Editorial: Salt
Some of the characters in Stewkey Blues have lived in Norfolk all their lives. Others are short-term residents or passage migrants. Whether young or old, self-confident or ground-down, local or blow-in, all of them are reaching uneasy compromises with the world they inhabit and the landscape in which that life takes place.
John Griffith Chaney was born on January 12th, 1876 in San Francisco. His father, William Chaney, was living with Flora Wellman when she became pregnant. Chaney insisted she have an abortion. Flora's response was to turn a gun on herself. Although her wounds were not severe the trauma made her temporarily deranged. In late 1876 his mother married John London and the young child was brought to live with them as they moved around the Bay area, eventually settling in Oakland where now, calling himself Jack, he completed grade school. Jack worked hard at several jobs, sometimes 12-18 hours a day, but his dream was university. He studied hard and borrowed the money to enrol in the summer of 1896 at the University of California in Berkeley. In 1897, at 21, Jack searched out newspaper accounts of his mother's suicide attempt and for the name of his biological father. He wrote to Chaney, then living in Chicago, who claimed he could not be Jack’s father because he was impotent and casually asserted that London's mother had relations with other men. Jack, devastated by the response, quit Berkeley and went to the Klondike. Other accounts suggest that his dire finances presented Jack with the excuse he needed to leave. In the Klondike Jack began to gather material for his writing but also accumulated many health problems, including scurvy, which together with hip and leg problems he would carry for the rest of his life. During the late 1890's Jack was regularly publishing short stories and by the turn of the century full blown novels. By 1904 Jack had married, fathered two children and was now in the process of divorcing. A stint as a reporter on the Russo-Japanese war of 1904 was equal amounts trouble and experience. But that experience was always put to good use in a continuing and remarkable output of work. In 1905 he married Charmian Kittredge who at last was a soul and companion who brought him some semblance of peace despite his advancing alcoholism and his incurable wanderlust. Twelve years later Jack had amassed both wealth and a literary reputation through such classics as ‘The Call of the Wild’, ‘White Fang’ and many others. He had a reputation as a social activist and was a tireless friend of the workers. Jack London died suffering from dysentery, late-stage alcoholism and uremia, aged only 40, on November 22nd 1916 at his property in Glen Elen in California In ‘A piece of Steak’ an ageing prizefighter seeks one last win. Not for glory, or to revisit fame, but simply to put food on the table and keep his family together. But to do that he must beat a highly rated up and coming adversary.Ver libro
(00 years across the shattered plains, voyaging the scattering void, there is no roadside assistancr. Wrenna, 8 months pregnant and Scarrett are stranded far from home.Ver libro
Literature is a world of words and wonder, able to take us on almost unimaginable journeys from the wild and fantastic to the grind and minutiae of life. An author’s ideas are his building blocks, his architecture of the mind, building a structure on which all else will rest; the narrative, the characters, the words - those few words that begin the adventure. In this series we look at some of our leading classic authors across two genres: the short story and the poem. In this modern world there is an insatiable need to categorise and pigeon-hole everyone and everything. But ideas, these grains and saplings of the brain, need to roam, to explore and find their perfect literary use vehicle. Our authors are masters of many literary forms, perhaps known for one but themselves favouring another. Story. Poems. Story. Within these boundaries come all manner of invention and cast of characters. And, of course, each author has their own way of revealing their own chapter and verse. 1 - Chapter & Verse - H P Lovecraft - An Introduction 2 - The Lurking Fear by H P Lovecraft 3 - Laeta - a Lament by H P Lovecraft 4 - Despair by H P Lovecraft 5 - The Conscript by H P Lovecraft 6 - Nemesis by H P Lovecraft 7 - Hallowe'en in a Suburb by H P Lovecraft 8 - What the Moon Brings by H P Lovecraft 9 - Sunset by H. P. Lovecraft 10 - The City by H P Lovecraft 11 - Providence by H P Lovecraft 12 - The Wood by H P Lovecraft 13 - Fact and Fancy by H P Lovecraft 14 - The Picture In The House by H P LovecraftVer libro
Montague Rhodes James is cited as perhaps the greatest English writer of ghost stories, an opinion few would disagree with. James was born on 1st August 1862 at Goodnestone Parsonage in Kent, where his father was Curate but at age 3 the family went to live at Livermere, near Bury St Edmunds in East Anglia. From early childhood he had a passion for mediaeval books and antiques. He was educated initially as a boarder at Temple Grove School in East Sheen, west London, before gaining a scholarship to Eton and thence Cambridge where he gained a double first, becoming a distinguished linguist and mediaevalist. Before the Great War vacations were usually spent touring Europe absorbing cultures and references for his later writing. A man of enormous knowledge it was said he timed his breakfast egg whilst he completed the Times crossword. Many of his elegant yet terrifying tales were created by discarding the prevailing gothic cliches and placing his characters and narrative in a realistic setting. Thereby the stories gained atmosphere and menace on a grand scale and he was famed as the originator of the antiquarian ghost story. Although story-telling and writing these 30 or so tales was a hobby, when published their effect transformed the genre and still chill the bones in our more modern times. James was also a medievalist scholar and translator whose work remains highly respected. He was also Provost of Eton College between 1918 and 1936. M R James died on 12th June 1936 at Eton in Buckinghamshire. He was 73.Ver libro
Mary Gladys Meredith was born on 25th March 1881 at Leighton Lodge in the village of Leighton, near Shrewsbury in Shropshire. Mary was home-schooled by her father before being sent to a finishing school in Southport in 1895. Her longs walks in the countryside helped her develop a heightened sense of observation and description, of both people and places, which later infused both her poetry and prose. When she was 20 she developed symptoms of Graves' disease, a thyroid disorder that caused bulging protuberant eyes and throat goitre. This caused life-long ill health and was a possible contributor to her early death. Mary was first published as a teenager when her brother sent to a local newspaper her poem on a recent rail accident. Mary, who was in the habit of destroying her work was appalled though placated when she discovered that it had received some positive appreciation in readers letters. 1912 brought marriage to Henry Bertram Law Webb, a teacher. He supported her literary work which, in 1917, resulted in the publication of her novel ‘The Golden Arrow.’ A few years later they acquired a property in London where, it was hoped, recognition of her literary talents would be more easily recognised. Her 1924 novel, ‘Precious Bane’, won the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse, the prestigious French literary prize awarded by an all-female jury. Most of her poetry and various other works were only published after her death. By 1927 her health was deteriorating and her marriage failing. Mary Webb died on 8th October 1927 at St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex. She was 46.Ver libro
In a dystopian world with no men, women are “rehabilitated” at an erotic amusement park. Climate change has caused massive flooding and warming in the Balkans, where one programmer builds a time machine. And a devious reimagining of The Sorrows of Young Werther refocuses to center a sexually adventurous Charlotte. Asja Baki? deploys the speculative and weird to playfully interrogate conversations around artificial intelligence, gender fluidity, and environmental degradation. As she did in her acclaimed debut Mars, Baki? once again upends her characters’ convictions and identities—and infuses each disorienting universe with sly humor and off-kilter eroticism. Visceral and otherworldly, Sweetlust takes apart human desire and fragility, repeatedly framing pleasure as both inviting and perilous.Ver libro
