I am a highly approachable Independent Expert Private English/English Literature Tutor located in Greater Manchester with over twenty years teaching and tutoring experience from Secondary to Postgraduate Degree level.
A short story,” he writes in an essay on Flannery O’Connor, “ought to be faultless without being mechanical. The wrong word, a misplaced paragraph, an inadequate phrase or a convenient… Read More »V S Pritchett on the short story
The Decemeber Blog birthday will be on Carol Ann Duffy. For a prequel here is a lively review of the new selected poems. More in December. Polly Clark reviews… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy
This is a marvellous article by the writer Jackie Kay -quite inspirational! Jackie Kay is the author of a number of short story collections. In this article she explains why… Read More »Jackie Kay on the Short Story
Reading through the opening description of Utterson in the novel, I am once again struck by the profound duplicity of the character description. This duplicity or narrative contradiction ‘anchors’ the… Read More »Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
The silence surrounding RLS will end today! My computer had an unhealthy number of viruses and needed a real clean up and then I was ill too. So …..
Demeter was walking in her favourite wood. She had left school for the dentist and then found no reason in her sixth form diary to return. All the golden leaves… Read More »Demeter takes a walk
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
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
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
“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
Demetercould not easily differentiate between one shape and another. Her toeswould stroke over objects at night and she would wonder what she wassleeping with- an old shirt, a newspaper, a… Read More »Demeter: A Novel Idea
I had been told to closely observe the following rules for friendship. Firstly there was the matter of the shoes. No pumps. Secondly the matter of the knife and fork.… Read More »Netting Dragons
Dr Who fell in love the other week with a girl who thought he lived in a fireplace. The girl grew up, became Madame Pompadour, and rechristened her space travelling… Read More »'Is there anybody there?' Literature and the Art of Listening.
