Review by Debasish Lahiri of "Endless Present: Selected Articles, Reviews and Dispatches, 2010-23" by Rory Waterman

Criticism, like poetry, cannot be written at arm’s length. At least not the best. The critic has to suffer the imperilment of the artist: enjoy a brief triumph, endure a trudge through morass. Not full of platitudes, yet not bereft of sympathy either, the critic must realise that the poet’s plod can become a flight at the turnpike of the next sentence, or a flight can slam into a ‘concrete’ end, just as easily. Rarely do critics keep the faith with poets, all the way. Nor do they often take a step back to roll their eyes and have a good laugh, about poetry and attempts at the ‘poetic.’ 

By contrast, Rory Waterman does take a step back, and he also keeps the faith. An accomplished and distinct voice in poetry himself, Waterman takes to criticism with the same honesty, courage and an eye for the original and powerful that characterises much of his own work. 

Endless Present is Waterman’s selection from fourteen years of engagement with the craft and art of poetry. One should consider the introduction to the collection as the sixty-eighth essay in it. It moors his art of reading and criticism in the vicissitude of his life, the vagaries of time, the lucky breaks and occasional epiphanies of growing up. Waterman shies away from being the omnipotent absence in his criticism. Rather, he puts himself right in harm’s way as a poet and reader while writing about the poetry of others. In a way his introduction chimes, uncannily, with the text of the eulogy delivered at his father’s funeral (later published in the PN Review). 

Waterman emerges as someone who is prepared to wrangle with his own choices and preferences, to be refreshingly not sure, and to let it all play out, in public, in his reviews and longer essays. An expanse of writing that has Philip Larkin and Daljit Nagra, the late 1950s and the second decade of the new millennium as its landmarks of space and time, Waterman’s collected criticism is endlessly present. It offers a view of where he sits (when critical writing about poetry has elsewhere become an anonymous exercise in intellectual generalisation) and writes words neither salaried, nor pensioned. 

About the reviewer
Debasish Lahiri is an internationally acclaimed poet. He has published eight collections of poetry, the most recent being Legion of Lost Letters (Black Spring Press, 2023). Lahiri is the recipient of the Prix du Merite, Naji Naaman Literary Prize 2019.

Review by Rachael Clyne of “Identified Flying Objects” by Michael Bartholomew-Biggs

The poet draws on the prophet Ezekiel to help him make sense of his situation, having been immobilised by a broken leg. He searches both himself and society for understanding. Ezekiel is best known for his wild visions, like the valley of "Dem Bones" resurrecting themselves and a possible Alien landing (as in the title poem). Written during the period of the Israelites’ captivity in Babylon, Ezekiel blamed their plight on corruption and lack of faith in God. Not one to mince words, he railed against the people and their leaders. 

Bartholomew-Biggs uses quotations from Ezekiel to create contemporary narratives. He too comments on corruption and politics, with echoes of Eliot in his scenes set in London. "Maiden Speech" draws on Ezekiel’s admonishment of the ruling factions of his era. "Internal Exile," "Migrant" and "Bitter Almonds" suggest both refugee experiences and also illness as a form of exile. Images of scorpions and almonds evoke biblical and Middle Eastern origins. "Bitter Almonds" is set in English lanes and churchyards and opens with: "He didn’t know they grew in England." The almonds, while found by a church, are seen as malign, foreign and not to be touched.

The poet explores many routes for answers: flat earth theory, social injustice, refugees and  climate collapse. "Forthcoming Events" describes how pessimistic prophecies are repeatedly ignored and influencers opt for self-preservation, rather than taking unpopular measures that could avoid catastrophe: "We arrive where we have never been / and find ourselves still there."

I find his collection skilfully written in a spirit of human enquiry, which never strays into didactics. I enjoyed its range and wit. I know Michael as the editor of London Grip, an online journal that is generous in its support for poets and am glad to be introduced to him as a poet.

About the Reviewer
Rachael Clyne is a retired psychotherapist who also published self-help books. In her youth, she was a professional stage and television actor. In later life she began developing her poetry and has since been widely published in journals and anthologies. Her prizewinning collection, Singing at the Bone Tree (Indigo Dreams 2014), concerns our broken connection with nature. Her pamphlet, Girl Golem (4word.org) explores her Jewish migrant heritage, and, in her latest collection, You’ll Never Be Anyone Else (Seren Books 2023), she expands on themes of identity to include childhood heritage, relationships and LGBTQ+.

You can read more about Identified Flying Objects by Michael Bartholomew-Biggs on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Rennie Parker of "The Point of the Stick" by Neil Fulwood

Here is one of those unclassifiable pamphlets which makes perfect sense when you think about it. Why hasn't anyone thought of this before? Take any number of conductors - magnetic figures all - encapsulate their style, their motivation or their hallmark, and present them as a sequence where the reader can guess who it is. Art as an enigma, much like the alchemy of conducting itself. You can read the unnamed stanzas in Neil Fulwood's nifty little collection, and check your answers at the back of the book, like any good test paper. I scored four and I'm disgusted with myself; maybe I am listening to the wrong recordings, but I enjoyed the guessing game nevertheless.

Of course we do not learn overmuch about the conductors as they march past - the poems are between eight and twelve lines, so the poet has to hit the ground running with a bijou design of those dimensions. What we have are lightning sketches, illuminating without becoming cartoonish. Judging by the correct four guesses, the pictures are accurate too: for instance, there are films of Adrian Boult wielding his trademark 'billiard cue,' and he was as sparing in his gestures as the poem implies, 'deployed with a slight / supple turn of the / wrist.' I like how 'wrist' is separated from the preceding line, emphasising the clean gesture. The collection is full of expert touches like this, the 'punchline' exactly situated, the felicitous phrase which brings the portrait alive.

There are references to war-torn countries, driven individuals rebuilding themselves, and the conductors as self-made people as well as media stars - familiar enough ideas when it comes to international artists, but relayed here in Fulwood's uncluttered and direct manner with not a word wasted. Each segment dovetails in with its neighbours so well that there is no 'odd one out,' which sometimes happens with a sequence. I would have welcomed a couple more lines for each conductor, because I was interested to know more about them - but it was not part of the poet's design; and anyway, that's what biographies are for.

The Point of the Stick may sound like a niche pamphlet but in fact there is a wide audience who would love this collection. Instrumentalists, concertgoers, choir members and Radio 3 listeners could all benefit from finding a copy in their birthday envelopes. Better still, it's so pocket-sized you can take it with you to a marathon recital and read it during the interval. As a concept album, it is small and perfectly formed. Go, little book! I am posting my copy to a pianist friend who will appreciate both the poetry and the subterranean references to complex lives and their overwhelming dedication to music.

About the reviewer
Rennie Parker's latest collection is Balloons and Stripey Trousers (Shoestring, 2023). She was born in Leeds but lives in south Lincolnshire, and currently works for an FE college. Blogs here, daily nonsense on Twitter @rennieparker.

You can read a review of Balloons and Stripey Trousers on Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Review by Gary Day of "Selected Poems" by Hubert Moore

I do not know how I have missed the sight of Hubert Moore’s comet crossing my sky on its orbit round the poetic heavens. Thankfully I can now see what must have long been obvious to others: a poet who is acutely observant, piercingly lyrical and unwavering in his commitment to the breadth of human experience.

The Selected Poems come with a useful introduction by Lawrence Sail giving a brief outline of Moore’s life, his career as a teacher, the death of his first wife and his eventual remarriage. One of the many delights of the volume is the opportunity to trace Moore’s development as a poet. There is a whimsy about some of the earlier poems. Rabbits ‘look like / a group of friends, Romans and countrymen / lending an ear to each other.’ This fusion of direct observation and classical allusion is just one feature of Moore’s early style.

Another is an almost matter of fact description of mysterious actions such as letting down the tyres of a bicycle, apparently belonging to a complete stranger. A bicycle appears in a later poem about poverty. Moore’s social conscience is particularly marked in a number of poems about asylum seekers where he draws on his own experience of working with refugees. Poems of mid-career such as ‘At the Bottle Bank’ show a deftness in capturing the complexities of lived experience in a single image. Poems dedicated to his children and to his first wife are, at times, almost unbearably moving. Some of the more recent poems are cautiously receptive to experiences which transcend the physical.

Lovely lines abound throughout: ‘that rare gift of rhyming with oneself.’ You can do that, these poems suggest, if you can keep your feet on the ground and your eyes on the stars.

About the reviewer
Gary Day is a retired English lecturer and the author of several critical works including Literary Criticism: A New History and The Story of Drama. His debut poetry collection, The Glass Roof Falls as Rain, published by Holland Press, is due out in February.

Review by Jon Wilkins of "Undisclosed" by Ruth O'Callaghan

This is a beautifully written series of poems, broken up into four parts. Each section invites the reader into a world of love, loss, the past and a search for freedom. We meet a variety of characters, ideas, images and reflections on life. There are myriad displays of different formats, each teasing us into O’Callaghan’s world - a world full of colour and provocations.

O'Callaghan's poetry seeks answers to questions that are at times unanswerable in a real sense, a rhetorical device that plays with the readers' emotions, taunting them to find a path to the world that O’Callaghan describes. Is it real or a fantasy? You have to decide for yourself. You are given all the tools you need in the form of delightfully constructed lines of verse: it is up to you, the reader, to decipher them and make of them what you will.

The poet is not trying to trick us, far from it. But she does challenge us. She challenges us to read between her lines and make a truth out of her words. This is a delightful process for the reader as we enter worlds full of colour and imagination, images that shock and suggest that her world, our world is not as straightforward as it seems.

Read this with an open mind and an open heart. The poems are alluring and engaging, encouraging us to read on and on until alas, we come to the end of the book. The only good thing about finishing it is that we can re-read and find something new in the poems as we confront them again. This is what makes the collection so accessible, so inspirational, we are always seeing something new, something different in each and every poem.

The poems are wonderful as every reading gives a new interpretation, a new way inside the poet's mind, into the poet's world and isn’t that everything that being a poet is?

About the reviewer

Jon Wilkins is 68. He is married to the gorgeous Annie with two wonderful sons. He was a teacher for twenty years, a Waterstones bookseller and coached women’s basketball for over thirty years before taking up writing seriously. Nowadays he takes notes for students with Special Needs at Leicester University. He has had a work commissioned by the UK Arts Council and several pieces published traditionally as well as on-line. He has had poems in magazines and anthologies, art galleries, studios, museums and at Huddersfield Railway Station. He loves writing poetry. For his MA, he wrote a crime novel, Utrecht Snow. He followed it up with Utrecht Rain, and is now writing a third part. He is currently writing a crime series, Poppy Knows Best, set at the end of the Great War and into the early 1920s. Next year he takes up the UEA Crime Fiction Creative Writing MA. The game's afoot! 

Review by Gary Day of "Balloons and Stripey Trousers" by Rennie Parker

 

Anyone who has ever worked in a corporate environment would do well to keep a copy of Balloons and Stripey Trousers in their desk draw. It could very well save their sanity. Despite being an almost autobiographical cri de couer, this volume proclaims, to all who feel their souls withering in the arid air of office culture, ‘you are not alone.’

The theme of quiet desperation is apparent from the outset with the speaker proclaiming, in ‘a warning to the curious,’ that she ‘is growing smaller and smaller as your version of me grows larger.’ Another trait that is apparent in the opening poem is the frequent nod to other writers, in this case Wordsworth and Lawrence, both of whom were appalled, in their different ways, by the plight of the self in industrial society. Judging from these poems, its condition has only got worse. At work people are expected to submit to ‘the tickbox of their little existence’ and at home they break down with terrible consequences as hinted at in ‘brand new management despair expression.’  

Parker knows that art is not going to save us but it has its little victories. Several poems show supervisors and interview panels patronising, belittling and disparaging the speaker. Her gender and class are both factors in this treatment though neither are foregrounded. The tables are turned in the poem ‘the international collective of artists say no’ where retiring managers are told, with barely suppressed glee, that they do not meet the criteria to take up painting or poetry and that ‘their rejection’ along with their ‘P45 is in the post.’

The various literary and pictorial allusions give the poems a pleasing depth and resonance. The writing itself is witty, vivid and bright. A pleasure to read.   

About the reviewer
Gary Day is a retired English lecturer and the author of several critical works including Literary Criticism: A New History and The Story of Drama. His debut poetry collection, The Glass Roof Falls as Rain, published by Holland Press, is due out in February.

You can read more about Balloons and Stripey Trousers by Rennie Parker on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Gary Day of "A Word with Bede" by Neil Curry

At first glance, the title suggests that the Venerable One is being taken on one side to receive advice or admonition in his shell-like. In fact it is an instance of the rich and indeed reverential language at play in this collection which is full of atmosphere, marvels and profundities. The word ‘Word’ simultaneously evokes casual conversation and the Logos itself. The pronoun ‘with’ suggests that Bede and Curry (a nomenclature that suggests a comedy duo) are on equal terms, true companions.

Among others receiving a mention in this meditation on past and present are St Ceolfrith, who looked after Bede from the age of seven, St Hilda of Whitby and Caedmon, regarded as the first English poet, his song a song of creation. Even the Vikings make a brief if bloody appearance, ‘like wolves they tore and slaughtered.’ The assonance nearly bringing those two verbs together is at variance with the frenzied dismemberment of the monks' bodies. This may seem a trivial, even pedantic point, but it touches on one of the main themes of the volume, ‘the fluidity of things,’ how everything is interlinked. This comes across strongly in ‘St Cuthbert’s Beads’ where fossils become beads on a rosary, the scientific and the spiritual meeting in a perfect circle. Another poem, ‘And with a Feather,’ is the most perfect expression of the unity at the heart of things. It is the verbal equivalent of the repeating patterns of Celtic art which have no beginning and no end.

These poems touch not just on history but something deeper, the time of solitude and silence which stretches from the desert to the edge of the expanding cosmos. Every page contains a verbal gem. It is a kind of holy book, not exactly an illuminated manuscript but a source of light nonetheless.

About the reviewer
Gary Day is a retired English lecturer and the author of several critical works including Literary Criticism: A New History and The Story of Drama. His debut poetry collection, The Glass Roof Falls as Rain, published by Holland Press, is due out in February

Review by Neil Fulwood of "ColdHarbour" by Kathryn Daszkiewicz

Kathryn Daszkiewicz is a poet of understatement and almost scalpel-like precision. Her poems have the impact of a moment of silence in a grand symphony, the hint of a memory or an idea stirring unreachably at the back of the mind. 

She is a forensically observational poet of the natural world as ‘Misletoe’ and ‘Four Seasons of Haunting,’ towards the beginning of the collection, demonstrate in fine style. The theme threads through ColdHarbour, culminating in the brilliantly sustained and imaginative sequence ‘The Greenwood Speaks: Twelve Trees of Ogham’ and the elegiac ‘Woods Seen from a Train.’

Elsewhere, there are poems on family, relationships, landscapes, the passing of time and the canvases of Edward Coley Burne-Jones. Throughout it all, Daszkiewicz’s voice is plaintive, her poetics subtle and her command of form and lineation and the use of negative space (particularly in ‘Harm and the Man’) are controlled and assured.

An enviable facility, evident in many of the pieces here, is the poem as a single sentence, unspooling down the page in perfect cadence, finely nuanced and as delicately balanced as a house of cards. Which is why I have chosen, in this review, to forego the inclusion of quotes. Trying to represent Daszkiewicz’s artistry by means of a handful of snipped out lines here are there would be a reductive and pointless exercise. 

Take ‘Visiting Time,’ for example. A poem about ageing, the trickery of memory and the traumas of war, it is constructed in two sections that play off each other, it deals in the accumulation of minutiae and it delivers its hammerblow denouement no louder than a whisper. To isolate five or six lines from it would tell you nothing. To read the whole piece is to quietly experience heartbreak. It is the kind of poem that doesn’t need a critic to talk it up or take it apart; it just needs a reader.

On which note, consider my work here done: ColdHarbour is an aesthetically and emotionally satisfying collection by a writer at the height of her powers. Seek out a copy. Make time to lose yourself in it and return to it. It really is that good.

About the reviewer
Neil Fulwood lives and works in Nottingham. He has published three full poetry collections with Shoestring Press, No Avoiding It, Can’t Take Me Anywhere and Service Cancelled, and a volume of political satires, Mad Parade, with Smokestack Books.

Review by Gary Day of "Disappearances" by Kathleen Bell

 

Kathleen Bell’s debut volume is a thing of beauty, a joy forever, or at least until the global temperature rises beyond the point of no return. Her poems are poised, delicate and occasionally devastating. The book consists of three sections, the second concerns memory, the third magic.

The first deals with the musings of medieval spinsters on matters such as  church, childlessness, beatings and scars from harvesting the corn, a kind of earthly stigmata. These women bear their sufferings with a grim fatalism. Their incessant struggle to reconcile what they are told by the priest or the lord with their own experience is expressed in voices both lyrical and authentic. 

The final poem in this sequence, ‘La Dame à la Licorne,’ is a delight. It is based on six tapestries of the same name woven in the style of ‘a thousand flowers’ at the turn of the fourteenth century. Five of the pictures represent the five senses, the sixth is something of a mystery. The brilliance of this poem lies not just in Bell’s riff on the pictures of the lady with her unicorn but also in the way she subtly relates it to the poems that have gone before, where her women are fluent in their senses but flounder in their minds.

My favourite in the collection is ‘Palais des Beaux Arts’ which revisits Auden’s magnificent ‘Musée des Beaux Arts.’ It strips the original of its calm beauty revealing the horror beneath. Wherever Auden’s landmark poem goes in future, it should be accompanied by this one. 

Each page of this well-produced book is an entrance to an exquisitely constructed little world, whether it is a painting by Vermeer or a card trick. Bell takes us down the side roads of history, showing with great tenderness and truth, what was missed.   

About the reviewer

Gary Day is a retired English lecturer. His research mainly lay in three areas, the  history of literary criticism, the workings of class in British literature and the persistence of sacrificial ritual in the development of drama. He had a column in the Times Higher for a number of years and has also edited two volumes on the history of British poetry as well as the three volume Wiley Encyclopaedia of British Literature 1660-1789. He hates management speak, has been involved in amateur theatre for over thirty years and is still trying to write poetry.

Review by Samantha Nicholson-Hickling of "Purl" by Jo Dixon

Jo Dixon’s Purl is a well crafted, satisfying set of poems which are observant and focus on the big themes in life. In these uncertain times, authority is just what is needed, with a bit of finesse to round it all off.

As her first full collection, Purl boasts three sections or chapters worth of poems, each with their own internal theme which intertwine with the meaning of the title.

Section one coats you in a sheen of familiarity, talking about Bisto, Sunday roasts, the clicking of dentures and coats hanging on pegs. It creates a feeling that you know the characters and settings in these poems, while also as a reader making you believe you are a voyeur on their lives.

A personal stand out of this section, for me, is ‘Leading Lady,’ a peek back into the Kodak timeline of life, with its vivid imagery of the hiss and flicker of the projector's beam, alongside the sadness of the recalled memories. The layout and typeface decisions were what initially drew me to this particular piece, and it serves the poem well to highlight those more personal moments.

Section two has a more whimsical feel, almost a sense of the ethereal. Nature appears to take centre stage, with the water, the trees, the pollen and Spring all appearing throughout. ‘Taking the Water’ this time grasped all of my attention, with a first line that had my mind immediately questioning, wanting answers on what was happening and why. It takes you on an exciting journey through Rag Beck.  The ‘Perfect Setting’ brings happier thoughts, with beautiful imagery, easy to picture and impossible to forget.

The last section promised to be more tumultuous, with the word purl meaning to capsize, to fall head over heels. I was not disappointed, with the first poem of the set ‘Grand Canyon’ having a sense of urgency and excitement. Dixon sustains this sense of excitement, as each poem tantalises the imagination and has you turning the page almost quicker than you can process what you’ve read - right until you hit an abrupt stop with ‘Stopper On The Poacher Line.’ This poem's interesting choices make it a perfect moment to catch your breath, re-adjust your thoughts and just take in the imagery: the watery in the ditches, the pheasants.

One poem which sticks out from this section, a jarring moment of pure emotion, is 'NICU I and II.' The images are still as clear as before, but are almost purer because of the sadness you feel. It is an emotional rollercoaster and the perfect way to round off Jo Dixon’s first full collection.

About the reviewer

Samantha Nicholson-Hickling is a former De Montfort University Creative Writing student. Since completing her degree in 2011, she has attended Cambridge University and now teaches in a primary school in Oldham. She is involved in the local writing scene in Oldham, supporting Create Oldham's Hack Writers group, a weekly meet up for professional and amateurs alike. 

Review by Rob Jones of "The Coming-Down Time" by Robert Selby

Robert Selby’s collection of poems The Coming-Down Time is broad in its scope but artfully tethered. With themes of conflict, love and nostalgia running through all three of its sections, each part nonetheless leaves a different impression. The poems are sufficiently structured such that each variation from said structure, and indeed each rhyme, is heavy with significance.

The first section, charting the life and legacy of the narrator’s grandfather through a series of vignettes, quickly establishes a strong sense of place. The main character’s quietness and modesty is reflected in subdued, thoughtful lines and the more detailed description of the life and events which surround him. It’s warm and heartfelt, with a strong sense of narrative progression through the whole section.

The title of the second section, ‘Shadows on the Barley,’ reflects its more fleeting and impressionist nature, with stories and scenes conjured from places and objects. The tone and subject material broaden considerably; there are still specific references to war but there is more exploration of the trauma it creates. Several of the poems are deeply moving, even chilling, which can be jarring in relation to those which continue to celebrate warmth and homeliness. There is room for romance in a rural past, but it is clearly made up of so much more.

‘Chevening,’ the third section, is much more about the present. The past is still venerated as old buildings, memorials and traditions are described, and the characters and voices move through them with varying degrees of engagement. A romance is described in moments across the poems. The setting of present-day rural Kent is idyllic, tempered though that is with the very last poem’s imagery of propaganda and curation.

The Coming-Down Time, in its consideration and cadence, demands time in itself. Find a green space, sit down and read it aloud.


About the reviewer

Rob Jones studied English with Creative Writing options at the University of Leicester and completed an MA in Victorian Studies there. He lives in Sileby with his wife, sings with Leicester University Chamber Choir and dreams of working in heritage.

Interview with David Belbin

David Belbin is the author of fifty books, including several novels for adults, numerous YA novels and two collections of short stories. He lectures in Creative Writing part time at NTU and is chair of Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature. See: http://www.davidbelbin.com/.

Here, Rosalind Rustom talks to David about writing, short stories and his collection Provenance: New & Collected Stories. 

Interviewed by Rosalind Rustom 

RR: Provenance is a collection of your new and older stories - is there one which is your personal favourite?

DB: Seems wrong to choose, but if you put a gun to my head I'd probably choose one of the new ones, 'The Way It Works,' as it encapsulates a lot of the themes of my work and goes into several points of view, which stories rarely have room to do. Although, in a sense, that's
cheating as, at over 10,000 words, it's what I'd call a long story rather than a short story.

RR: My favourite thing about your short stories is the focus on the interesting lives of everyday people. Are any stories drawn from real-life experiences or people you've known?

DB: The one I just mentioned features two Beth Orton concerts I was at, and the experience of the person with the tickets not turning up did happen to me, although not quite in the same way. 'Being Bullied' is a true story, told to me by the boy it happened to. I own most of the paintings described in the title story, including the one on the cover. All of them are forgeries! That's it.

RR: You sometimes call yourself a 'Nottingham writer.' How is this sense of place reflected in your fiction?

DB: I've not counted recently, but suspect around half of my novels are set in Nottingham. There isn't as much space for a strong sense of place in the short stories but 'Vasectomy,' 'Paying For It' and 'The Nabob of Rococo Park' are very Nottingham stories. It's a city that's always changing, with plenty of strong contrasts and a vigorous, caustic sense of itself, all of which is useful in fiction.

RR: How was your experience writing 'Witchcraft' in 1989? Was it difficult to turn a real, sensitive event into a story?

DB: Some stories seem to write themselves. I heard about the so-called 'ritualised' child abuse being investigated from a trusted source long before it became news and fictionalised it because I had to make some kind of sense of what I'd heard, get it off my chest. It had to be from the child's point of view, which, of course, makes the story heartbreaking. Writing it was straightforward but getting it published wasn't. Numerous magazines turned it down before JG Ballard and Martin Bax took it for Ambit, nearly thirty years ago, and that began my career as a published writer of fiction.

RR: Who would you say has had the most influence on you as a writer?

DB: Loads of answers to that question but the most straightforward is the Northern Ireland novelist Brian Moore, who I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on. A fine, fine writer, most of whose work still holds up well. Check out The Doctor's Wife, Cold Heaven, The Statement or Judith Hearne. I learnt a lot from him about style, point of view, suspense (he worked with Hitchcock, who I also revere) and he made me feel it was fine to write frequently from a female point of view. I'm only sorry I never wrote to tell him what I just told you. I did write to Patricia Highsmith, who I also was very influenced by, and got a lovely note from her in response a few months before she died. You should always let writers you love know how grateful you are for their work. We're insecure - it goes with the territory.

RR: How do you find the process of writing short stories compared to your novels?

DB: I can't write short stories at the same time as I'm working on a novel or teaching heavily. They require complete concentration and have to be written in a burst, then revised at (lengthy) leisure. There are one or two stories in the collection that I couldn't get right and
left for years. The final story, 'Games in Bed,' for instance, sat around my metaphorical bottom drawer for the best part of a decade before I worked out how it needed to end. I used to write novels very quickly and intensely too, but those days, sadly, seem to be gone.

RR: Can you tell us about anything you're working on at the moment?

DB: I've just finished revising a short story, 'The All Night Bookshop,' which will be published as a pamphlet on National Bookshop day (October 6th) by Candlestick Press. With Rory Waterman, I'm editing an anthology to celebrate 25 years of the Creative Writing MA I teach on at NTU. There'll be a new short story in that. And I've nearly done the fourth Bone and Cane novel although, having seen the sequence's previous two publishers go bankrupt, I'm not sure whether anyone will dare to take it on ...


About the interviewer
Rosalind Rustom is a recent graduate from the University of Leicester with a degree in English and American Studies, with a particular interest in fantasy fiction.