Words on a Page

It is often only at the end of a writer’s career that it becomes possible to see how their work has developed, how the focus has narrowed or expanded, how the writer’s thought process has shifted.  In the sixteen years since Sherman Alexie won the PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Book of Fiction for the ground-breaking and controversial short story collection Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993), he has published a further seventeen books including poetry, novels and short fiction.  Thanks to this rapidly-expanding catalogue, we are able to witness Alexie’s development in almost real time. From the very start, Alexie has explored the question of what it is to be ‘Indian’ in contemporary America, both on and off the Spokane Reservation.  Ten Little Indians (2003), however, began to shift away from the antagonistic cultural tribalism of earlier books.  Ethnicity was no longer the controlling force in the lives of his characters.  They were people ...

Many thanks this week to Steve O'Brien, editor of London Magazine , for publishing my reviews of Amnesty International's short story anthology  Freedom,  and Hassan Blasim's collection The Madman of Freedom Square.  Thanks also to Marlow Peerse Weaver for publishing my story Bastard in volume 8 of the series In Our Own Words: A Generation Defining Itself . 

Had news this week that my novella, Gathering Fragments of Light, received an Honorable Mention in Carpe Articulum's novella competition.  Yet another near miss... 

Sherman Alexie had already published four collections of poetry by the time he gained national attention in 1993 by winning the prestigious PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Book of Fiction for the short story collection The Lone-Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven .  In 1996, he was named as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists in recognition for his first novel Reservation Blues . Two years later, he won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival for the screenplay of Smoke Signals .  In all, Alexie has published eighteen books and screenplays in sixteen years, making him one of the most prolific writers working in the United States today. But his multi-genre talents don’t stop there.   He’s also collaborated on an album with musician Jim Boyd and turned his hand at film directing, too.   And in his free time?   He does a spot of stand-up comedy as well.   * While much of Alexie’s earlier work explores small-town life on the Spokane...

My romantic rodeo romp 'The Difference Between Cowboys and Clowns' has just been named as a Semi-Finalist in Moonlight Mesa's short story contest: http://www.moonlightmesaassociates.com/ .

A big 'thank you' to Ian Kampel at the Synergise.com for publishind my article on cycling across the United States. You can access the artlcle here .

This is a link the Synergise website which has just published an article I wrote about a visit to Malindi, Kenya. If you would like to have a look, please click here .

On 23rd May, I attended the Playful Paradox conference at the University of Bedfordshire and presented a paper discussing my research into the journals kept during the Lewis and Clark expedition. There are many gaps in these diaries, some of which I suspect are deliberate, and I find myself becoming increasingly skeptical about historical 'facts'. Here is a link to my paper, The Paradox of Historical Fiction: Finding Truth in the Absence of Fact . All of this year's conference papers can be found here .

Thank you, Sam, at hackwriters for including this piece on your website. http://www.hackwriters.com/Westron3.htm

Thanks to Sam North, editor of Hackwriters, for publishing this article. http://www.hackwriters.com/lions2.htm