Katherine May's Blog, page 2

notesfromtheendoftheworld

notesfromtheendoftheworld

Who killed Cock Robin?

Today, Jeremy Hunt announced his decision to close a range of cultural bodies, including the UK Film Council and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council.

These are not the first cuts to the creative & cultural sector (Find Your Talent was an early casualty), and won't be the last (those of us working on the Creative Partnerships programme are - ahem - considering our retraining options).

And, inevitably, there have been a lot of voices saying, 'Well, the UKFC always was divisive,' or 'FYT n...

Ghost

On 22nd June, I was lucky enough to take part in Adam Chodzko's Ghost performance for the Whitstable Biennale, which meant a trip in a beautiful kayak to Deadman's Island off Queenborough.
Below is the piece I wrote in response, which will feature in Duck & Cover magazine .




This is more like a birth than a funeral. I am wrapped in a life-jacket and laid back in the cockpit to be calm and quiet. The sun chases my eyes around the kayak's hood. My hands are still.

Teal sea surrounds me, its surfac...

An interruption in service

This here is my 50th post on Notes from the End of the World - and possibly my last.

I'm moving on. I'm easily bored. I've run out of things to say. Notes followed my progress as I wrote Salt, Vinegar, Mustard, Pepper, and now that's finished, all done & dusted. It's time for something new.

I've learned so much from writing this blog, and I want to apply that to a new context.

My next novel, The Tyrannies, is set in the 1960s, telling the story of a boy who turns vigilante on his sinister fa...

Who do I follow on Twitter?

I have been contemplating my twitter rules of late. Specifically, what makes me follow people?

For people who aren't already following me, it's simple: I keep an eye out for those who are engaging in interesting conversation with tweeps I already respect. I'm not interested in celebrities with big followings, because, for me, Twitter is about conversation. If I want a one-way exchange, I pick up a newspaper.

When someone I don't know follows me, though, what makes me follow back? I reckon it c...

Trailer Trash

After going to the effort of creating a performance of Burning Out, I realised that no venue would book it without a trailer film.

Great, I thought. That's another bloody thing I have to learn. However, with some top-notch instruction from Peggy Riley and the wonderful iMovie software that's native to a Mac, I have just about managed it.

iMovie lets you layer sound and photography visually, just by dragging and dropping. It's idiot-proof, which was essential in my case. The endless tweaks and a...

What writing takes away

I spend a lot of time in this blog talking about all the great things that writing gives me, but here's the underside of all that.

Writing takes a lot away from me, too. My choice to focus on writing means that I have to reject other things that interest me. I would like, for example, to master my knitting machine, to learn to make clothes, to be fitter. I would love to join my local choir. I would like to spend more time doing nothing.

But I can't. I can only fit so much into my day, and writi...

Thaw, by Fiona Robyn

Ruth's diary is the new novel by Fiona Robyn, called Thaw. She has decided to blog the novel in its entirety over the next few months, so you can read it for free.
Ruth's first entry is below, and you can continue reading tomorrow here.
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These hands are ninety-three years old. They belong to Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. She was so frail that her grand-daughter had to carry her onto the set to take this photo. It's a close-up. Her emaciated arms emerge from the top corners of the photo and t...

Finding my inner librarian

This week, I have been mainly craving libraries.

Not nasty municipal ones with too much Mills & Boon and not enough comfort. Gorgeous, old-fashioned ones that smell of dust and furniture polish.

New libraries just aren't the same - they are multimedia centres, filled with colour, computers and noise. I completely understand that these are necessary, but that doesn't stop me yearning for the sort of library that is quiet and contains books.

I revised for my A Levels in a library; I did all my uni...

Doing your research

I can distinctly remember asking this question at a workshop when I first started writing:

'Is it possible that writers only feel entitled to do research once they're published?'

Back then, I was conscious that I was squeezing my writing into a tiny window of time, and was still treating it as an embarrassing secret. To undertake in-depth research seemed presumptuous, somehow. I couldn't guarantee that my work would get an audience at all, so what was the point in wasting precious time on resea...