Mark Cantrell's Blog, page 51
August 17, 2013
BLOG: Memes For The Making
An itch in mind, creates time to burn Sometimes I think too much.
That’s not always such a good idea when you’re trying to bash out a blog.
Spontaneity, that’s the thing; just snatch an idea out of the nether of the backbrain and let the fingers dance over the keyboard.
The idea can be anything. All it has to do is hang together coherent for just long enough: start to think and the whole delightful artifice risks sagging into a heap of tangled occurrences.
...
July 31, 2013
POEM: In The Kingdom Of Freedom
Speak Now, Or Forever Hold...By Mark CantrellFirst they came for the unemployed
And I said nothing, because I knew
They wouldn't listen.
They came then for the single mothers
And declared them unfit and idle and I said nothing
Because I wasn't a single mum.
Then they went for the council tenants,
And said they were the wrong sort,
So I kept quiet, for I did not live on an estate.
Soon after, they went for the sick and the disabled
And I looked the other way, because I was in good health.
More and more,...
July 3, 2013
UPDATE: Summer Sale Offers
Now's the time to try Great deals on digital fiction in the Smashwords Summer Sale
AS you might have seen on the splash page of this site, for the rest of this month (1-31 July 2013) my books are on special offer in the Smashwords Summer Sale, meaning you can buy them half-price or get them FREE of charge with the coupon codes listed on the site.
CITIZEN ZERO is on sale at half price with code SSW50.
That's £1 or $1.57 for some hard-hitting science fiction thrills with terrifying co...
June 29, 2013
BLOG: Writer's Life
THERE are consequences to being a writer, as I was reminded the other day, and it can be quite a sobering experience.
That's because I am reaching out and touching other people, or rather my work is, and it inevitably leaves an impression one way or another.
It was a work colleague who reminded me of this, strangely enough.
The other day, as I was walking through the production department to my desk in editorial, one of the guys stopped me...
June 16, 2013
MEDIA: Journey Into The Macabre
RELEASE NOTES
A journey into the macabre has begun...
STOKE-ON-TRENT, 15 June 2013: A macabre stream of consciousness with a heavy dose of creeping horror, At Death's Door is the latest in a series of standalone digital shorts culled from the author's collection, ISOLATION SPACE.
The atmospheric and disturbing short story is now available from Amazon for the Kindle and any Kindle-enabled device for a mere $0.99 (roundabout 77 pence).
Furthermore, At Death's Door is...
June 8, 2013
POEM: Tomorrow Asks The Question
All the dead souls
Living now
Demand of us to know,
What waste of life and ruined hope
Shall they be left to reap?
In our mindless demand for consumer comfort,
Our constipated expression of mind conceited,
The pursuit of pleasure,
Denial of pain, of starvation in the midst of plenty,
Shall we coax a Hell for all to come,
Our children, doomed to linger in our wake?
What poisoned chalice do we bequeath
All those dead souls
Who follow, not yet born, their lives alr...
May 28, 2013
ESSAY: Truth Be Told
We live in an age of carefully crafted untruths - but it's not just newspapers that seek to 'recalibrate' our perceptions
By Mark Cantrell
TRUTH might be objective but that doesn't mean that it stands aloof and unbiased - truth takes sides. But here's the thing: truth - the real truth - is bitterly contested territory.
There's a very good reason for this; since it's anything but neutral, it can't be allowed to stand naked before us, but must have its virtues obsc...
May 6, 2013
ARTICLE: Dealing With Bradford's Disease
When anthrax was a daily threat First published in a Yorkshire history magazine, the following article led to its author, Mark Cantrell, being interviewed on BBC Radio Leeds - as an expert on anthrax
ANTHRAX is an unpleasant disease. Little heard of today, beyond perhaps the annals of biological warfare and terror scares. In the early part of the last century, however, it was a major industrial hazard for Bradford workers.
The elimination of the disease baffled the wool textile industry...
April 29, 2013
REVIEW: Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death
A haunting reflection on memories of Auschwitz In the last piece I wrote for Cheshire Today, before the boss headed off with it to pastures new, I reviewed this haunting and haunted personal reminiscence of the Holocaust by the historian Otto Dov Kulka. Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death is dream-like and poetic, at times surreal, but no less a lucid reflection on memory and experience
Beauty in the midst of Auschwitz must seem a strange concept, but that is one of the many apparent parado...
April 7, 2013
BLOG: Is Your Boss A Cultist Or A Commissar?
By Mark Cantrell
IN 21st Century Britain, employers wouldn't dream of trawling cyberspace for any symptoms of 'disloyalty' to the 'brand', or any other signs of dissenting opinion; this is, after all, a democratic country with a strong civic tradition that has long tolerated differences of opinion, and raucous debate.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, here's a work-unsafe question for you: when did getting a job and goi...
