Graham Domke reads “Remembering, Repeating and Working Through” at “Taking Ideas for a Walk” Essay Conference
‘Taking Ideas for a Walk’: The 2018 Essay Conference (Post-conference reactions)
Day One When I was informed that our very first essay conference was to take place two days before my graduation, I’ll admit I was dubious. Such anticipation, such enthusiasm, would surely exhaust itself and leave me slogging on stage with about as much energy as an old sloth, overwhelmed with ideas, questions and a Read More
Unfixed
When you are a child born in one place and raised in another, ‘home’ is complicated. Even more so, when ‘home’ is a series of couches, hotel rooms, borrowed apartments, and rented houses. ‘Home’ is something that belongs to your mother, gifted to you through pictures and stories, the folklore of her youth. It is Read More
Essay Fragments
Stranger he sits on the very edge of the bench legs crossed hands on his knees fingers strongly knitted together his whole body bends to the front it seems as he was just about to get up and go but forgot about it his hair is grey almost white his skin is tired nose off-colour Read More
Sgùrr Fiona & Other Reflections On Walking The Land
My first attempt was on the 4th of February 2017. We arrived at the bothy and settled onto the wooden slats for the night in a hut that sleeps ten. I think there were fifteen of us. The next morning’s cold crept into our sleeping bags, and the bustle of rucksack-packing and lunch-making sprung life Read More
Scraps
It’s my turn to present. Mrs Dover is in her usual position – lounging on a desk, elbows resting on her knees, hands clasped – she leans forward, ears primed for grammatical error. My arm shakes as I hold up my book. ‘This is one of my favourites,’ I utter, ‘Ariel, by Sylvia Plath’. Dover, Read More
A Blind Spot in the Ornithology of Letters
(Ed- Prior to publishing excerpts from the 2017 Notting Hill Editions Essay prize shortlist, we asked the marvellous essayist Chris Arthur to write a piece on the essay within the academy… Read & let us know what you think by leaving your comments below.) Students don’t believe me when I say they’ve never written an Read More
Taking Ideas for a Walk: The 2018 Essay Conference
In this one-and-a-half-day international conference, hosted by the University of Dundee’s Centre for Critical and Creative Cultures, writers and teachers, academics, publishers and journalists will come together in a concentrated forum of panel discussions, readings and question-and-answer sessions that will explore the meaning and usefulness of this most supple, porous and open-ended literary form. Held Read More
A Theft: My Con Man
Hanif Kureishi, a man who counts not only fiction, but also screen and play writing amongst his repertoire, here turns his hand to personal reportage. A Theft reads as a confessional essay of sorts. Kureishi tells us of his own experience of having his savings stolen by his newly employed accountant, Jeff Chandler. Chandler appears Read More