A review of Finding Your Element by Ken Robinson

One of the main premises of the book is that we can always change, and that we not only deserve to enjoy our lives and live creatively and powerfully, it’s our responsibility to try and do so.  If that seems facile or new-agey, it certainly isn’t.  It’s very easy to go down a specific career path and begin building up an image that is self-limiting and unsatisfying.  Doing the exercises will take readers through a range of life areas including one’s career, one’s social life, one’s financial needs, one’s physical well-being, spirituality, and the community. 

Lisa Gorton on Hotel Hyperion

The author of Hotel Hyperion talks about and reads from her new book of poetry, the relationship between memory, dreams, appropriation and art, the book’s origins including the nature of a storm glass, Titan, Keats, multiverses and rooms, art and imagination, and…

A review of The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

The Ocean at the End of the Lane has been touted as Mr. Gaiman’s first book for adults in eight years. True, it does not quite fall into the “All Ages” category that separates his works from “Adult”  because a six-year-old would probably be scarred for life reading (or listening) to the scene where our hero (a seven-year-old boy) is almost drowned in his Safe Place (the bathtub where he reads) by his own father.

A review of The Lemon Orchard by Luanne Rice

In this reader-friendly, accessible novel, two parents from different cultures and social classes bond because each has lost a child. Yet The Lemon Orchard is more than a romance between a modern-day star-crossed Lady Chatterley and a Mellors, however, for it involves a not issue in the United States – illegal immigration.

A review of Hotel Hyperion by Lisa Gorton

Though each of the poems stands alone and indeed many of the poems in the collection were published individually, there is an underlying story that links the work together. This is a story of memory, loss, history and hubris. It’s a story about a new future and about the relics of the past that travel with us and are left behind as we transform – individually, and as a species. The poems are self-referential, memetic – with cultural ideas and motifs travelling from one poem to another, and metapoetic in a way that is somehow both humorous (at times) and profound.

An interview with Donald Greig

The author of Time Will Tell talks about his first novel, the parallels between his work as a lecturer and performer and his plot, on the nature of storytelling, about having musicologists as protagonists, the links between music and writing, and lots more.

An interview with Beth Hoffman

The author of Looking For Me talks about her latest book, the connection she feels with her settings, the power of objects, her characters and how they come about, birds and feathers in her work, advice for new novelists and lots more.

A review of Gamers’ Rebellion by George Ivanoff

The Gamers trilogy will appeal particularly to fans of, Tron, Doctor Who and Pullman’s The Golden Compass (Northern Lights). It really does have everything: mind-bendingly awesome gadgets, characters you can’t help but care about and even a side-order of romance. But more than that this story, while deceptively simple on the surface, challenges readers to consider the big questions regarding our existence.