Archive for the ‘Personal Thoughts’ Category
My recent trip to Maine has got me thinking a lot about lobsters. You can’t go for more than about two minutes up there without encountering a lobster somewhere – either on a roadside sign, a tea towel, a postcard, or – if you’re lucky – in a restaurant. I ate a lot of lobster Click here to continue…
Earlier this week I arrived back in Missouri after a blissful week in Maine. From ME to MO. What a difference a letter makes. I wrote a lot, read a lot, climbed a few mountains, and ate an awful lot of delicious fresh seafood. My cottage was on a secluded cove near Acadia National Park. Click here to continue…
My name is Alex, and I am a lawyer. I began my first legal job in a large firm in London almost exactly nineteen years ago, and I’ve practiced law in England, France, and the United States. It’s not something that I talk about much on this blog, because (a) this is a blog about Click here to continue…
Yesterday I returned to Missouri after a wonderful week with my children in San Francisco, where we stayed with my sister and her lovely family. Living in mid-Missouri, going to San Francisco is, understandably, always a bit of an event. Weeks ahead of time, we raid the library for travel guides and plan what to Click here to continue…
Look, I know. This is supposed to be a light-hearted blog. I’m supposed to serve up wry, self-deprecating posts about me and my writing. I’m meant to be developing, God help me, a brand, in the hope that you’ll all go out and read my novel when it comes out next year. But light-hearted is a Click here to continue…
Rebecca Rasmussen came to Columbia to give a reading at PS Gallery at the start of May this year, just after her wonderful debut novel was published. I had been speaking with Rebecca for some time on twitter and invited her to make the trip down I-70 from St. Louis to visit. Her reading was Click here to continue…
This afternoon I shall be climbing into a car with my good friend Chris Stevens and we’ll be setting off south. Destination: New Orleans. We’ll be in a Mini Cooper, which doesn’t seem very Jack Kerouac to me, but never mind. It’ll probably be more comfortable than a battered old van, I suppose, and we Click here to continue…
There was once an episode of Friends when Ross (I think) both bought an apothecary’s cabinet, or some such, from Pottery Barn, and then pretended that he’d picked it up in an auction somewhere. He was too ashamed to admit where he’d really bought it from (he was, of course, found out, because someone else Click here to continue…
When my first book was published, twelve long years ago, my characters cussed and cursed their way through the unlikely adventures I had concocted for them like drunken sailors on shore leave. Their conversations were veritable cesspits of fruity idiom. At the time I thought I was being terribly clever. I believed that this was Click here to continue…
Last week I received a direct message via Twitter from the lovely Camille Noe Pagan, whose debut novel, THE ART OF FORGETTING, was published this week by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin (US). Camille was putting together a blog post for the “Author’s Desk” at Penguin.com about how and when authors find time to read. This Click here to continue…