I love writing about books and writers - though I don’t have much time to do it these days (kid! job! writing novels!). Here’s a selection of my past writing for publications.

‘Always Coming Home: The Pleasures and Challenges of Writing Fictional Food; How Ursula Le Guin Crafts Imaginary Cuisine with Californian ingredients.” – Vittles
”The Kesh utopia is both an ordinary world, where when people have dinner they ‘sit on the floor and eat with their fingers’, and also an extraordinary one – a distant fantasy, one of Le Guin’s fullest and most profound visions.”

‘‘Reflections on Octavia Butler’s Lillith’s Brood’ trilogy’ - SciFiNow
”The trilogy is full of Butler’s characteristic empathy, with a narrative rooted in emotional intelligence and a deep understanding of what makes us both attached to and fearful of others.”

‘Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love’ – the i Paper
”We now know the lived experience of any ‘muse’, from Edie Sedgwick to Gala Dali, was far more complicated than such a shallow mythology allows for.”

Interview with Mackenzie Jorgensen - Vector
”Janetta has never been vulnerable. She’s used her work as a shield. I wanted this to be a story about being vulnerable, about screwing up, and about bringing yourself back from that.”

‘Philip K Dick’s A Scanner Darkly, 40 Years On’ - The Quietus
”Before, he would knock out up to four novels a year, but he worked on draft after draft of Darkly for four years. It was different; it required him to wrestle with a devastating period in his life and create something that would help him come to terms with it”

‘Pavement weren’t really trying: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain Revisited’ - The Quietus
”They simply shrugged at external notions of success and got back to making the record. And if the world thought it pretty and embraced it, or thought it ugly and shunned it, so be it.”

‘Ursula Le Guin: A Strange Horizons Tribute (lead article)’ - Strange Horizons
”Le Guin’s work became the site of radical emancipatory visions, courageous and profound reimaginings of the way life is, and a beautiful yet clear-eyed utopianism. It became, in other words, extraordinary.”

‘Damn Dirty Japes: Planet of the Apes revisited, fifty years on’ – The Quietus
”Planet of the Apes might not be high art, but it definitely put a few things in perspective. Are humans destined to self-destruct? Why do we think it’s all about us?”

‘The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy – a review’ – Minor Literatures
”It’s also worth considering here whether all artists are required to keep tabs on their own privilege, or if indeed it’s only the responsibility of women.”

‘Penelope Fitzgerald: I have been reading steadily for seventeen years; when I go down I want to start writing’ - Minor Literatures
”In a notebook from the late ‘60s, Fitzgerald writes: “I’ve come to see art as the most important thing but not to regret I haven’t spent my life on it.” It’s a lament for what could have been, and what she wanted so dearly – but she wasn’t going to pity herself.”

‘Axis of Empathy: Philip K Dick’s The Man in the High Castle revisited, fifty years on’ – The Quietus
”The alternative history of TMITHC is a shining example [of the sci-fi concept of cognitive estrangement]: its world and people are recognisable – even the incongruences have their roots in reality – but there’s something alien lurking there. A constant shadow.”

‘Making Idiots of Us All: Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle revisited, fifty years on’ – The Quietus
”hen he taught fiction writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in the ‘60s, Kurt Vonnegut would remind his students they were in the entertainment business. Writing might be a merciless process, sure, but what comes out the other end has to be fun.”

‘The Yoga of Love: Aldous Huxley’s Island revisited, fifty years on” - The Quietus
”Huxley was never afraid to wade into the heart of spiritual experience – this time via a smoothly syncretised mix of Mahayana Buddhism and Vedantic Hinduism – and come back with a full report.”

‘Future Sex by Emily Witt: a review’ – Minor Literatures
'“Witt never instantly damns or praises what she finds, and it’s a pleasure to read a writer who is so alive to ambiguity, and who can so smartly tease out the contradictions and absurdities of such complex sexualities”

If for any reason you want to read some of the mass of music writing I did a long, long time ago, here’s my reviews of All Tomorrow’s Parties (The National); Away Game festival on the Isle of Eigg; All Tomorrow’s Parties (Jeff Mangum), and Blur’s supposed ‘last ever gig’ at Hyde Park. Oh, the memories!