Category Archive

The Arvon Friends Office has been collecting some delicious words on friendship. Here’s some turns of phrase for all friends out there. (Thanks to Sara for compiling these.)

Jane Austen -
Friendship is the finest balm for the pangs of despised love.

Italian Proverb -
He who finds a friend, finds a treasure

Jane Austen -
Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.

C S Lewis -
Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You, too? Thought I was the only one.”

Sir Francis Bacon -
We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.

Oscar Wilde -
True friends stab you in the front.

W H Auden -
Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.

William Blake -
The bird a nest
     the spider a web
          the human friendship.

Virginia Woolf
Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title.

Mark Twain -
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

William Shakespeare (from Much Ado about Nothing) -
Friendship is constant in all other things save in the office and affairs of love . . . 

BEGIN….

No. You won’t get him. I was told. Don’t waste your time. Impossible. But I have always been stubborn and instinctive, and I knew that Anthony Minghella had a profound love of Beckett. I had seen it in the way he had directed Play for Channel 4. So I dared to do, believing never say never, and asked him to write a radio play to mark Samuel Beckett’s centenary. And he replied and said he would - but only if he could direct it too. But he wouldn’t charge Hollywood rates. Just the standard BBC rate would do. Elegiac, at times funny and intensely poetic, Eyes Down Looking was Anthony’s first radio play for 20 years.

‘You run the comb through the experience of your life, and  some things stick. And you don’t know why they do.  What DO they do, when we tell them to each other? What are they for?’

That’s what he said his play was about - the way our lives become stories even to ourselves, which we tell to others, pass on, and then get transformed. Like  his great hero Samuel Beckett, Anthony believed that mankind is at heart, a storytelling animal, making sense out of pain and laughter, death and life, by telling tales. And like Beckett, Anthony also believed profoundly in the power of words, weighing them up carefully even when he spoke in his characteristically resonant voice with a reverence he so clearly felt each one deserved.

‘Do you think that word at the end of the 9th is right on the 13th page?

‘I am not sure about the balance of that line starting ‘the medal we bought him with the St Christopher on it and the wrong phone number on it.’

‘How do you think it would sound if we overlapped Mother’s voice on top of the Father’s?’

For 2 months, we exchanged phonecalls, texts and emails about Eyes Down Looking. He was excited and energised,  and we worked together crazily on it, across time zones and geography,  scrutinising every line of the emerging play, swapping notes and thoughts. He was in Lithuania producing an opera one week, then in New York another. I was talking to  him in between talking to scientists in the Ukraine and Russia about nuclear physics. I was investigating a documentary to mark another anniversary - the Chernobyl disaster. But between us we found the gaps in time and space to  work, work, work on this marvelous play. And it was the love of words which linked us.  The ones on the computer screen. Or by text. Or the  ones in the post. And I found I had the intense pleasure of working with someone who had the same passion to get it absolutely right - right to the very end. To that final full stop. Then silence.

“At the beginning of my life, I was an ill-educated and beligerant 6th former, who applied to do a drama degree at Hull, and then fell in love with Beckett in the most profound and adolescent way. He damaged me for life.”

It was characteristic of Anthony, that he would tell  this story of his interview for a place at Hull with a disarming frankness. He confessed he had never heard of Beckett before he stepped into the interview room. So when he was asked about the great Irish writer in the interview, he blagged, remembering the words on the spine of a book. ‘Yes I love Beckett’s ennui.’ He had got it all comically wrong.  But he also got it comically right too. He was offered the place at Hull and became inspired by Beckett. Went on to do a doctorate on him at Reading. Become a Patron of the Beckett International Foundation.

“Like Bach, Beckett has a mathematical language for the heart. He asks us why we write. Everytime you read something of Beckett’s, it asks us questions, demands a rigorous perfection, and makes us confront the necessity of writing.”

Anthony speaking again. Remembering Beckett. Reflecting on his writing.  What are the words for? What is the sky for? Those are Anthony’s words in Eyes Down Looking. But they could be Beckett’s too. But that’s not the ‘all of it’. Because writing is also about memory - our relationship with time. ‘Eyes Down Looking’ confronts us also with the necessity of remembering. The play was infused  by Anthony’s obsessions, shown clearly in his film ‘Truly Madly Deeply’  - his interest in ghosts and the twilight world of the line between life and death.

“Every day when I am in London, I walk across the heath to my office. I see these benches and I ask myself. Why do people put names on park benches. Part of our fiction, good or bad, is to comfort us that all the ghosts have a place in our life.”

These are the things I remember about Anthony. These words and thoughts. Intensely. But also laughter too. The sheer vaudeville in Eyes Down Looking, with the Father figure played by David Threlfall, the bingo caller in denial, calling the numbers like some spiv.  ‘God’s in Heaven, number seven.’

“Laughter is the key to Beckett. His work is rooted in the vaudeville tradition. You have to remember, that if Beckett was sitting here with you today, he would be talking about Buster Keaton. The vaudeville tradition was a close tenplate for him
 and his writing. The profound agony and silliness of it all.”

The why of it all.

Those words. In place.

A year later, I am working for the Arvon Foundation. Anthony is one of the charity’s most devoted Patrons. He organised the extraordinary Love Letters fundraising event. He taught on our courses.  Ian McMillan, the poet, who presents The Verb for BBC Radio 3 and with whom I worked, started his life as a young writer on an Arvon course and became inspired.

The paths which join us. That’s a phrase Anthony used.

Anthony’s third play. The lost play. The play no-one has mentioned in the obituaries. But it’s a profound play.  A great play.  Close to his heart. So much so, that he asked for the broadcast rights to it, so it was only broadcast the once - on April 1st 2006. A ghost - presently absent.

What else? Where to End? To begin again -  A wide heart, laughter, profound sincerity, an all encompassing love of words  - Anthony.

‘Eyes Down Looking’ written and directed by Anthony Minghella was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 April 1st 2006 on The Verb, presented by Ian McMillan. The play starred Juliet Stevenson, Jude Law and David Threlfall. The producer was Ariane Koek.

Arvon recently hosted the lovely Chroma Journal. Our pre-Domesday thatched manor house, Totleigh Barton, was completely enchanted and entranced by magical minds, words and thinking. Thank you to Chroma - who are running their exciting new competition this year. Get your poetry and short stories in by 1 September 2008 - there are Transfabulous and Flash Velvet Fiction Prizes to boot!

Play day – before getting on the plane. ‘Be careful walking across this square. It is the most dangerous place in Rio,’ says the taxi driver as he drops me off. I am furious that he has not taken me to the gates of the ferry station, but instead elects to drop me like bait in a shark infested pool and see if I can survive the waters. ‘Good Luck,’ he shouts. ‘Sorry I no English.’

I am ending my time in Brazil as I began – by going to see yet the art gallery at Niteroy – yet another building by Oscar Niemeyer. It’s across the bay from Rio – at Niteroy – and I decide to take the ferry, to see the city from the water. Rio is beautiful from here – curve after curve of mountain enclosing sea and sky.  It is like nowhere else on earth. And Niemeyer’s building is like no building on earth. Instead, it is a spaceship which has just landed on the lip of a cliff above the ocean, jutting out, with pools of water surrounding its stem and a great sweeping floating pavement up to its front door. It is astonishing – and closed.

My final 3 hours in Brazil are spent – where else – but on Ipanema beach. Watching the world go by. Swimming in the ocean.  When I land in London 18 hours later, the world is dark and grey. There’s no sun. No light. No laughter. But deep seriousness. When I look in the mirror I notice I have a bright red nose. I poke it into the cold winter air.  Christmas Brazillian style. I have returned dressed for the festive season.

He speaks in gunfire English and  has an accent from Utah. Professor Reynaldo is head of Literature and Linguistics at the Roman Catholic University in Sao Paulo. His teaching staff are committed and loyal. They beam with a missionary zeal to teach.

“We have no money” he says. “There’s pressure on us to have as many students as possible to get money for our university. But we have managed to keep the numbers of students in our language classes down. You can’t teach a language with 100 pupils which we have in our other classes.”

They love the message of Arvon: that by freeing the imagination you can find your way in words and new literature and voices will grow. They want to jump on the first plane and visit our houses, but they can’t afford to  visit us as a group. But Brazil has a culture where everything is paid for in instalments – including air travel. The national airlines allow you to pay off their airfares monthly spread over a year.  There might be individuals who can afford to come because of this, Reynaldo explains, so we will spread the word, but why doesn’t Arvon come here?’

It is a question which comes up time and time again here in Brazil over my 8 days. Arvon is going to open a franchise here in Brazil says Malu firmly. She’s swiftly  become the business brains, and Liliane the saleswoman. Liliane is starting to know my descriptions of Arvon so well, that she can recite it without me ever opening my mouth. We are a  team with a mission: we want to make literature happen even more here and find a way of crossing the gulf of money, geography and tradition. We know we can do it. We see everyone ablaze with the idea.

The car spins us into the courtyard of one of the hundreds of buildings which belong to a private university founded by an American donor. It has 30,000 students and a campus which is like a town in itself. It also has 6 other branches throughout Brazil.

“We have a house in the mountains. That could be a place to work with you.” Arvon in Brazil suddenly becomes an unexpected  possibility.  They love the idea of cooking and eating together too, which is also a surprise I hadn’t reckoned with. In Brazil, even the very poorest household will have a maid who prepares the food. At Munira’s maids had flitted like shadows in the house bearing steaming dishes of chicken curry and pasta. The past is very much present.

A girl with great sweeps of black hair floats on the ceiling. Arms spread wide,  she is a suspended angel, her white gown spread around her like clouds. Look closely and you realise that what seems above is below you, what seems to be visible is invisible. You are looking in a mirror.

Patricia Osses is one of Brazil’s leading young artists. She works mostly with photography but trained as an architect. Not surprisingly, her obsession is space – the way we occupy it and our relationship to it, even when we have left a particular place.

The work I am looking at was made in her grandmother’s house in Santiago in Chile, where she comes from.

I wanted to make the house where I would live for the rest of my life,’ she explains. Then my cousins said – here is your grandmother’s house. Do what you want with it.’  It’s been untouched for 15 years since she died – waiting for this moment for her grandchild to set foot in it again.

The photographs are a collision between past and present. One shows a curtained room, with azure wallpaper and a mound of belongings: a television set, numerous unrelated chairs, books all piled high  – the debris of a life abandoned by the frailty of the flesh. Peer closely into this dark room, and in the curtains by the window you may glimpse a form. It is Patricia  - a ghost in her own presence.

Patricia turns over her portfolio and shows another photograph.

‘This is the last supper’ she explains. It’s the last supper my grandmother ever had.’ Patricia’s family sit, with her father at the head of the table. But what makes this so extraordinary is that it is in the middle of a shop – a general store with wire mesh shelves which reach to the ceilings – replete  with cleaning products and cans of beans and tomatoes – everything a household could need.

The last supper is an intervention in this space – it used to be the dining room in her grandmother’s house but since she died, it was bought and turned into a shop.  Patricia is reclaiming the space for this one last supper. Like everything she does, it is touching and extraordinary – emotionally thought through. No wonder I am so keen to welcome her to an Arvon house next year as part of Artists Links – an innovative ongoing project in which Brazillian and British artists travel to each others countries and engage in each other’s work. Imagination is moving.

The project Patricia wants to do in Britain is  wonderful too: she thinks every house is like a book: It tells many stories and has many pages which you must turn. She became aware of Britain through reading books, like Jane Austen’s Persuasion and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. She has mapped in her imagination a country she has never seen, thanks to the pages of the books she has turned. Now she wants to encounter it for real.  She wants to stay in writers’ houses and make work based on these encounters. She shows me a photograph which started this whole idea. It is of the side of a building torn away,. I  can see the traces of where the staircase was, the delineation of walls like tears on the building, the ghosts of where pictures hung and a doorway once was. This is the map of this buildings’ past : its walls are worn inside out.

Patricia has stencilled huge words onto its walls in Portuguese. This is a house which is a book with many thick pages. Turning, turning, turning…I hope she comes to the Hurst and turn the pages of one angry young man into a house of artful destinies. A Brazillian in John Osborne’s house for whom the ceiling knows no bounds.

The underground station disgorges the cities travellers into an open space, which resembles an aircraft hanger. The noise is deafening here. The clatter of activity  is intense.  People are dancing, rehearsing,  writing, clapping, reading,  shouting, workshopping and running here. But what makes it so different from anywhere I have ever been, is that you not only hear it all happening, you can see it all too. Every space – whether it is the theatre, the library, the centre’s administration, the garden, the rehearsal spaces – is open for everyone to see.  The walls are made of glass.  Even a whisper is amplified. It feels astonishing that  you can’t also hear people think. This is the Cultural Centre of Sao Paulo. A glass heart  which beats with imagination in the  depths of the city.

Last month, they held a partnership with the city’s planetarium. Audiences came and were handed telescopes to gaze at the night sky, whilst poetry was read and music played. This  is a place from whom many could learn. It shows how public space can engage  and stimulate cultural activity, and be alive with it. With a new visionary as its director, Martin Grossman, it embraces the urban chaos with an imaginative zeal. It has been called a city in itself – travelling like a ship on a journey.

Have you read Roland Barthe’s ‘How to Live Together’ asks Gui, a visual artist who only started work in the education programme here three weeks ago. ‘It reminds me of the Arvon Foundation. How you have to live together in a retreat like a monk to be truly individual and listen to your soul.’

Everyone here is struck by the Arvon message of imagination freeing you. But how will it translate into this intensely noiseful space? We start a conversation which is still just beginning – and somehow I know it will lead somewhere unexpected, unusual and special.

‘Then on to give another lecture. This time it is a double act about New Writing in the UK,  with Julie Ellen at SESI which is running the Nucleo project. Julie is awe inspiring, the work she has done for the Playwrighting Studio of Scotland in just 3 years is astoundingly  impressive.

The questions we field are  from committed and engaged young drama students . They ask intensely about how theatre can engage with politics and perhaps even replace journalism.
Students come up afterwards, asking more questions.  And then an injection of reality. All the time during this 7 day visit, I am intensely aware that I am seeing a slice of Brazillian life which is so privileged it bears little resemblance at all to what the majority of people in this country experience.  A young student comes up to me. ‘I don’t have a question for you. I just have this.’ He thrusts a sheaf of papers in my hand. ‘This is what life is really like in Brazil. This is how my son really lives. It’s written in Portuguese which is our language. Read it and see.’

There is one other moment in my 7 day trip when the same reality cuts through the verneer. In the converging lanes of traffic at the entrance to Sao Paulo airport, a young girl stands, hand on hip. She has long black  hair lank with neglect, a lost face, and is dressed like a school girl in a black skirt and top, with shoes.  There is no light in her eyes: they  are deep black caves. All that is left of this 16 year old girl is a body stranded yet still standing in the tides of traffic -  a girl who has nothing to live for, except for the  car door which will be opened to let her in.

Arvon Director, Ariane Koek, was invited by the British Council to visit Brazil in her capacity as a literature development leader in the UK. We asked Ariane to record her time away. That record is published here, on the Arvon Blog, for the first time.

Sunday – December

When a helicopter parks on the roof opposite your hotel room, you know you have landed in a different world. What seems like pinpricks of blood in the night, are swarms of private helicopters buzzing across the skyline of Sao Paulo.

Founded in 1554, with over 10 million inhabitants, Sao Paulo is one of the largest cities on the planet. It is also one of the most violent. Cars with smoked windows snake through the streets, traffic jams last for hours and there’s a body guard posted on every corner. No wonder Sao Paulo’s privileged take to the air like in a Fellini film. The rich are so extremely rich that the city boasts the world’s second largest civilian use of helicopters. The buildings are so tall and square you feel as if you are in a Second Life New York, replete with mini Empire State buildings. Some of the high rise flats boast names like Lexington Avenue and Time Square to make your cultural confusion even more complete. They are bold columns holding up the sky, uniform in their height, their squareness and aspiration, but each building is also resolutely individual too: one has vermillion glass; another is embraced by black marble balconies; and there are a multitude of roof gardens spilling tendrils. . The message is pure Brazillian – individuality is for the masses. 

I’ve just had my first day here. I landed at 8am and was determined to seize the free time ahead of me. Julie Ellen Creative Director of the Scottish Playwrighting Studio is here too on this mission for the British Council to encourage the growth of a creative writing culture in Brazil. In an oral culture, in which music is highly advanced and literature plays second if not third or fourth fiddle, it feels like a responsibility neither of us can quite gauge.

So we take to the streets before the work begins and head towards the heartbeat of the city – Ibirapuera Park. It’s a huge green open space of over 2 million metres square, with two lakes, three museums and unusual architectural wonders. Like every Sunday in South America, the park is pure holiday: families feeding the giant carp which gasp for air in the 34 degrees heat; muscle bound men in micro shorts on rollerskates; balloons and candy floss festoon the air. And in the middle of it all, in this sweltering heat which sits on your skin like velvet, is the most unexpected sight of all: a skyscraping Christmas tree with baubles and a shining star. Size matters in this city where the small and tiny get swallowed whole.

A giant pink tongue licks the sky. It’s brazen and cartoon like. This is the famous auditorium, built by the great Brazillian architect Oscar Niemeyer who celebrates his 100th birthday on December 15th. The auditorium stands at the far corner of the park. From the back, it looks like a white concrete warehouse and promises nothing. Turn the corner, and the blank warehouse turns into a space ship, with Niemeyer’s trademark curves inspired by the mountains of his beloved Brazil. A yawning mouth invites you to step inside: and the enchantment doesn’t stop there. The interior dances too. Red sweeps of colour and light  bounce off every surface, it’s bewitching.  This is architecture is of  such intensity and sensuality that I feel as if my eyelids are being kissed…then licked.

Jump cut to later in the evening, and Julie and I are on the rooftop of the Unique Hotel. It’s a gigantic slice of water melon supported on either end by two columns. Built by Rhuy Okhtake a half  Brazillian, half Japanese architect who admires Niemeyer, it marries Oscar’s love of modernist curves with a Japanese restraint and purity. Niemeyer’s exuberant sensuality is held in check, but the building is no less powerful for it. Look up in the reception to the skylight 100s of metres above you, and you will see a glass ceiling on which water flows. The effect is magical.  Below, you are caught in ever changing rivulets and patterns of dancing watery light. If you then take the lift to the 17th floor to the Skye Bar, the skyline of Sao Paulo is presented as an infinite vista of skyscrapers and strobes. It has to be the most beautiful city scape I have ever seen, a panorama of jewel-like lights, studded by a panoply of high rise buildings and towers, alive with helicopters above and  humming with cars in the streets below. A crimson red swimming pool runs down the length of one side of the rooftop and appears to fall off the edge. Only when we look closely do we realise that we are not perching recklessly on a flat roof open to the world before us. There are huge glass panels holding us in: we are gawping goldfish in a bowl. And then we see the inescapable: the giant Christmas tree dominating the city with its winking baubles and  the star on top which is now a searchlight piercing the night sky in sweeping lighthouse rotations. You can go to the other side of the world and be in sweltering heat, but Christmas will always find you, wherever you are.

Scott Pack, from The Friday Project publishing company, reviews our Arvon Friends’ writing. His latest review is now out. Anyone can join Arvon Friends, for as little as £2 a month.

Arvon has been spotting a lot of things vanishing over the weekend. Soon we shall have ink that vanishes after 24 hours (which will be good for saving paper, but will creative writers remember?) and the new Shorter Oxford English Dictionary has dispensed with hyphens. This will save on ink, we suppose, which is vanishing anyway. Sometimes a hyphen is needed. “Twenty-odd people” means something different from “twenty odd people”.

There could be no more fitting visitors to The Hurst than members of the Mary Webb Society. It was founded in 1972 to foster an appreciation of her writings and of the Shropshire countryside which she loved. The 30 acre grounds of The Hurst were included in the Society’s annual exploration on foot of the landscape which inspired her writings.

Their walk began at St George’s churchyard, Clun, where John and Helen Osborne, the last owners of The Hurst are buried. “Everyone is intrigued to know how John Osborne made the life journey from Look Back in Anger to one of Housman’s quietest places under the sun.” explained Keith Pybus. “Although at first glance you couldn’t imagine two more different writers, Mary Webb would have understood Osborne’s love of walking these hills with the labradors and his passionate claim that he had ‘the best view in England’ down the Clun Valley from his upper lawn. The house was built in 1812, so I suppose we can also say that it is part of Mary Webb’s Shropshire. You can’t imagine a place which better combines a writer’s retreat with such an inspiring setting. John Osborne said to his wife Helen that buying The Hurst was the “Best thing we’ve ever done Marvellous!” He wrote to a friend “I still can’t get over the triumphant inspiration of coming here. Not for the ‘final years’ but as a new outburst of energy.”

“Everyone who walks these lovely grounds realises what a remarkable spot this is. I felt if the Mary Webb members didn’t tear themselves away they wouldn’t complete their walk. They seemed to have loved the place as much as we do, as we are now talking to them about hosting their Summer School at The Hurst.”

The text of Gone to Earth can be found on the Project Gutenberg site.  The complete text of her other works, including Precious Bane, are also available online .

Emma Johnson, Arvon’s Development Manager (pictured on the left), woke up one Sunday and ran for Arvon. Emma hopes others will do the same - spreading the word about Arvon’s work with words, whilst having a lot of fun on the way.

I’m the first to admit that I’m not naturally athletic and it takes quite a lot to get me out of bed on a Sunday before 11. But yesterday I fought every urge to stay under the duvet and ran the Hydro Active Women’s Challenge 5k in Hyde Park. It’s the third time I’ve participated and I love the day itself -  the sun always shines, Hyde Park always looks lovely, and its a massive buzz to take part in something that generates so much good will towards so many deserving charities. I ran for Arvon, getting sponsorship from friends and family, and I hope to raise about £400 before gift aid is added.

If you would like to raise money for Arvon this way, then please do let us know. Raising money through sponsorable activities is easy, fun, and, most importantly, it spreads the word about Arvon to a wider audience. So if you feel inspired, then do please get in touch at e.johnson@arvonfoundation.org

If I can - you can!!

Arvon Friends Manager, Philip Cowell, asked all the Arvon Friends on email what book they were currently reading. All in the spirit of sharing what we like to read, and why, some of the responses so far are posted here. Don’t forget, 2008 is the National Year of Reading. Be inspired. (Join Arvon Friends to have your say!). The above, beautiful photo was taken by Marco Casse.

Clarissa Henry
Richard Powers: Plowing the Dark. Last year, I ‘discovered’ his The Time of Our Singing since when I have read everything of his that I can find. If I may be allowed to add: I think he is one of the most remarkable writers writing today. I have also now read his Operation Wandering Soul, The Echo Maker, Galatea 2.2 so I feel entitled to my opinion! Hope the weather in the UK is better than here in Vienna where it is quice frankly dreadful!

Jenny Evans
I’m currently reading The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett and am thoroughly enjoying it - she is a very fine writer. I chose to read it because of an article in The Week where Erica Wagner (literary editor of The Times) selected her 6 best ever books and this was one of them - you couldn’t get a higher recommendation than that!

Paul Francis
I am currently reading Web of Deceit by Mark Curtis, a patient, thoroughly documented indictment of UK foreign policy - and the failure of the media to report it fully. Yes, it confirms some prejudices, but there’s surprises there too, and it’s all backed up. Devastating.

Frank Egerton
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut — I’m not a science fiction fan but was intrigued by Vonnegut’s Times obituary – in which this book was praised — and his humanist beliefs. The book is terrific: KV has a light touch and is writing about 1950s America quite as much as ‘chrono-synclastic infundibula’ etc.

Kate Steer
The Scottish Enlightenment: the Scots’ Invention of the Modern World. Normally I don’t read much History but am enjoying this immensely. Its author (Arthur Herman, American) writes most engagingly. Irvine Welsh declared in the Guardian, “Every Scot should read it.” I agree.  p.s. In July I read, twice, a first novel, Salvage, by Gee Williams. It’s a literary thriller and “fell guid”! 

Rachel Hazell
Ice Bird, by David Lewis. I’m genning up on Antarctic adventures in anticipation for my stint working at Port Lockroy this season.

Jacqueline Gazzard
My reading comes via recommendation, the sudden realisation ‘its a classic and I only saw the movie’ or good old cover design….and cover design will frequently win out as I’m a packaging junkie. This was the case with Miss Webster and Cherif  written by Patricia Duncker. It is not great literature but I really enjoyed it as an unusual slice of escapism and easy read! Its a little cliched I guess but quite life affirming too - life isn’t a dress rehearsal so get on and enjoy it!

Emily Johnson
I am reading The Day Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko.  It’s the second book in the night watch trilogy and I like it.  It’s about people called ‘Others’ who have magical powers and divide into the dark and the light.  Claims to be ‘JK Rowling, Russian style’ on the cover.

Kadija George
Mimi Khalvati, The Meanest Flower, Read it this morning for breakfast. Ignore the sentimental slush on the back and go straight for the poems, ‘Motherhood’, ‘Sundays’, and the first poem, ‘The Meanest Flower’.

David Lloyd
George Eliot - Middlemarch. I am re-reading this great novel after a gap of twenty years. It is a book which maps the personal journey of its heroine Dorothea but it also paints on a large canvas capturing a period of social and political change from the coming of the railway to the Reform Acts and the changing role of women.

Jane Reed
Just finished The Rossetti Stone by Kristin Phillips.  Fascinating first novel with a wealth of historic detail intertwined with a love story. Why am I reading it?   I love reading first novels and comparing them with the one to which I am forever giving birth.

Gillian Hush
Since you ask, I’m reading Half of a Yellow Sun and very good it is too!

Sarah Treco
Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert. Confessional, exuberant, and wacky, a travel memoir of a surprizingly wise journey to self-discovery.

James Furber
John Le Carre’s The Mission Song. There are few bookshops on the Isles of Scilly, but I have always enjoyed Le Carre as a holiday read; the Honourable Schoolboy now appears with a reassuring freqency in his writing which is fine by me…

Fathieh Saudi
I am reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron…it seems its an international best seller..i think i need it now.. as i feel i have been a shadow artist for long time and i would like to overcome my censorship… Julia wrote: creativity is a fact of your spiritual body and nothing that you must invent….it’s a great useful book like a course you can do by yourself…

Gill Hancock
I am reading The view from Castle Rock by Alice Munro. The book starts with accounts related by members of her family who emigrated to Canada from the Scottish Borders and slips from memoirs into fiction.  In very good words  Munro conveys the particular atmosphere of relationships.

Carole Satyamurti
I’m currently reading The Iliad in Robert Fagles’ translation. It is a verse translation and wonderfully vivid and linguistically rich. He seems to manage to find an inexhaustible supply of words for sticking a spear into one’s enemy!

Kryss Brady
I have just finished reading Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. It is about a boy and his stutter, “Hangman”, and everything else that life throws a fifteen year-old in 1982 (the Falklands War, his parents splitting up, his sister going off to university and his own coming of age) and it is brilliant, hillarious and poignant in equal measure.  If I had another sentence I’d tell you that: I chose it for our book club because, having read Cloud Atlas and enjoyed Mitchell’s ability to switch genres, period and prose style in one book, I wanted to see how he tackled this lighter subject.

Louise Tondeur
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. It’s a beautiful book. Dangerous, topsy-turvy, energetic, magical. What a great opening line. And he breaks every rule. Chronicle of a Death Foretold is masterful too.

Geraldine Terry
The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney. I’m reading this because I read an excerpt in a Costa coffee bar when it was nominated for Costa book of the year and I’m totally gripped by it – just fabulous.

Jane Stemp
This is going to sound dreadful. The book I am reading at the moment is my own title, Double Bind. Mind you it is only in Word format so far: and it does need revising - but I am finding bits of it better than I thought, so I suppose you could say I’m enjoying it ….

Simon Barraclough
As You Like It, William Shakespeare. I’m hoovering up all the Shakespeare plays I haven’t read yet and finding them uplifting, inspiring and deliciously complex. (Simon has his debut poetry collection Los Alamos Mon Amour out from Salt Publishing in March 2008.)

Andrew Lucas
I am two thirds of the way through The end of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas. I have to confess that I bought this book not through recommendation but because it has a great cover….so far the proverb is incorrect.

Linda Ewles
Julian Barnes, Arthur and George. It’s my reading group book so I will plod on with it but that’s what it feels like: a plod.

One Friend wrote to say:
I am currently reading books by C.J. Sansom.  I have read Dissolution, Sovereign and am about to start Dark Fire.  Although I don’t usually read crime novels, I am captivated by the main character, Shardlake, a lawyer in the time of Henry VIII.  But the main attraction is the way the sounds and smells of Tudor England are brought to life, so that you feel as though you are really there with the character.

Prue Skene
I’m currently reading Pat Barker’s Life Class - firstly because I’m an admirer of Pat’s and am actually studying The Ghost Road for an Open University course, and secondly because it was the choice for my book club - we’re discussing it next Monday (Sept 17).  Certainly worth a read if less multi-textured than the Regeneration trilogy.

Kaz Fairs
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand. Alledgedly its going to help me keep the faith, so far so good…

Gina Walker
I’m reading The Snow Geese by William Fiennes. I’ve just returned from an Arvon Starting to Write course on which Will Fiennes was a tutor – he is a compassionate writer, who’s first book beautifully articulates his love of language as ‘a way of being in love with the world’.

Alan Buckley
I’m currently re-reading Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes - he sometimes lapses into self-pastiche, but the (many) poems that work here are utterly breathtaking. Also reading Fernado Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet, a birthday present from a friend who makes Bernardo Soares look like a feelgood motivational guru…

Judith Allnatt
I’m reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. This is an unusual book in almost every way, not least because it’s narrated by Death. Fascinating.

Caroline Pitcher
Abela, the girl who saw lions by Berlie Doherty. I am a children’s writer,  and Berlie’s moving, beautifully-written story is the one I have loved best this year. (Caroline Pitcher wrote The Shaman Boy.)

Pauline Smith has been relief centre-directing at our pre-Domesday house, Totleigh Barton. She was eager to promote a friend of hers - Joanna Guthrie - who has recently had published a new collection of poetry. More than happy to do so, we present below Pauline, Joanna and Billack’s Bones.

I had some great news today. My very good friend, Joanna Guthrie, e-mailed me to say her first collection of poetry has been published by The Rialto. Jo and I met as postgrad students at Exeter University. We both graduated on the same day with an MA in English Studies (Creative Writing) but were sad that our paths would no longer cross on a regular basis. As writers, we had become used to sharing our work (her poems, my short stories) and giving loving but honest criticism to each other. Fortunately, this didn’t stop when Jo moved up to Norwich and we continued to give each other encouragement via e-mail. To hear that Billack’s Bones had finally been published was brilliant - even more so when Jo generously told me I had been part of that process. Jo has close connections to Arvon and has attended a couple of poetry courses - the latest just last year with Catherine Smith and Neil Rollinson here at Totleigh. Catherine offers a fine review of Billack’s Bones along with another to be proud of from George Szirtzes. Have a read yourself! Jo’s voice stood way out as early as our first MA poetry seminar with Andy Brown, now a lifetime ago in 2004. I know it won’t go away now. You can purchase Billack’s Bones through Inpress Books.

This is the inspirational story of one mother and daughter - Rachel and Clemmy - who attended an Arvon writing course at the Hurst together, sharing a bedroom, contributing to the creative writing classes together, being inspired by and learning from each other. Rachel, the mother, writes…

Signing up for an Arvon course as mother and daughter felt both rather brave and pleasurably cosy.  At least we would each know one other person, we said on the long and beautiful drive to The Hurst, and would be familiar with our room-mate’s bad habits before we arrived - and it would be a treat for us to spend a few days together without the other children.  (Clemmy, 16, is the oldest of five.)  In fact I think we had both given more thought to that perspective than to the one which struck our fellow participants, but as the week went on I felt increasingly conscious of how lucky I was that Clemmy had been prepared to come with me, to spend five days sharing not only a bedroom but her creative space as well.

I was very touched by the way the tutors, staff and other course members responded to Clemmy.  Everyone treated her exactly like another writer, listening with respect to her contributions to discussion and including her in mealtime conversations and activities.  I was also immensely proud of her for throwing herself into the course - she read a story she had written during the week on the last night, along with everyone else, and won joint first prize in the story slam we organised with her piece on the Seven Deadly Sins.  I loved watching her blossom in the unique Arvon atmosphere of encouragement and stimulation, and seeing her through other people’s eyes - and it was great to have her there to try my own drafts and ideas out on, too.

We both got a huge amount out of the course, not least acquiring a network of new friends and fellow writers to share ideas, resources and frustrations with.  One of our wonderful tutors told us the week was about fermenting our ideas, skills and talents, and Clemmy and I certainly came away bubbling over with excitement about our writing.  On the drive home we plotted out a series of four children’s books which we plan to write together - though so far, while Clemmy has been hard at work on a project of her own (10,000 words and counting) I have been rather more subsumed by domestic life, as the younger children have reclaimed their share of me!

Having Clemmy there certainly enhanced my own pleasure and satisfaction in the course, and I, for one, will cherish the memory of a very special shared experience with my daughter.  

The Arvon Blog has been visiting some interesting web pages of late. We sat in on A N Wilson fuming about smoking and books. Then there’s the latest YouGov research that reveals we all want to become writers. Well, Arvon knew that forty years ago. There’s a couple of articles of interest on this topic: Visit Michelle Pauli at the Guardian for the facts (it turns out under-35s want to become sports personalities) and read John Crace for slightly more cynicism and regret. What are the 100 top books of all time? It’s old news, but in 2002 a list was compiled that told us just now. Do you know your Knut Hamsun from your Alfred Doblin? Check out how many you have read! Faces & Places is British Council’s new literature programme to introduce Polish readers to a range of British authors and artists - not only those well-known and established, but also emerging talents like Tash Aw or Gautam Malkani. Sounds good to us. The good people at The Book Depository have linked to us (well, we did ask them to) so it’s a big thank you from us to them. The Book Depository are interesting, and tantalising, the online book world - with their meaningful slogan, All Books Available To All, and new technologies to help find our books in the most speedy and cost-effective way. But let’s not always buy books, let’s use our libraries! How to use a library. Though it’s worrying where our libraries are going. Rachel Cooke sums up the latest political machinations. Tim Coates helped set up Waterstones, back in the day, and now writes a very impassioned blog about libraries. Please note: some people are reclaiming the bookshelves.

This very excellent photo of a book held against sunlight was taken by Netherlands photographer Marc van Agteren. See more of his photos at www.shotsbyme.com. The photo sums up summer reading, so we asked Arvon staff what books they were reading this summer. Here’s what some of them said:

Cynthia Rogerson (Moniack Mhor) is reading Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Ariane Koek (Arvon London) is reading Young Hearts Crying by Richard Yates 

Emma Johnson (Arvon London) is reading Alis by Naomi Rich

Rachel Humphries (Moniack Mhor) is reading Under the Skin by Michel Faber

Kerry Watson (the Hurst) is reading London Orbital by Iain Sinclair 

Philip Cowell (Arvon London) is reading Land’s End by Michael Cunningham 

Pauline Smith (Totleigh Barton) is reading The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

Julia Wheadon (Totleigh Barton) is reading Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna

Stephen May (Lumb Bank) is reading Marilyn and Me by Shanta Everington

Nick Murza (Arvon London) is reading Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome

Baroque in Hackney (a blog written by a poet and siren) recently posted in her usual glamorous style about Elizabeth Bowen on writing. Writers on writing. Marianne Moore opened one poem, “Writing is exciting” (she was being momentarily very clear). Every week at Arvon we feed and house and listen to and work with and learn from writers, who write and read and talk and cook and eat and walk in our houses and gardens and landscapes. Every week - writers on writing.

Writing about writing. Here’s Elizabeth Bowen on plot:

“PLOT: (Essential. The Pre-essential.) Plot might seem to be a matter of choice. It is not. The particular plot for the particular novel is something the novelist is driven to. It is what is left after the whittling-away of alternatives. The novelist is confronted, at a moment (or at what appears to be the moment: actually its extension may be indefinite) by the impossibility of saying what is to be said in any other way. He is forced towards his plot. By what? By ‘what is to be said’. What is ‘what is to be said’? A mass of subjective matter that has accumulated - impressions received, feelings about experience, distorted results of ordinary observation, and something else - X. This matter is extra matter. It is superfluous to the non-writing life of the writer. It is luggage left in the hall between two journeys, as opposed to the perpetual furniture of rooms. It is destined to be elsewhere. It cannot move until its destination is known. Plot is the knowing of destination.”

“Plot is diction. Action of language, language of action.”

“Plot is story. It is also ‘a story’ in the nursery sense - lie. The novel lies, in saying that something happened that did not. It must, therefore, contain uncontradictable truth, to warrant the original lie.”

“Plot, story, is itself un-poetic. At best it can only be not anti-poetic. It cannot claim a single poetic licence. It must be reasoned - only from the moment when its non-otherness, its only-possibleness has become apparent. Novelist must always have one foot, sheer circumstantiality, to stand on, whatever the other foot may be doing.”

“Plot must not cease to move forward. The actual speed of movement must be even. Apparent variations in speed are good, necessary, but there must be no actual variations in speed.”

We share Baroque in Hackney’s delight in thinking about writing about writing, or writing about thinking about writing. Here’s some signposts if you’re plotting to plot.

Don’t Ask Me What I Mean

How I Write: The Secret Lives of Writers

Reading Like A Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and Those Who Want to Write Them

Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing

The Notebooks of Henry James

A Novelist’s Guide To Being A Novelist

The Paris Review Interviews

In an earlier post called Your Starter for Ten we set (er..) twenty questions for all writers. Here, author and Arvon tutor Louise Tondeur (The Water’s Edge and The Haven Home for Delinquent Girls - both Headline Review) tells us how she edits in her pyjamas…

1. Do you outline?

I tried to this time (book 3) but I’ve deviated from it wildly.

2. Do you write straight through a book, or do you sometimes tackle the scenes out of order?

Always out of order. Then I patch it together. I usually write by character. Nothing much about me is straight. Though I have just learnt about some planning techniques from Leone Ross and they have helped me with structure.

3. Do you prefer writing with a pen or using a computer?

Computer. But I like taking a notebook on long train journeys or to the beach. There’s something different about pen and paper - more tactile.

4. Do you prefer writing in first person or third?

Depends what’s nec. 1st person feels closer sometimes but 3rd has more tricks. 2nd is good too.

5. Do you listen to music while you write?

Yes. My second book has its own sound track! Unfortunately the tape never made it past my publisher’s desk.

6. How do you come up with the perfect names for your characters?

I get to know them a bit first and then the right name occurs to me. In my new book, I met someone by chance and am using his name. Sometimes I use a pattern for it. There’s a pattern to the surnames in The Water’s Edge, for instance.

7. When you’re writing, do you ever imagine your book as a television show or movie?

When I’m writing, I see it in front of me: so yes, a bit like it’s a film in my head. When I’m not writing of course I have fantasies about my books as films - doesn’t everyone!? Or BBC mini dramas at least!

8. Have you ever had a character insist on doing something you really didn’t want him/her to do?

No. Characters do things but they don’t insist because I don’t argue. They’re really another part of me aren’t they? And I tend to give in to it.

9. Do you know how a book is going to end when you start it?

No no no no. Sometimes I wish. But no.

10. Where do you write?

In the spare room. On trains. Sometimes in open spaces. The beach. A park. Kew Gardens. The British Library.

11. What do you do when you get writer’s block?

I don’t think there is such a thing. It normally happens when LIFE is getting in the way and causing stress. So you need to destress and remove the blocks from your life, then it’ll happen. Also, it’s important to warm up. Try just writing, no editing, keep going for an hour. Meditate.

12. What size increments do you write in (either in terms of wordcount, or as a percentage of the book as a whole)?

As little as 1000 words a time, sometimes. On an Arvon retreat (!) I can manage 6000 a day. I don’t edit as I go which helps. When I’m editing, I can work on just a few pages for hours and hours and I don’t notice the time go.

13. How many different drafts did you write for your last project?

I’ve lost count! The Haven Home for Delinquent Girls probably had five final drafts - that was after three years work on it - so I don’t know 100 maybe!? Depends what you mean by a draft.

14. Have you ever changed a character’s name midway through a draft?

Yep.

15. Do you let anyone read your book while you’re working on it, or do you wait until you’ve completed a draft before letting someone else see it?

I’m working on this one. With book three: my partner is the only person I trust to read bits of it before I’ve completed a 2nd or 3rd draft

16. What do you do to celebrate when you finish a draft?

It’s usually an anticlimax. I don’t finish a draft. I go back and work on it again. And again. I try to celebrate ordinary things anyway and take my wife out for a meal.

17. One project at a time, or multiple projects at once?

Only one writing project at a time, but life means I’m constantly juggling other stuff just because I need the money!

18. Do your books grow or shrink in revision?

I usually write twice as much as ends up in the final book.

19. Do you have any writing or critique partners?

No.

20. Do you prefer drafting or revising?

Once I’ve got some words down in the first instance, I don’t really feel the difference. I think editing IS writing so I’m not sure what revising is. Yes, I prefer editing something to writing it for the first time - it’s fun to play with words. I could do it in my PJs for hours and forget to eat.

Mark Haddon (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, A Spot of Bother) has written a very lovely piece about Arvon on his blog. Mark has been an Arvon student and tutor and even says that a great deal of the structure of Curious Incident is indebted to Kathryn Heyman, with whom he tutored an Arvon course:

“She was talking to the students about story structure, the way narrative tension is built up and released by turning points that speed you towards your destination then whisk you off in another direction altogether. As she was speaking I saw the clouds open, a shaft of heavenly light fell into the room, angels sang and I had to slip out to the kitchen to scribble down some very important notes about the placing of Christopher’s mother’s letter.”

Thanks to Mark Haddon for your support - you’re an Angel!

Is it possible to be a vegetarian and a food writer? I felt I should raise the question before signing up for the course. I live in the real world and I know that there are people ‘big in food’ who would think I was wasting my time. How can you write about food when you refuse to eat so many things?

But I was never interested in food at all until I turned vegetarian. It was then that I started to cook, to explore fresh new tastes, and to realise that vegetarianism is not just an ethical standpoint. True, there are some who seem to adopt a restricted diet as some kind of  masochistic gesture. But I’m a foodie, and proud of it. And whilst I know a vegetarian diet can be chosen for health reasons, in my book, if it tastes better with lashings of cream, then let’s lash.

I did need to defend myself a bit on our first inebriated evening in the communal barn at Totleigh. But once everyone had realised that I wasn’t there to pass judgement on them, we all relaxed into a week dedicated to writing and cooking. Surely Totleigh’s ancient kitchen had never seen anything like this. Eschewing the standard veggie lasagne recipes and jars of pasta sauce we were offered, twelve enthusiastic female cooks took over the kitchen, chopping, marinating, roasting and toasting. Never a harsh word, and I’m proud to say I did it all in heels. Fellow participant Jenny did a lot of it in original fifties cocktail dresses, a wooden spoon in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. Fabulous.

Alastair and Sophie were immediately friendly and genuinely interested in each of their students. We all brought very different experiences to the table: a top-level nutritionist, a textile artist in love with Borough Market, a local delicatessen owner, an advertising copy writer, a Cordon Bleu trained chef… all of us with our own ideas and enthusiasms. Listening to other people’s writing was fascinating and I was very surprised when my rather downbeat account of a visit to a local market was received with laughter and applause.

I went to Totleigh looking for a peaceful space where I could think about nothing but writing for a precious week. It was far from peaceful – it was raucous. It was great fun. I put on pounds. I also wrote, and came away with new dreams and aspirations. Special thanks to John, Huib, and to Sophie’s little dog, Bobby, who settled himself on my lap during supper on that first evening and made me feel safe and at home. 

Thanks to Jane for writing this (so well). If you’ve been inspired by Jane’s writing, join us on an Arvon food writing course in the future. Sign up for a brochure on our website at www.arvonfoundation.org

The Tart of Fiction (aka writer Elizabeth Baines) has set writers some questions to answer. Since Arvon is the home of good writing in the UK, we thought we’d present them here and invite you to answer. Either in your head or here on the Arvon Blog (hit “Your starter for ten…” and then scroll down to enter your answers in the blank box). Or on your own blog. Do link to us if you post your answers online. Although these are mainly with fiction writers in mind, all writers can have a go.



1. Do you outline?

2. Do you write straight through a book, or do you sometimes tackle the scenes out of order?

3. Do you prefer writing with a pen or using a computer?

4. Do you prefer writing in first person or third?

5. Do you listen to music while you write?

6. How do you come up with the perfect names for your characters?

7. When you’re writing, do you ever imagine your book as a television show or movie?

8. Have you ever had a character insist on doing something you really didn’t want him/her to do?

9. Do you know how a book is going to end when you start it?

10. Where do you write?

11. What do you do when you get writer’s block?

12. What size increments do you write in (either in terms of wordcount, or as a percentage of the book as a whole)?

13. How many different drafts did you write for your last project?

14. Have you ever changed a character’s name midway through a draft?

15. Do you let anyone read your book while you’re working on it, or do you wait until you’ve completed a draft before letting someone else see it?

16. What do you do to celebrate when you finish a draft?

17. One project at a time, or multiple projects at once?

18. Do your books grow or shrink in revision?

19. Do you have any writing or critique partners?

20. Do you prefer drafting or revising?

Bathed, creamed and combed,
I choose my evening self
from the folded personae available.

A supporting role, perhaps.
Empathy in pink,
and understudied, comfortable shoes.

A mixed message may be conveyed
by separates.

The dress overstates things,
suggesting joined-up thinking,
all-of-a-piece
from head to hem.

I have emerged from muddy neutrals
and wish to discard
the comfort blanket.

But perhaps I’ll save the evening dress and diamonds
till Friday.

This new poem was written by Diana Harris at the Hurst - John Osborne’s former home which is now Arvon’s latest writing house where over a thousand writers every year spend a week of their lives devoted to their writerly craft.

‘I have the best view in England’
John Osborne, playwright, on the view down the Clun Valley from his garden at the Hurst in Shropshire

On Saturday June 23rd and Sunday 24th from 2pm to 6pm visitors to Clun Gardens Open will be able, for the first time, to see for themselves John Osborne’s ‘best view in England.’

For the last eight years of his life, the author of Look Back in Anger, enjoyed the elevated view down the Clun Valley and other delights of his 30 acre estate. Peter Salmon, centre director of The John Osborne Arvon Centre said “We are very happy and privileged to be joining with 14 other gardens in and around Clun. Naturally, I think The Hurst has something special to offer. The woodland here is very fine. We have a splendid tulip tree which should be in bloom and a very fine stand of Wellingtonias which must have cost a fortune in the 19th century.”

Each year nearly 1,000 established and would-be writers attend the many courses at The Hurst. “We have devised two trails that take the visitor past the house, around the gardens, through the woods, to Osborne’s view” said Peter. “Outside the house one of us will be telling racy anecdotes from John Osborne’s life here. In addition we have selected twenty or so quotations from garden and countryside poems, which add a touch of I-Spy to the walk.”

“They can take a cup of tea and a cake by the pool before having a look at the picturesque Dingle. Week after week we get the chance to see how people are inspired by the surroundings here, I’m sure our garden visitors will feel the same.

It’s fitting that Clun Gardens Open is in aid of St George’s Church, as both John and Helen Osborne are buried there.”     

The Hurst (Clunton, Craven Arms, Shropshire, SY7 0JA) is approached up a private drive off B4368 Craven Arms to Clun road, one mile before Clun. Tickets from The Hurst and other gardens on the day. A ticket for all gardens is £4, one garden only 50p. Call Dan on 01588 640658 for more details about the Hurst and our writing courses at John Osborne’s former home.

The web is a writer’s friend. Let’s take a spin. Start with separated by a common language - an entire blog devoted to the sharp linguistic eye of “Lynneguist”, who specialises in spotting differences between American and British English. And so while we’re thinking of American English, here’s one of its poets - Frank O’Hara - but put to music and made into a short poem-film on You Tube. It seems appropriate to the style he pioneered - personism - which was all about writing that was addressed to somebody. Have you got a case of the fantods? Do you know how to honeyfuggle? Michael Quinion’s World Wide Words is a never-ending delight of word play and history. You can fill your novel or poems with amazing words thanks to him (and get email updates when Mr Quinion has new material).  But he doesn’t help you pronounce words however - best leave that to this interesting Wikipedia page. For all your disputed pronounciation needs. Now, moving on, and literally moving on, let’s go for a walk. A modern kind of walk. Download the audio file onto your mp3 player and start at the special location in London for your marvellous literary iTour of Subversive Scribes. (Talking about scribes, you can join Arvon Friends as one. Joining Arvon Friends supports Arvon’s social mission to extend amazing and fulfilling creative writing experiences to young people and adult groups who wouldn’t ordinarily be able to participate.) John Sewell donated a new poem of his to Arvon Friends Online and the first ever online bookshop-in-residence, The Little Apple based in York, continue their Gilbert White-style musings on life without 3-for-2s.

Ever noticed how nature’s colour coordinated? Neither had we…until now that is.

In early spring flowers tended to be yellow which showed an amazing fit with the colour scheme around Easter. Coincidence? I think not… And then suddenly, as if the wizard of Oz has decreed a colour change, purple is all the fashion. We can’t wait to see what colour will be the next flavour of the month.

But it’s not all flowers we are keeping a close watch on, this is the time of year our own produce demands attention so we are looking for the best spot for our tomato and chilli plants, we are tidying our herb patch and we are even trying to grow some artichokes which will hopefully bear fruit next year. We are especially keen on our edibles this year because we are expecting a group of foodies this summer on our food writing course (2 – 7 July) who will be making the most of our vegetables to try and impress Sophie Grigson and Alistair Hendy. For a week Totleigh will be turned into a foodies paradise with a strong emphasis on fresh, organic and local food. We have already put in the application for a Michelin star.

Huib Boekelman
Centre Director, Totleigh Barton

Sometimes life becomes so surreal, pinching yourself just won’t bring you back to earth. I had to go to a takeaway to remind myself of normality, amongst the debris of cardboard plates, plastic cups and discarded smiles.

It all started at breakfast - with a beaming smile attached to twinkling eyes and a white beard encircling the round jolly face of the man opposite.

“ G-day’ he said with that unmistakable down under twang “I have been belly dancing on the fringe all night.” Quite an opener when I am staring at a raft of English breakfast on the plate in front of me, trying to decide which saturated fat felon to cast away. I love first conversations - they always lead to new places and people and lives.

“You belly danced?”  I ask.

His roar shakes the room, and his twinkling glances off the  silver cutlery. He’s all llight and merriment and sharp observation and joy - this breakfast companion from the other side of the world. There is something other-worldy about him too. He looks as if he could have stepped out of Lord of the Rings.

“No, no. I merely observed. It was  the welsh women. They belly danced. And can they belly dance. My…” He is all appreciate chuckles as he spoons his muesli.

I ought to explain that I am  in Wales for the Guardian Hay Festival 2007. As Director of The Arvon Foundation, I am chairing four  writers’ events: Esther Freud and Rupert Thomson talking about their novels Love Falls and Death of a Murderer; Charles Leadbeater about his wiki work We Think; a discussion about the Myth and History of the Second World War with Owen Sheers, Justin Cartwright and Ben McIntyre; and then a conversation between the quirky american film maker and performance artist Miranda July and Marina ‘Tractors’ Lewycka. It’s pure joy  to read their books.

There.  So perhaps you get an idea of why I am here, in this beautiful Georgian house, with this wise gnome-like man eating breakfast and laughing.

But you only have part of the picture.

Another man comes in. Long and langurous with his beautiful wife. They sit down too.

“Ariane and I would like your royalties Sandy!’ roars the Lord of the Rings down under. ‘All of them. Make no mistake.”

The new breakfast companions have the same love of laughter too.  And two new people join us with the same belly aching senses of humour. By now the breakfast table is rocking. The room is aglow with words and ideas.
Breakfast at 7am will never be the same again. In your wildest dreams, breakfast with Thomas Keneally and Alexander McCall Smith and James Naughtie never happens. But this is Hay, and as Thomas K gnomically says later in the day, “at Hay dreams come true.”

The Festival is now bigger than ever. There’s a new site, which is sophisticated with wide white marquees, duckboard walkways which have canopies over them to protect you from the inevtiable Hay storms of wind and rain. But wellies and walking boots are still needed. This is Hay at 20 years old - sassy, smart,  committed, sparkling, intense and bigger. Writers are the superstars and the venues are packed with people eager to meet the writers, ask questions, jostle with ideas and just be together to appreciate literature. It’s the herd instinct gone wild - and it’s literature which has rounded  about100,000 people together over 10 days from all parts of the country and the world.