Author: Alex

So after the hand-wringing, the late-night panics, the scans and the shelved plans, she arrived. It was the night of the book launch, still a month before the due date, but something told me that it might happen, that the two creations might come into the world on the same date. The launch was marvellous … Read More

I remember my first headmaster – an oak of a man, habitually silent and brooding – spoke to us one spring morning. I was twelve. Sunlight slanted into the hall and fell in bars upon my feet. I remember it clearly because there was rare emotion in his voice. This was a man left taciturn … Read More

I took part in East London’s YARN festival this year. I was given Book Nine of the Odyssey to re-shape. Below I set out the result, which I read before a very friendly crowd on the evening of 23rd February. I had been nervous about performing my work in public, but there was something really … Read More

I started off writing poetry. I was a pale, rather studious teenager and this was what we did. I have the poems somewhere in a drawer – overwrought, humourless things that make my skin crawl now. The poem below is the first I have written for ten years, the first since I was a teenager. … Read More

I have a theory that we are all trapped at a certain age. That at a particular time in our lives things converge, our external and internal worlds reach a state of equilibrium and everything before and – crucially – after this seems reflected in the still water of that time. It is not that … Read More