Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Writer Wednesday: Recommended


From pal Samuel Walker on Facebook: Dublin street art. What a great idea! I may need to do something similar. Hmmm, QR codes on promo postcards? Might be the way to go. You have checked out the QR code on the sidebar, right? Scroll down.

I thought today I would point you toward some things you ought to try from people I can heartily recommend. I keep saying the future of the internet belongs to "sifters": people who will sort through the dreck out there to show you the gold. So here we go:




I first knew Anne Billson from her sharp and insightful reviews of films; I don't always agree with her, but I would rush to read what she had to say about films like The Thing; reading her BFI book on that film kept me enraptured to the end of the Central Line, which fortunately was my destination that day. Then I realised she was the same Anne Billson who wrote Suckers. Want a different spin on vamps that's also delicious satire? Try it. Try all her books.




Mr B + Luca Veste + money goes to charity x good causes = what are you waiting for? Do you need to know it's got some of the best Brit Grit writers around? Well, it does. Get stuck in.




Another good cause: Vic Watson put this together. "The 'I Am Woman' campaign is about using our voices to help other women. To raise awareness of women across the planet who have in effect 'lost their voice' or had it taken away either through, fear, abuse, illness or war. We must speak for them until they can do it for themselves." Click on the picture for more.

 Don't forget: the 99¢ you pay for Burning Bridges on Amazon also goes to charity, and for the rest of May, Matt Hilton is siphoning off profits for ACTION: Pulse Pounding Tales to give to Help for Heroes.

Here's a lot of writers who take it upon themselves to do some good in the world and stand up for what's right. To their own cost in most cases: writers don't make much money, especially when you consider how long it takes to write a novel or even a short story. You write because you can't not write: and you give what you can because you can't not do that, too.

And all you Americans who think North Carolina's vote is "not your problem" -- please remember history: discrimination does not disappear of its own accord.


"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
-- MLK "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 April 1963