Ali Bacon's Blog, page 13

Only connect: sun and chemistry at Lacock

Research can take us to some odd places but a perfect English village on a perfect summer’s day was not a bad result at Lacock Abbey where I was parked up and fuelled by a stiff Americano before the gates had even opened forSunday’sdemonstrations ofearly photography. Of course I’d visited Lacock before, including once since this whole thing began, butmindsets change, new things become significant and the brain becomes ready to reabsorb some of the detail that it just might have discarded alon...

The Physic Garden: too good to dissect

‘The first time I saw Jenny Caddas she was taking a swarm of bees.’

It’s a great feeling when you fall in love with a book on the first page, or even the first line, and that’s what happened to me with The Physic Garden by Catherine Czerkawska. The voice is that of William Lang, speaking in 1802. But if the scene he describes is idyllic, we soon know that this is not to last. William, now an old man, is going to tell us how from this fine beginning, everything went wrong. In fact things are al...

Research is freedom. I agree with Sarah Dunant.

I’m not quite sure what I expected from last night’s Historical Fiction Masterclass run by Writers and Artists, but with around fifty people crowded in a room in Bedford Square on a very rainy night in London town, it was more about the chemistry of the two presenters – Celia Brayfield and Sarah Dunant – than learning how to craft a novel.

Sarah Dunant

So I’m pleased that I knew enough about the crafty stuff (in theory anyway!) to sit back and watch as the sparks flew and ideas were thrown arou...

Cameras – in Lacock, Bristol and Kabul

Since my visit to Dimbola I’ve been thinking it’s time I got a bit more hands-on with the whole notion of early photography, or any kind of pre-digital developing and printing. I mean I once knew a novelist whose research involved learning to fly, a bit of dark room photography can’t be so hard!

W. H. Fox Talbot

Luckily the Bristol Festival of Photography has just got under way, with opportunities to see the wet collodion method andother ‘old-school’ techniques being used by contemporary artist...

Cameras – in Lacock, Bristol and Khabul

Since my visit to Dimbola I’ve been thinking it’s time I got a bit more hands-on with the whole notion of early photography, or any kind of pre-digital developing and printing. I mean I once knew a novelist whose research involved learning to fly, a bit of dark room photography can’t be so hard!

W. H. Fox Talbot

Luckily the Bristol Festival of Photography has just got under way, with opportunities to see the wet collodion method andother ‘old-school’ techniques being used by contemporary artist...

Man writes woman: The Ginger Tree

Writing a character is always a leap of the imagination, so is it any more of one to take on a member of the opposite sex? Maybe not, and I certainly haven’t had a problem withcreating and speaking for the odd romantic hero, but many years ago when I first read The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd I remember empathising so deeply with the heroine that I found it hard to believe her story had beenwritten by a man.

Now Bristol HNS have chosen the theme of ‘gender and character’ for a forthcoming meeti...

The Black Art on the Isle of Wight – Julia Margaret Cameron

Some small incidents have a way of living on in our lives. When I was a trainee in the fabulous Bodleian Library (many moons ago!) I was sent one day to rescue items that had suffered water damage and the items turned out to be photograph albums (you’d be amazed what has found its way into those thirteen floors of book stacks!)

Stunning portraiture

When I showed them to Michael Turner , my boss at the time,he went straight to a colleague who agreed that the pictures were by Julia Margaret Camer...

Those writing questions answered by Judy Darley

I met Bristol writer Judy Darley last autumn at a Bristol Literature Festival event and last week I reviewed her great short story collection overon the Unchained blog.For those who can’t be at tomorrow’s launch of Remember Me To The Bees, (or even for those who can!) here are her rather intriguing answers to those writing question that have been doing the rounds.

1) What am I working on?

Gosh, as always so very many things. I task myself with writing a short story every month, and am just givi...

Unchained Anthology, a gift that’s as pretty as a bunch of flowers – and longer-lasting!

With Mothers’ Day (that’s Mothering Sunday for the traditionalists)almost upon us, don’t forget that you can still buy the small but perfectly formed paperback version of Unchained- a pretty nifty gift for any book-loving Mum with a lot more durability than a bunch of carnations. And now that the fabulous Bookhive has been disassembled from Bristol Central Library,it’s a great way toremember the whole 400 years of history that the library is celebrating this year.

Less giftable but just as rea...

Asking for trouble? Breaking the golden rule of first drafts

According to this excellent post by Andrea Gillies on getting through first draft, the first golden rule is not to show it to anyone until it’s finished. Well I do break this rule on a regular basis by submitting chunks to Bristol Women Writers for comment and feedback, but I suppose that is a generally supportive enviroment and one where it’s understood that first drafts can be either bloated or frail and that crucially, nothing is final.There have been times when a comment has knocked me of...