Ash Trees

22 July 2020

Here's my very short story Why the Ash Has Black Buds, written for the Woodland Trust collection Why Willows Weep, edited by Tracy Chevalier.

National Writing Day 2020

22 July 2020

June 24th 2020 saw the UK's fourth annual National Writing Day. It's been absolutely wonderful to see it grow and flourish from my initial one-page outline a few years ago. Of course this year we didn't see the usual events in schools and communities, but thousands of teachers downloaded resources from the First Story website, and it seemed to hum across social media, thanks in large part to inspiring cheerleading from Cressida Cowell, Jackie Kay, Mark Haddon, Frank Cottrell Boyce and many others. By lunchtime #NationalWritingDay was the top-trending topic on Twitter in the UK.

The Tree

22 July 2020

An essay on John Fowles's The Tree, for a new edition from the wonderful small press Little Toller.

Levels of the Game

22 July 2020

An essay on John McPhee's Levels of the Game, for the new Aurum Sports Classics edition, and reprinted in The Guardian.

Writing Across Distance

22 July 2020

I'm the last of six writers reflecting on lockdown in this BBC Radio 3 feature, Writing Across Distance.

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