When I want time off from my hurly burly world of handing out my opinion of the global recession, home insurance and SDSL versus leased lines, I browse creative writing websites.
So I’m pleased to be able to make this unashamed plug for the really cool website of a really cool Kiwi writer. I’ve often enjoyed the sometime acerbic, sometime maudlin, sometime absolutely hilarious writing style of John Irvine. His execution is immaculate, and his work is always a pleasure to read.
It’s a lovely website – a library cum bookshop of his works and works to which he has contributed. It’s well worth a browse, and you can purchase if you want to. There’s even gentle music to put you in the right mood.
Also, there’s a section just about John and his writing mate, Dave Freeman – a dry-witted British non-convict who’s taken up residence in the far western reaches of Australia. How they can be friends is beyond me, but I think it has something to do with their personal distaste of each other. Certainly, based on their exchanges of insults, you’d think they couldn’t stand one another. Obviously, best of mates in that blokey kind of way Anglo-Saxons have.
Links lets you trail around the internet for a good while, sampling interesting tidbits from a rather classy set of John’s writing friends, and some of the more interesting, and less mainstream online writing magazines.
The best bit, of course, is the link to John’s actual, online published work. Some of it takes a bit of finding, but that’s why the ‘Find’ facility is useful. To make it easy, here’s a direct link to one of his gruesome masterpieces, Hark the Herald Angels sing.
Tags: creative writing, Kiwi writer, poetry, speculative fiction