythm of the writing – frees the Dancer in the Head, that the Cop in the Head wants to shut down. Just nodding along to something, sat in my chair, helps me get out of myself, and into that imaginative space where the novel is taking place. (Thinking about it, walking is a great help to writing, and the rhythm of music is perhaps the closest you can get to that while sat in your chair.)

Do you have tropes, phrases or words that you most overuse?

Ask my editors! I think Sam and Elly at Galley Beggars pointed out a preponderance of my characters to “sit themselves” in chairs, rather than just sit, and I know I’m always having them look at each other, and smile. Just stupid behavioural descriptors like that.

Short stories or novels – where do you feel most freedom?

Novels, I suppose. Stories, which I don’t write that many, are usually built around one idea, one moment, one trick I want to try to pull off, and so the writing of them is usually targeted at that goal. They’re something I want to try, or get out of my system. Novels are more explorative. I don’t know what’s going to happen, or I’m always keen to find a way to subvert or derail what I do think is going to happen.

What makes you laugh?

Happy people. Stupid people. Smart people. Clumsy people. Puns, screwball back-and-forth, intellectual slapstick. So many different kinds of laughter. Laughter is a cultural manifestation. I’m not sure I want to think too hard about what I laugh at.

Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the state of British literature?

Hum. Well, it keeps going, doesn’t it? There are loads of great writers out there, and they’re getting published, in some form or other, so to that extent I’m optimistic. What I’m pessimistic about is the ability of British publishing, and of publishing in general, to serve British literature. I don’t like reading stuff digitally, and I have all sorts of sentimental attachment to books. Like most people, if I don’t have a book to hand, I’d rather be browsing Twitter or reading some online journalism than reading a book on a tablet or phone. Holding a book-as-object in your hand makes reading a whole-body thing. I just don’t see people reading books on buses and trains like they used to, and I don’t really blame them. Nobody’s yet written the story I’d prefer to read onscreen than on the page, and the culture seems to be conspiring against the page, so that makes me sad.

Where do you write? What’s on your desk and why?

At my desk. On it: monitor, keyboard, dictionaries, thesaurus, useful books etc – I love looking stuff up when I’m writing, love building up a pile of mess that I can then clear away to nothing – also Post-it notes, water, coffee, a screwdriver, rubber bands, all sorts of crap. This is the desk that I work my day job at, too, so it’s far from the monkish ideal.

Confess a guilty reading pleasure.

Haven’t got one. You won’t find me reading a book that I’d feel guilty about reading. Either that means I don’t read crap, or it’s not crap if I’m reading it, right?

Is there a book you were supposed to love but didn’t? Or one you expected to hate and fell for?

I really thought I’d love Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers, or at least envy it. It was tackling the same art world that Randall is set in, and I’d heard great things about the zippy, muscular prose style. (I love Don DeLillo, and got the impression that was the kind of thing we were talking.) But I found it overwritten, in a very American way: forceful, but wilfully slapdash at the same time, like a cool kid who very much wants to look like they think they’re not being looked at while they groove away in the corner of the disco.

Your fascination with book design – where does that come from?

From beautiful books – and then from the beginnings of an understanding of how books are more than objects, they are a technology, and they exist to serve a market. Why do Penguin have NINE different editions of Frankenstein across their adult and children’s imprints? Why does Morrissey insist on being a Penguin Classic then have such a large font and wide spacing (roughly 25% fewer words per page than my Penguin Classic Moby Dick!). When a publisher reissues an author’s back catalogue in a new design, what are they trying to do? Books are texts wrapped in their own advertisements. I love what they look like, and what they tell us about ourselves as readers.

What are the benefits of publishing with a small press like Galley Beggar?

Attention and focus. Immediacy of response. Delicious home-cooked food. Being able to look your editor in the eye without feeling they have a great machine behind them that will skew their reply.

Would you share what you’re working on next?

I have a novel and a YA novel, both in rough first draft, and I’m toying with which to run. Probably the novel: it’s about the pop music industry, in the way that Randall is about the art world – as with the book design thing, I’m fascinated by the way technology has driven the art form (pop/rock music) that I grew up thinking was somehow naturally, instinctively, authentically creative.


Money’s no object – which artwork would you buy?

A big 17th Century oil painting, something by Poussin or Claude. Something as far removed from any piece of art I’d actually be likely to every own. Something that would totally dominate any room it was hung in. A landscape or Classical scene, that I would lose myself in – those Mediterranean hills shading into the distance, the high, feathery trees, the people in their important configurations.

Read the Bookmuse review of Randall.

Cities of Refuge

by Catriona Troth

I have written before about writers who are refugees and asylum seekers – particularly those who are part of Freedom from Torture’s Write to Life group, so I was intrigued to be asked to write about the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN).

Extremism (2013) by ICORN guest writer Fadi Abou Hassan, Drøbak city of refuge 

ICORN offers a place of refuge to writers who, as a direct consequence of their writing are either

· At risk of being killed, abducted, physically attacked or “disappearing”.

· Sentenced to (or at risk of being sentenced to) a prison term

· Unable to express themselves freely for fear of persecution

Some of the most vulnerable writers have already fled to other countries when they apply and are living without status, often in extreme economic hardship.

Each city focuses on one writer at a time, providing a Guest Writer with a safe place to stay and economic security for two years. The guest writers can work in safe surroundings and take part in the cultural life of the host city. They are also given time to think about a more permanent solution to their situation.

ICORN works in closely with PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee, who evaluate each application and determine the authenticity of any declared danger or the likelihood of threatened persecution being carried out. However, the decision to invite any given writer rests with the individual City of Refuge.

2013 saw a dramatic increase in applications, driven in part by the war in Syria and in part by an increase in awareness of the role of ICORN. In the past twelve months, 29 writers have taken up residence in ICORN member cities. Current guest writers come from countries including Iraq, Palestine, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Yemen, China, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kyrgyzstan, Bangladesh, Yemen, Georgia and Belarus – but the majority currently come from Iran and Syria.

Lawon Barszczewski (photo credit - savboda.org)

ICORN’s newest guest writer is Lawon Barszczewski from Belarus, who has suffered discrimination for speaking out internationally about human rights abuses in his home country. Barszczewski was welcomed to Krakow , which in 2011 became first city in Central and Eastern Europe to join ICORN.

A Parliament of Writers

The concept of ICORN goes back to July 1993, when Algerian writer Tahar Djaout was assassinated. More than 300 writers signed a petition calling for a system of organised aid for persecuted writers. This led to the establishment of the International Parliament of Writers, with Salman Rushdie as its first president.

In 1995, the European Charter of Cities of Asylum was adopted by the Council of Europe, giving a legal and institutional framework for providing asylum to writers. This charter lay the foundations for the International Network of Cities of Asylum (INCA), which eventually expanded to include 34 cities in Europe, the USA and Africa. INCA was eventually disbanded in 2005. However those who had been involved did not want to see its goals and ideals abandoned and in December 2005, ICORN was formed, with its administrative centre in Stavanger, Norway.

ICORN currently comprises 44 cities in 14 countries. At present, the only active City of Refuge outside of Europe is Mexico City. The majority (29) are in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. There is one City of Refuge in the UK (Norwich), with others in the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Italy, France, Iceland, Slovenia and Poland. Those in the planning stages include cities in Switzerland, the USA, Colombia, South Africa, and Brazil.

Chenjerai Hove

Norway has been exceptional in its support of refugee writers. Those who come to one of its thirteen Cities of Refuge – as Zimbabwean writer Chenjerai Hove did in 2005 – are given an automatic residence permit, and the Cities of Refuge work is supported by the State. Because of this, those writers applying to ICORN who may never be able to return to their home countries are sent, wherever possible, to Norway.

Most, though, are not looking for permanent refugee status, but simply some time and space to write and to express themselves freely.

Sayar Bayati

My Language: My Treasure 

Of course, for many writers, while they gain a place of safety, they lose something too. Not only have they left behind their homes and families, but often their language as well. As Iranian writer Sahar Bayati (newly arrived guest writer in Haugesund City of Refuge in Norway) expressed it in an interview for Pen International, “I write in Persian, which is my treasure – I can play with words and explore, whereas in Norwegian I feel like a baby dependent on others.”

One thing all exiled writers want is a way to publish their work. In 2007, six ICORN cities (Barcelona, Brussels, Frankfurt, Norwich, Stavanger, and Stockholm) joined together to create Shahrazad Stories for Life, a website and project to promote the voices of all ICORN writers. The project ran until 2012, and at this year’s ICORN General Assembly in Ljubljana there were calls for another similar collaborative project to be launched, to provide a platform for publishing and touring, and to give writers training in digital self-publishing.

Helge Lund, Executive Director

Executive Director of ICORN, Helge Lunde has been involved with exiled writers since Stavanger became one of the first Cities of Asylum in 1998.

Mansur Rajih

Helge, what inspired you to become involved with writers in exile?

I started working a director of an international festival for literature and freedom of speech in my hometown Stavanger, Norway in 1998. At that time the city was already member of the International Parliament of Writers' (IPW) network of cities of asylum, and I became the coordinator for Mansur Rajih, a magnificent poet who came straight to Stavanger after 15 years imprisonment in Yemen. Then my future was sealed in many ways. Together with Norwegian PEN presiden,t Kjell Olaf Jensen, I worked with expanding the network to other cities in Norway, and when IPW and their network collapsed in 2005, I was very glad and privileged to take part in forming ICORN, which I have been directing since.

Norway provides some state support for Cities of Refuge – but how is the work financed elsewhere?

The Norwegian Cities of Refuge receives their guest writers as refugees, hence the major basic expenses (salary, housing) is covered by the state, as with all other UN refugees. This is an exception; ICORN as such is a long term, but temporary placement system. Although there are regional and national similarities, every city of refuge is composed in different ways, structurally and financially. The municipality is in charge, but gains support from several sources/partners, private, public, local, national, trans-national.

Living in a city for two years is very different from visiting for a couple of weeks. What support are writers given to cope with the culture shock and the change of language?

Exchange of ideas and experiences between member cities, between guest writers and throughout the entire network is the key to upholding a sustainable refuge systeme of this kind. We see win-win situtations between host cities and guest writers multiply, but many times it takes weeks, months, even towards a year before a persecuted and traumatized writer can feel safe enough to engage actively with the host community.

For those who do not want to claim permanent refugee status, what happens when they return to their home countries? I imagine they remain on the radar of Pen International. Does their raised profile internationally tend to afford them some protection when they go home?

For those who are able to return to their home country after finishing their refuge in an ICORN city, ICORN, PEN International and other organisations/bodies are working together to maximise protection measures. A raised international profile usually helps, but unfortunately we also see examples of the opposite. What we call the "post placement challenge" is maybe the most pressing issue for an organisation like ICORN to tackle. There is and can never be one single solution to such a task, only increased, targeted efforts between all involved parties (the writers included) can keep the network going on a more sustainable basis.

Are there any writers’ stories that have particularly touched you over the years?

The stories are, luckily, mounting up. Lots of success stories, about writers who once were silenced and censored, who has, thanks to the fantastic work in/by the ICORN cities, has regained their strong and creative voice. I mentioned Mansur Rajih, arriving in Stavanger already in 1998. Many years later I could hear him shouting from his guest writer office nearby my own desk. Rushing out to see what was happening, I soon realised that he was shouting into a phone his message to a large crowd in his hometown Sanaa, in Yemen, which gathered at the market place could hear Mansur inspire them to keep up the good spirit of the Arab uprisings.

How would you like to see ICORN expand and develop over the next few years?

To see even one new ICORN city develop, and in the end successfully invite and integrate their first guest writer, is worth all what we have invested in the ICORN network so far. Luckily, we see the network growing, and it will be amazing to follow in the next months and years how new shelter cities emerge, not only in Europe, but increasingly also in Canada, US, Latin America, Australia and Africa.

Thank you, Helge.

You can read more about ICORN and hear the stories of the guest writers in their own words at www.icorn.org. Or you can follow them on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ICORN_ORG

Swedish Pen publishes the Dissident Blog, which includes the ICORN Relay – a series of post from ICORN guest writers.

The Industry View - The Independent Bookseller

Peter Snell is the manager of Barton's Bookshop in Leatherhead, Surrey.
Barton's is a proper independent with great books, cards, maps, knowledgeable staff, Henry the giant teddy, free coffee and a comfy sofa by the fire.



Why did you become a bookseller?

I think that I have always been a bookseller, I just didn't know it until I started. Books and words have always been important to me. I can't remember learning to read but I used to read the classifieds on the front
 of The Times at 4. Family meal times always featured the two volume Shorter OED on the dining table and my father spoke ten languages and our house was full of books. I had worked in insurance and for IBM, I did a history degree and retrained as a teacher, became very ill about 20 years ago and as part of my strategy to get my life up and running again started working half a day a week in a local bookshop. Two years later the manager became very ill herself and I took over. Six years ago my wife bought the business to keep me employed and so Barton's Bookshop was born.
In a nutshell, I became a bookseller by accident/design and found it fitted me perfectly. My IBM database skills, history research skills and breadth of reading over the years fitted me perfectly for the job. I am
not a specialist in anything but I am a very good generalist and know enough about lots of different things to be able to understand what customers are looking for and find the right book for them.

Bookshops are one of the first places I seek out in a new town or city. What makes a visit to a bookshop such a special experience?

Assuming we are talking about independents then that is probably the major clue to what you should expect. Anything. One of the joys of proper bookshops is the way they are individually curated and mould themselves to their owners and customers. You would expect to find staff who know books and care about them and who want to help customers. A fuller answer to this question can be found in Mark Forsyth's "The Unknown Unknown". Proper bookshops are full of serendipitous opportunities. They are hand-selling
centres full of hidden gems and treasures. You never know what you are going to find, but rest assured you will always come away with a new friend in your hand.

The media is wringing its hands over the demise of independent bookshops. Have rumours of the death of the bookseller been greatly exaggerated?

This the scariest question you have posed me. Undoubtedly there are fewer independent bookshops than when I started bookselling. Hopefully the cull has left the stronger businesses still trading and their increasing
scarcity is making them destination shops. I can't imagine the closure of all bookshops but I am sure that quite a lot more will fade away over the next decade. Reducing the numbers should make the remaining few that more precious. I talk to many customers who are turning away from online purchasing and deliberately seeking out proper bookshops because they want us still to be around when they need our advice or assistance in the years to come.  

I know many book lovers who use an eReader, but none who'd be prepared to give up physical books. Is it the smell, the feel or the beautiful covers which inspire loyalty?

All the points you raise are valid but so many people work on screens these days and have multi-function home entertainment centres that there also seems to be a desire to get away from backlit displays whenever
possible. There are those who love to show off their books on shelves and see them as friends. Whenever I visit a stately home, NT property or even new friends I can't help looking at their bookshelves to help me gain some deeper understanding of their lives or of the people who used to live there.

I love the look and feel of a book. A finely crafted tome of the right size and weight is a thing of joy and, until you open the cover, full of so much possibility. Books are exciting and yes they do smell good too.

The physical accessibility of a book and being able to hold several pages open at one time is rewarding and difficult to replicate.

What makes Barton's such a success, in your view?

Peter and French work experience student, Max

My intention all along has been to create the sort of shop I would like to buy books from and serve customers in the way I would like to be served. If this has worked and is a success in your eyes then it must be that there are enough people around who think like me to make it work.

I have deliberately developed relationships with authors in recent years and hope that this is enabling me to bring exciting new talents to my customers and that they appreciate this added aspect to our service.

You're a great supporter of indie, or self-published authors. Why do you embrace those many regard as 'the great unwashed'?

I see no point in trying to compete with supermarkets and chain stores who often sell popular and best-seller titles at less than my wholesaler's prices. It falls on me then to discover the hidden gems, treasures and unknown authors whose books I can hand-sell to a discerning audience of readers. I read as many proofs and author submissions as I can to find books to recommend. Some of the best books I have read are by indie authors and so are some of the worst. However, the same holds true for traditionally published books.

Indie authors may well not fit snugly into publisher's categories and genres but this is not a reason to keep them off the shelves. They have something to say and tales to tell and I hope that I can help in some small way to "Spread The Words".

Which book has impressed you most this year?

That is probably the easiest question you have posed me. "Dead Ends" by Erin Lange is probably the best YA novel I have read in five, possibly ten years. Actually it isn't that easy a question because I have two other novels to nominate. The first is "An Unchoreographed Life" by Jane Davis and the second is "Lifeform Three" by Roz Morris. I could give you reviews but why not go to my website www.bartonsbookshop.co.uk and have a look at the comments there.

Nice easy one to finish with - how do you see the future of the publishing industry?

I do not foresee the death of the printed book but I think that there will be more authors' publishing cooperatives and artisan publishers appearing to cater for special books for special people. Perhaps something like the old Arts and Crafts Movement for literature. At the same time I fear that the larger publishing houses will merge even more and this will mean the rise of large and more conservative concerns at one end of the spectrum, which will leave room for smaller and more adventurous niche publishers as outlined above.

By JJ Marsh

The Secret to Writing a Series – Part 14 – or the real trick behind avoiding writer’s block by Derek Duggan

These days it is almost inconceivable to write a novel that isn’t going to be part of a series. Readers, apparently, can’t get enough of the same characters doing the same things endlessly. In fact, they cling to contrivances like, say, a magic baddie trying to kill a magic goodie only really while he’s at school and making sure to draw out his attempts to cover an entire school year so that the magic baddie can be defeated in a way that will allow the magic goodie and his friends to get an extra few points to ensure they win the house cup.

First let us take a look at the history of the series. The modern series was invented in 1955 by Ian Fleming when he released the third in the James Bond series of books, Moonraker. There had been many attempts at the series before, but they’d never quite made it past the sequel stage and most of these books disappeared into obscurity almost immediately after they were launched. How many of you have read Oliver UnTwisted,  1985, or Tolstoy’s massive flop A Bit of Arguing and then Everyone Getting Along?

Tolkien had a shot at this too, but ran out of steam at three, also in 1955, with the release of the ultimate volume of The Lord of the Rings, the prophetically titled Peter Jackson’s Pension. So Fleming was left to develop the format alone. He wrote fourteen books in all, many of them quite good, as nobody had realized at that time that there was no need to keep up any semblance of quality with a series. Since then, of course, there have been about 31 Bond books, including the rather good Young Bond series by Charlie Higson and the shatteringly awful Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks.

Writing a series is not for the faint of heart – Early attempter Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a ton of short stories featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, but when he tried to convert these into novels it sent him so mental in the face that he started trying to talk to ghosts and things until, in the end, the only person he spoke to was Bruce Willis.

Fleming avoided going bananas by being a bit of a subtle misogynist (allegedly).  You have to look in his books carefully to spot this, but if you think about it, calling a character Pussy Galore  (Goldfinger, 1959) could be interpreted as an example of this tendency. However, recently uncovered correspondence between him and his publisher that I’ve just made up shows that he had originally been much more even handed with his choice of character names and the title character of that particular novel, Auric Goldfinger, had originally been called Cock Uptheringpiece, so maybe we shouldn’t be too quick to judge. But finally the pressure of  keeping the quality up got to him and made him die.

So, how could he have avoided this early grave? Well, he could have taken a leaf out of Erle Stanley Gardner’s books about paint drying, or, as they are more commonly known, the Perry Mason series. This began in 1933 when Gardner realized that there was no Bargain Hunt on the telly in the afternoon and pensioners had nothing to do with their time other than smell faintly of wee. There were over eighty novels featuring lovable Perry and his pals and at the time of Gardner’s death there were 135 million copies of the books in print, which is, coincidently, exactly how many words there are in the bit of The Deathly Hallows where they just hang about doing a bit of camping while waiting for the big showdown at the end of the school year. The difference between Gardner and Fleming is that Gardner realized that in order to avoid a relatively hasty descent into madness and/or dying what he needed to do was to just stick to the formula and write each new book as if the previous ones never happened. And this simple system can really play into the hands of the lazy writer – you still have to actually sit down and type out eighty books, but you never have to worry about writer’s block or anything.

Of course, you need to come up with a simple hook. In Gardner’s case it is that someone is accused of a murder and then, despite what seems like overwhelming evidence at the start, it turns out they didn’t do it and after a bit of cross examination by Perry the real murderer fesses up, just like in real life.

A recent series that has taken this approach is Alexander McCall Smith’s The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency in which some people drink bush tea and some don’t and some people talk to their shoes. And some cars get fixed. This may seem pedestrian, but the hook, the clever bit, is that it all happens in Botswana, so people have funny names which is absolutely hilarious.

And that’s it. That’s all you need to write a series. Just pick a random place and have some people with funny names prove that someone didn’t kill someone else and you’re on your way to your first (of many) bestseller. Here’s a title you can have for free – Hamish Mc Floogenhat and his Outer Hebridian Key Cutting Shop. There’s no end to the possibilities with that one.

What are you waiting for?

Glad I could help.

Welsh Voices by Gillian Hamer (Part 1)

This month's theme is ‘Freedom’ which has influenced writers across the world for millennia, voices rising up in peace, anger, defiance and revenge – with words often the most powerful weapons. The lasting legacy today is the individual voices that come from places that have seen conflict, war and hardship … and Wales through its Celtic heritage in ancient history, to its economic history in more recent times, has surely seen its share of all of these.

As some of you will know, my books are all based in North Wales and I have a deep affinity with the country, its landscape and its people.

Here, I speak to a collection of talented writers, some who are Welsh born, others now live in Wales and some are simply moved to write about Wales or set their books there.

Whether it’s location, language or legend – there seems to be something special about Cymru.

JAN RUTH

www.janruth.com

Tell us a bit about yourself and your writing?
I live in Snowdonia, North Wales, UK.

This ancient, romantic landscape is a perfect setting for fiction. I write contemporary stories about people, with a good smattering of humour and drama, dogs and horses.

My first title (Wild Water) found an agent twenty years ago but sadly didn’t find its forever home as I fell into the ‘between genre’ trap. I enjoyed another dalliance with traditional publishing through an agent who wanted to sell love stories which were not in the traditional mould, but she couldn’t raise enough finances to get the project off the ground. Hence, I am now self-published but I do love the freedom of it! I can write in my ‘between-genre’ to my hearts’ content.

I’d describe my style as very contemporary fiction, mostly for women - however, lots of men have enjoyed my short stories. I use the landscape almost as a character in its own right and I do tend to write from the male perspective rather a lot (except for Midnight Sky).

What do you think Wales or Welsh history adds to literature?
I think it adds a unique and rich diversity, one we should all be proud of. Wales is a small area but packed with so much character; legend and history, ice-age landscapes which are both dangerous and beautiful. The constantly changing weather systems; I know we moan about the rain but those sea mists and spooky clouds, when they are suspended above the valleys and draped over the castles can be dramatic, and inspirational. All of these factors blended together make for a truly inspirational setting for both contemporary and historical novels.

Name some of your favourite Welsh writers or books? (Feel free to quote a passage)
It would have to be Dick Francis (born in Tenby, Pembrokeshire) I remember buying Dead Cert, his first title, on a caravan holiday with my parents in North Wales (Yes, it rained!) I was a moody teenager and spent the entire week reading Dick Francis novels and pestering my parents to take me to the trekking centre in Conwy. I’m a horsy girl myself so the racing background made an immediate connection with me and I went on to read all of his titles. Loved the settings and the characters. I think it proves that writing about something you feel passionate and knowledgeable about is incredibly important and I’m sure I was influenced by Mr Francis.

Tell us what books you are planning in the future that include Wales as a location?
All of them! I have a set of three Christmas Stories next in line and these will most certainly enjoy a Welsh background. I travelled to New Zealand, Australia and Singapore last year, thinking what a wonderful travel blog I could write on my return! Did it happen? No. I used all the material to make short stories with a Welsh setting. Slightly strange but the title gives it away: A Long Way From Home.

JANE HICKS

(Author of forthcoming speculative fiction novel, Rats)

Tell us a bit about yourself and your writing?
I started writing seriously after I took early retirement from teaching. I’ve always told stories; when I was a child my ‘make-up’ stories were famous, or should I say infamous, throughout the family. Teaching gave me a captive audience – luckily my quirky tales were well received.

Which of your books are set in Wales?
In my first book, Rats, the place names and scenery anchor the story in my homeland. My Rat tribesmen live and fight in Wales.

Tell us about your Welsh background or connections?
I’ve always lived in Wales, as did my parents and grandparents. But both sets of great grandparents were ‘incomers,’ moving from the West Country to find work in the newly industrialised South Wales. I recently discovered that my grandmother’s father, a blacksmith by trade, fought as a bare knuckled prize-fighter on high days and holidays.

What do you think Wales or Welsh history adds to literature?
So much, so very very much. From the legends and mythology set down in the Mabinogion, to the stories and poetry of Dylan Thomas and to Newport’s own W.H. Thomas. Not forgetting the young author of 2005’s Welsh Book of the year, Owen Sheers.

JUDITH BARROW

www.judithbarrow.co.uk

Tell us a bit about yourself and your writing?
I grew up in a small village in the Pennines and moved with my husband, David, and three children to Pembrokeshire in 1978.

My work has appeared in several Honno anthologies. My novels are, Pattern of Shadows and Changing Patterns. I am currently working on the third of the trilogy. I am also an Indie author of a fiction built on fact novel, Silent Trauma; the story of the drug Diethylstilboestrol, and how it has affected generations of women.

I have an MA in Creative Writing, B.A. (Hons.) in Literature, and a Diploma in Drama and Script Writing. I’ve had short stories, poems, reviews and articles published throughout the British Isles and had two of my plays performed, on stage and as a short film that toured the Indie Festivals. I am also a creative writing tutor for Pembrokeshire County Council and run workshops on all genres. I’m also organising for a Book Fair to be held, Saturday 20th September under the auspices of the Tenby Arts Festival.

Which of your books are set in Wales?
Both Pattern of Shadows & the sequel, Changing Patterns, published by Honno, the Welsh Women’s Press are partly set in Wales, partly in Lancashire. I am currently writing the last book of the trilogy

What is your favourite Welsh story or legend?
Ah, now then. I tutor creative writing for Pembrokeshire County Council and, once, I set a task on using Welsh legends for a plot for a story. This led to a lot of research on my part. The following was one of my favourites: A local legend relates how coal was discovered in the Rhymney Valley. The fairies of the valley were being harassed by a giant who came to live at Gilfach Fargoed. One of the fairies, a boy whose parents had been eaten by the giant, finally decided to kill him. An owl from the nearby Pencoed Fawr farm agreed to help him. One night, when the giant was courting a witch under an apple tree, the owl shot an arrow into his heart and he died. Meanwhile the witch was killed by a flock of the owl’s friends. When the fairies burned the giant’s body in a huge pit, the ground caught fire and exposed the coal lying underneath. It’s said that, on moonlit nights, the owl’s descendants still come to Gilfach Fargoed and celebrate the giant’s death in song. I suppose it’s favourite because it harks back, yet again for me, to the lost days of mining in the valleys.

Do you speak Welsh? And what are views of Welsh language in literature?
Ever since we came to live in Wales, thirty-seven years ago, I have tried so many times, to learn to speak Welsh. It’s always been the actual writing of Welsh that has finally beaten me. But how I wish I could – my children and grandchildren have learned the language in school. It’s a rich language that, at last, has come into its own in literature. Last week, at the Hay Festival, I went to the inaugural meeting of Wales PEN Cymru. I was thrilled when told that both Welsh writers in English (even adopted Welsh writers such as me!) and Welsh writers in Welsh were joined together in this venture. It’s all-inclusive – as it is all over the world.

CHRISTINE STOVELL

http://www.christinestovell.com/

Tell us a bit about yourself and your writing?
I live and write on the west Wales coast near Cardigan. I’m a committee member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and a member of Literature Wales. I’m primarily known as a writer of long and short fiction. My third novel, ‘Follow a Star’ published by independent publisher Choc Lit, is due out in Kindle in June and in paperback in July. I’ve also had work published in the Honno anthology ‘Strange Days Indeed’ and was the winner of the Honno ‘One Sentence, Coming of Age’ competition. I write poetry too and my work was featured as Honno’s Poem of the Month in March this year. I blog at http://homethoughtsweekly.blogspot.co.uk/

Which of your books are set in Wales?
The seeds of my second novel, Move Over Darling were sown when I moved to west Wales and discovered that the population of the county I’d moved to was roughly equal to the small Surrey borough I’d left behind. Although there’s a love story at its heart, Move Over Darling also considers the issues of the exodus of young people out of rural areas, the economic problems of areas dependent on agricultural and tourism, rural isolation and difficulties of access to services. My work in progress is also set here.

Name some of your favourite Welsh writers or books? (Feel free to quote a passage)
I find reading poetry a great solace and always keep a couple of favourite volumes to hand. One I particularly like – and which I’ve given away several times as a present - is Poems of Love and Longing (edited by Viv Sayer. Pont Books. 2008). I especially love Chris Kinsey’s beautiful and moving sequence of poems about her greyhounds. Another two great favourites are Gillian Clarke’s Collected Poems and Owen Sheers’s Skirrid Hill. I also heartily recommend Honno author, Juliet Greenwood’s debut novel Eden’s Garden and I thoroughly enjoyed Tiffany Murray’s Diamond Star Halo.

CONRAD JONES

www.smashwords.com/profile/view/conrad

Tell us a bit about yourself and your writing?
Conrad Jones from Holyhead, Anglesey. I began writing in 2007 and have 13 novels, 2 biographies a series of writing guides published. I have a mixture of self-published books and traditionally published books. I was six books in before I took a traditional deal and I like the balance of having both.

Which of your books are set in Wales?
Soft Target, Soft Target III ‘Jerusalem’. 18th Brigade. The Hunting Angels Diaries are all set in Snowdon and Holy Island.

Tell us about your Welsh background or connections?
My family roots go back generations to areas around the Island and Snowdonia and they live there still in the Holyhead, Trearddur Bay areas.

What is your favourite Welsh story or legend?

The story of Beddgelert is a sad tale. As a dog lover you can’t help but love that one.

http://www.beddgelerttourism.com/gelert/

KIT HABIANIC

http://kithabianic.com/

Tell us a bit about yourself and your writing.

My debut novel, Until Our Blood is Dry, was published April 2014 by Cardigan-based Parthian Books. It tells the story of two families from the South Wales coalfield whose lives are ripped apart by the Great Miners Strike of 1984-85. It is being serialised in 350-word chunks in the daily newspaper, Western Mail, to mark the 30th anniversary of the strike and was the Welsh Books Council’s Book of the Month in May

What do you think Wales or Welsh history adds to literature?
When I left Wales to study literature, Wales seemed to vanish off the curriculum unless you count the brief mention of Owain Glyndwr in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, a shaken Westmoreland reporting back from battle that the fearsome Welsh woman are castrating the English soldiers’ corpses.

Welsh writing was absent from The Canon in the FR Leavis sense but also from the edgier curriculum taught at the more radical universities of the time. It’s only more recently that I’ve started to rediscover Welsh writers, from Dorothy Edwards, who hovered on the fringes of the Bloomsbury Set and died young, to contemporary writers such as Joe Dunthorne and Rachel Trezise.

Tell us what books you are planning in the future that include Wales as a location?
Having spent the best part of eight years writing my novel, I might take time out and write short stories or non-fiction for a bit. But never say never. Although it’s been hard to shake off my characters from Ystrad and I often wonder what their lives would be like now – the ones who survived the strike and who stayed.

What is your favourite Welsh story or legend?
The Bride of Nant Gwertheyrn – there’s a Gothic creepiness to this story of a wedding quest gone wrong that dooms the souls of two childhood sweethearts forever to roam the unquiet earth.

http://www.celtnet.org.uk/legends/ceubren_ellyll.html

BOB SUMMER

www.bobsummer.co.uk

Tell us a bit about yourself and your writing?
I didn’t wake up one day and think, ‘I’m going to be a writer.’ I sort of evolved into a writer from being an avid reader. I’m one of those people who hate to do nothing and become bored quite quickly. I always carry a book everywhere just in case there’s time to fill. When it isn’t practical to read, I make stories up in my head and it felt a natural progression to write those stories down - just shorts to begin with. The novels came later. My stories often reflect the less favourable aspects of society and tend to be character driven. Strong and complex characters are essential to a good story, I think.

What do you think Wales or Welsh history adds to literature?
Wales has a long history. And history is fantastic fodder for writers who like ‘what if’ ideas. Right back to people like Boadicea and Owain Glyndwr to events like the last invasion of Britain. And there is something about the landscape of Wales which roots people to their history; the scarred mountains and the pit villages. And the pubs – there’s nothing like a good Welsh pub - none of that themed yanky-diner nonsense. Real ale and an open fire, that’s what makes for a tidy pub. After the coastal walk, gaze into an open fire down the local and think, what if?

Name some of your favourite Welsh writers or books? (Feel free to quote a passage)
I have to mention Dylan Thomas here, don’t I? This year being his centenary I’ve been re-reading Under Milk Wood. Of course, it’s meant to be read to you by a man with a deep, strong, Welsh voice; preferably while you’re relaxing in the bath - glass of champagne, chocolates. The characters are incredible and yet so real –raw even - Dai Bread and Nogood Boyo. Dylan Thomas must have been one of the most intuitive men who ever lived. How else would he be able to climb into so many people’s heads? And when I read it next time, I shall likely find something new to admire or laugh at. He wrote such long, rich sentences with simple but evocative words -

Alone until she dies, Bessie Bighead, hired help, born in the workhouse, smelling of the cowshed, snores bass and gruff on a couch of straw in a loft in Salt Lake Farm and picks a posy of daisies in Sunday Meadow to put on the grave of Gomer Owen who kissed her once by the pig-sty when she wasn't looking and never kissed her again although she was looking all the time.

What is your favourite Welsh story or legend?
Well I live in Pembrokeshire so I’m going to go with St Govan. The story goes, that Govan was fleeing pirates when the coast opened up and the cliffs cwtched him in to hide and protect him. The pirates wandered away and the shoreline opened up again to let him out. Govan was eternally grateful of course, as anybody would be, and settled in Pembrokeshire to pray to whoever he thought responsible. A visit to St Govan’s church is a must if ever you visit Pembrokeshire.

Do you speak Welsh? And what are views of Welsh language in literature?
Oh I so wish I could speak Welsh. I’m learning, but it’s a slow old process when I have nobody to practice with. I live in south Pembrokeshire and Welsh speakers are few and far between. I’m persevering though. I have lessons on CD and listen to them in the car, so if you see a strange woman driving around Pembrokeshire talking to herself, it’s me.

The Rainbow’s End by Perry Iles

No two people ever see the same rainbow. For a rainbow to exist it needs three things—low sun, falling water and a surface to project itself against. That surface is your retina, retinas, retinae or whatever you call more than one of the wretched things. This is a good thing, because if we all saw the same rainbow, mathematicians would use trigonometry to triangulate on rainbows’ ends and the whole countryside would be full of little holes in the ground where they’d dug up the pots of gold. It would also mean that finding the ends of rainbows would become a competitive sport, and mathematicians would be fabulously well-to-do and they’d look rugged and handsome, and they’d all have blonde girlfriends with enormous breasts while poor Luis Suarez would be reduced to biting peasants in the favelas of Uruguay and he’d probably catch something unpleasant and die in terrible writhing agony.

We can but dream.

However, on a tree-falling-in-the-forest basis, it would mean that without people, there’d be no such thing as rainbows. I’m sure other animals would see them, but they wouldn’t know what they were. Little baby bunnies might say “Dad! Dad! The sky’s gone all stripey!” and Dad might reply “Don’t worry son, it’s a Technicolor sky-badger. Stay perfectly still and it’ll go away when the rain stops.” But they wouldn’t be rainbows. So in Glastonbury, if it rains (and I hope it doesn’t because nothing in this world smells worse than a wet hippie except perhaps a dead one) there will be 200,000 rainbows, and the rainbow that Pippin Galadriel Moonchild sees from the flap of the chakra realignment tent will be different from the rainbow James Hetfield off of Metallica sees (and will probably want to hunt down and kill) from the performers’ area.

The truth is like that. It’s made up of a billion tiny puffs of nothing that everyone sees differently. The truth shimmers; it’s ephemeral and mutable, subject to changes in time and attitude and culture. And we like our truth filtered. We aren’t interested in boring truths. There’s no genre in fiction called Happy Ever After, in which we get to find out what happened after Cinderella married the prince, or in which James Bond retires and goes to play golf on Sundays while his ageing wife cooks Sunday lunch for the relatives (“…but I don’t like broccoli, Auntie Pussy.”) Indeed, in our quest for sensation we’re willing to suspend belief entirely and accept the fact that James Bond is still the same age as he was in 1964. So it’s no great step from there to the realization that we like our truths adapted too. From being inquisitive, it’s a mere skip of logic to wanting to be told what to think to spare us having to do it for ourselves.

There is no such thing as truth, there are just facts and their interpretation. Any good divorce lawyer will tell you this. As the future comes at us, gets filtered through the moving prism of now and becomes our immutable past, we just can’t leave it alone. We have to pick at it and pin it down and put it into categories. We then use those categories to make our future safe by helping us to predict what will happen. And who better to guide us than our press, and who better to control that press than our government, which knows instinctively how to manipulate the facts, how to present them, and equally importantly when to distract us from unpalatable truths by sticking some breasts or an article about Royal Babies Through the Ages under our noses. And this is where the possibility for true evil lies, as the press builds the categories we shore up our belief systems with. Not all newspapers are evil, but I might go so far as to say that the Daily Mail is. Staffed by Rita Skeeters (one of whom grew up and changed her name to Rebekah Brooks) and run by government puppets, it says what the smartie-crunching masses daren’t say out loud. The Daily Mail bears a huge amount of blame for the rise of extreme right-wing politics, gung-ho nationalism and unthinking knee-jerk reactions to anything from immigrants and gypsies to benefit fraud and socialism. And then it pretends it’s harmless by showing us a picture of the Duchess of Cambridge and little baby what’s-his-name (forgive me for not knowing what he’s called; it’s because I don’t give a shit) in her lovely new home. The Daily Mail is a seething morass of bubbling evil disguised as a newspaper. But like pollution, climate change and Louis Walsh, it’s there, so much a part of our world that we think we’re immune from its insidious, creeping fascism, its subtle alteration of our senses and beliefs, telling us how bad the world is while the death toll steadily rises as people lose entitlement to their livelihoods. The Daily Mail trumpets “2000 IMMIGRANTS A WEEK ENTER BRITAIN!” and David Cameron follows it up by giving us all a serious look and saying “we really must tighten immigration control.” The Daily Mail bellows “THE HOUSE THAT BENEFITS BUILT!” and Iain Duncan-Smith puts on his reasonable voice and tells us that benefit fraud is costing the UK taxpayer £1.4 billion a year (about one hundredth of the amount companies like Starbucks and Amazon are avoiding paying through company tax loopholes, incidentally). And as a result of those policies, people begin to die, a bit like they began to die in Germany in the 1930s.

And when challenged, the Daily Mail will throw up its hands and whine about the freedom of the press. The press is resting on its laurels; it’s in the nation’s good books after outing lots of famous people for actually not being very nice. Take Jimmy Savile. Lovely bloke; raised millions for charity, helped make the dreams of hundreds of children come true via his television programme. Did huge amounts of work for people with disabilities, appeared tireless and unstoppable. Look, here he is in an old Jim’ll Fix It from the BBC archives, helping a little girl to realise her dream of meeting her idol, Gary Glitter. Savile closes the programme by moving out into the pre-pubescent audience with Glitter and they wave goodbye as they each cuddle a child. And they live happily ever after, doing their charity work and touring with endless 70s revival novelty shows respectively.

Except it didn’t happen like that. And we’re really glad. Why? Because the press told us they were bad people. The press did the children of this nation a great favour by exposing all those supposedly harmless entertainers as paedophiles. Rolf Harris won’t be singing Two Little Boys at Glastonbury this year in front of a crowd of ironic trustafarians. Poor Rolf—he touched me in so many different ways. Can you tell what it is yet? We can now, and we can sleep much easier in our beds knowing our children are comparatively safe from Jake the Peg’s middle leg, because all the nation’s kiddy-fiddlers are either doing time or bowed under the weight of their own paranoia because of all the new and interesting ways in which they can be found out—through text and email interception, computer download monitoring and phone hacking. But the press didn’t bring that situation about for the greater good. They did it for one reason and one reason only. To sell papers and make money. We love a good scandal, whether it’s two whores making a Wayne Rooney sandwich or Princess Diana being harassed to death in a Paris underpass. These are our freedoms—the vicarious schadenfreude we get from watching famous people suffer, the shiver of delicious fear that runs down our backs when we see the mighty fall. We love it, it’s what they’re there for. If you pay a footballer a quarter of a million pounds a week, or a singer a million pounds a gig, then we want them to bloody well suffer for it like we do when our alarms go off in the mornings and we shrug ourselves from the warm cocoons of our beds and slouch off into our bleak eat-shit-shag existences to earn our pittances. The press will be there on our behalf to hound the rich and famous every step of the way, hoping to catch a partner’s nipple or a flash of cellulite through a telephoto lens, hoping to find a sportsman stepping out of a bar at four in the morning, his judgment clouded by alcohol, in the company of a pretty girl suffering an apparent wardrobe malfunction. Tits sell papers. People like tits. As Keith Lemon once said to Kelly Brook, “You should be grateful, love; if blokes didn’t like tits you’d still be working behind t’counter at Dixon’s.”

And there will always be women out there happy enough to play to the crowd. The money’s good, you get free beer and drugs and a conveyor belt of B-list husbands. Katie Price is worth £52 million. That’s £26 million for each lump of frankly unattractive balloon-shaped silicon, because there aren’t any other reasons for her fame. She’s a glamour model. One definition of “glamour” is shape-shifting malevolence, another is enchantment and magic. Glamour models are certainly magic. They turn recycled wood pulp into money for Rupert Murdoch, they distract us from the business of the real world. School shooting? Famine in Sudan? Piece of unpopular legislation going through parliament? Never mind, here’s today’s Page Three stunna LaToya. She hopes to travel and meet people. She wants to go round the world, and with spheres like hers, she’s sure to be taking off before long, eh readers?

If the fourth estate has got us by the balls, how do we control it? Celebrities are no longer immune; they can no longer live in their gilded castles expecting to get away with anything while we ordinary folk look on. They need to be careful how to behave, because the press is tapping their phones hoping for a juicy bit of gossip. Celebrities are now accountable, like the rest of us. They don’t live up in the stratosphere any more. But the very fact of that accountability allows the government to use the press to dangle celebrities’ more outrageous escapades under our noses to distract us and channel our anger. When we should be righteously, supremely pissed off that our country is being run by a small group of millionaire politicians working hand-in-hand with global businessmen and a cartel of corrupt bankers who are actually beginning to kill off our weaker citizens, we are instead told to be annoyed at Jeremy Clarkson for muttering a nursery rhyme. Clarkson is an amiable enough buffoon who just happens to have the best job in the world bar none, but he’s a puppet, a tool of distraction, a readily available channel for our indignation so that we have none left for the true cunts of this world like Iain Duncan-Smith, who surfs the wave of indignation stirred up by the Daily Mail, and while we should be concerned that the death toll here in this green and pleasant land has risen by thousands in the wake of Duncan-Smith’s welfare “reforms” we are instead told to be concerned about a word Jeremy Clarkson either did or did not mutter on a TV out-take once. We’re going to hell in a handcart and Clarkson is dancing in the slaughterhouse like a big shaggy bear, wearing a “what, me?” look, shoulders shrugged, palms up, lower lip pouting, eyes raised heavenwards in clownish exasperation.

And how do we control the press without being censors? “I may not like what you say but I will defend to my death your right to say it”, as Elvis Presley once said. I suppose the national sense of outrage that greeted the fact that the News of the World was tapping the phone of a murdered schoolgirl for entertainment and profit was actually enough to get the paper closed down, but within a few weeks Murdoch launched the new, super soaraway Sun on Sunday. Same meat, different gravy. Let’s meet LaDestiny, she wants to cure global warming and help bring about world peace, and we’re certain a piece like her will succeed where others have failed, eh readers?

The redtops have spawned a kind of reverse samizdat—a government/press cartel of misinformation and pure bollocks distributed in the form of OK, Take a Break, Closer, Nuts, FHM and Loaded and a shedload of similar brain-dead prole-fodder. They know what we want, they now how to stop us thinking—they give us our daily fix of aspiration, then their puppetmasters offer us credit cards to buy it with. Then they crank up the aspiration a notch and offer us more credit cards. Carrot, stick… carrot, stick… and on and on. Their landfill of Kardashian trash buys our souls and ensures our obedience. It keeps us safe, allows us to sleep easy in our beds knowing that we can look around Kerry Katona’s lovely new home in the company of their written-for-infants editorials. Hug me till you drug me, honey, kiss me till I’m in a coma…

So how do we stop this? Not by scorning the methods of entrapment or eavesdropping or by imprisoning the hackers. Not by closing a whipping-boy of a paper when it steps too far. You don’t kill a weed by cutting its leaves off; you kill it by attacking the root. The only way to do this is to realise that the government and the press are exclusive entities which should be ring-fenced and not on any account be allowed to mix, on pain of criminal prosecution and political exile. The government doesn’t meddle so overtly with most forms of entertainment—fiction, the music industry, films, computer gaming or art, so why not apply the same rules to the press? They should exist in two separate spheres. In an ideal world, the press looks after truth, and the politicians look after freedom. There’s no really obvious reason why they should make such uneasy bedfellows, yet somehow they do. Possibly because truth and freedom are two basically indefinable concepts. But the press and the government have been in bed together for decades; they’ve been shagging each other senseless down all the days, and the bastard result is UKIP—politics that plays to the crowd via pre-arranged cracks in society the media have opened for them. It’s as if Victor Frankenstein strapped the Daily Mail to a wet metal table in a thunderstorm and a bolt of lightening created Nigel Farage. He lives! He lives!

This should be lesson enough. Keep the press apart from politics. Build a great big fuck-off fence between them, allow no cross-pollination. If you’ve had a career as Murdoch’s bitch, you should be prevented from going to work as Cameron’s spin doctor. And once you’ve kept the entities separate for a while, the press would then be welcome to criticize or praise the government on an independent level. And the first obvious result is that it would no longer be in the interest of the government to manipulate opinion or distract attention via the media. Any attempt by the government to influence the press or vice versa should be considered a criminal activity. In that way, the freedom of the press is not compromised—they can talk about what they want if it sells papers, and of course they can be prosecuted for personal intrusion without being able to stand on some kind of spurious moral high ground and fall back on freedom-of-speech platitudes. Laws could then be passed. Thou shalt not intrude into the lives of celebrities—particularly via their partners, children, neighbours or old friends, by monitoring their communication devices, or by hiring the sort of woman who could trip a footballer up and then make sure she was underneath him by the time he hit the floor. Prosecution for breaking those laws would then be a simple matter of criminality, with no political or censorious overtones. It would eventually become a matter of puzzlement when the Daily Bell-end moans on about immigrants or benefits, because this is not news, it’s not their job. It’s just bollocks, it reflects nothing about the world apart from the opinions of some very blinkered humans and tells us nothing. And above all and beyond everything, this kind of shit is not part of the mass media’s job description.

And then maybe we’ll have a slightly better chance of living just a little more happily ever after.