Creativity is non-acceptance, wonder, rebellion
When I can settle down into a book, I feel like someone who has been running frantically for days and is finally home. Reading is one of the most fulfilling things I do, and it is easy – no transport or planning necessary. Yet after a long, exhausting day of work, I often find that... Continue Reading →
I’m a fiction author and journalist who is very much aware of, and angry about the racial, class, country-based, and gender and sexuality inequalities in the book and media worlds. Given the systemic exclusion many of us face, over two years ago I started only reading novels by female authors — preferably those from other oppressed worlds... Continue Reading →
J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potty series, was asked by her publisher Barry Kunningham to use just her initials (she made up the K), as he thought boys might be wary of a book written by a woman. Many people assume that Harper Lee is a man, Charlotte Bronte originally published as Currer Bell... Continue Reading →
The publishing industry’s focus on profits amounts to a censoring of a diversity of viewpoints and experience. Books are lives compressed, humanity summarized into screaming or striking stories. One would think the book world would be a safe haven from inequality, but instead the traditional publishing industry – the big corporate publishers - is perpetuating... Continue Reading →
Fun characters, an intriguing plot, the excitement of a murder and an affair... is it okay to write a novel, story, or article, purely in order to entertain the reader? To distract them? In a world of rife and normalised injustice, I confess I often feel like distraction is out of order and those with... Continue Reading →
My aim is to read these books this year. What a magical wealth of stories, thoughts, strong characters, complex life views, and places to journey to. Its a collection of awesome authors and regions, including indigenous people from different countries, sexually diverse people, hardcore women, industrial workers, migrants, revolutionaries, Black activists, and people who have faced... Continue Reading →
Every person had at least one incredible story frolicking inside them. But the market chose quick satisfaction, supermarket weekends, air-conditioned adventures, television colonisation, thought minimalisation, bomb production. It made the story people tired. Stories died. Souls put to paper, internal battles portrayed in magic metaphors were blown into the air, then caught in nets and... Continue Reading →
resistance words 