Dark, ingenious and daring: Pretty Ugly by Kirsty Gunn
THE WAY PEOPLE TALK ABOUT short stories often inclines to silversmithing analogies: burnished, finely wrought, beautifully crafted. That, or Fabergé eggs. And we say short story collection rather than group. Collection suggests careful selection from an array of available possibilities, white daisies on a vast lawn. In the afterword of Pretty Ugly, a collection of...
Those who serve
In a world where you could be anything, who would be a fictional servant? They fetch and carry, are paid a pittance, and they only get a half day off. It would be understandable if fictional servants just drifted in and out of rooms proffering food and drink, with hardly a thought or feeling between...
Marvellous and mischievous
Marvellous and Mischievous: Literature’s Young Rebels (8 November 2019 to 1 March 2020) is a free British Library exhibition spotlighting famous rebels in children’s literature. Featuring such perennial favourites as Tracy Beaker, Pippi Longstocking, Jane Eyre and Matilda, as well as new characters including Omar from Planet Omar, Billy from Billy and the Beast and...
Not a girl, alas
Our times are times of tremendous change, maturation and unique creative vibrancy for the theatre. Productions have multidimensionality, a plurality of voices and of centres of balance which enthrals us, inspires us, truly lures us to share in the dramatic experience, be more and more an integral, engaged part of a stage that is no...
