October 2006

Mansfield and Chekhov are, she insists, inseparable in her development as a short-story writer. With Mansfield “it was the first time I’d seen short stories used like this. She was… Read More »More of Simpson on KM

Last year, writers Toby Litt and Ali Smith provoked controversy with the perceived implication in their introduction to New Writing 13 (including one of Simpson’s stories) that they were disappointed… Read More »Helen Simpson On the short story

Who would want to be an aristocrat?! A nearly cult film if only the much hyped anachronistic music had been more in evidence. Coppola should have dared more: loved early… Read More »Marie Antoinette

“Very early morning. The sun was not yet risen, and the whole of Crescent Bay was hidden under a white sea-mist. The big bush-covered hills at the back were smothered.… Read More »

Watching Almodovar’s wonderful new film, ‘Volver’ I was reminded of KM’s famous declaration of her artistic intention. Almodovar like Mansfield and many others explores the healing possibilities of the ‘come… Read More »Almodovar's 'Volver' reminded of KM's famous declaration of her artistic intention

A gorgeous outing for all those worshippers of irony and the perfectly formed ankle. This film is a homage to shoes, jackets, hair, breasts  colour.and the devastating put down. The only… Read More »The Devil Wears Prada

I first met Katherine Mansfield in a hut. Every Friday in the Upper Sixth form we would read a short story from a battered collection extracted from the book cupboard… Read More »

Virginia Woolf once said that Katherine Mansfield had produced ‘the only writing I have ever been jealous of.’ Woolf also, jealously, wrote, ‘ . . . the more she is… Read More »

Now – now I want to write recollections of my own country. Yes, I want to write about my own country till I simply exhaust my store. Not only because… Read More »A beginning