Mark Charan Newton

“The Lake Isle of Innisfree”, by William Butler Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall [...]

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I’ve yet to do a big signing, but here’s an interesting article on them.
To some authors, the book-signing is a curse. What could be more excruciatingly dull, to the sensitive creative mind, than to sit for hours in a festival tent or bookshop, inscribing your name on several hundred copies of your new masterpiece? This [...]

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I’ve had some strange stuff happen in my 27th year, much of which I don’t want to put on here, but it started with the book deal with Tor UK / Pan Macmillan (awesome), and then this almost Ballardian moment:

I walked away from this with a few cuts to my hand and a couple on [...]

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Pretty much what it says in the header.
I’m a big fan of Hopper’s paintings. They share a similar quality to a Hemingway short story in their laconic style, and the narrative between the line (or brushstroke, I guess). There’s such energy in the restraint used by each of them, a desperation for the stories to [...]

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I knew it all along.
His sexuality was always a closely guarded secret that his creator Hergé sought to preserve. But a Spanish version of one of Tintin’s most famous tales, The Blue Lotus, has dared to suggest the intrepid Belgian reporter was a voracious lover.
Entitled The Pink Lotus, there are graphic sex scenes that would [...]

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Finally deciding to follow in his father’s footsteps then.
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Don’t get me started on the evils of vanity publishing, or we could be here all night. Okay, just something new then:
A new company recently emerged on the publishing scene, offering writers the chance to buy and sell book endorsements. Aimed at self-published authors, Blurbings LLC traffics in “blurbs,” the often hyperbolic declamations on book [...]

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Another interesting one.
Is he gay? I can’t remember
This one in particular wasn’t. Methinks I need less sexually ambiguous characters.
Broken Social Scene, “I’m Still Your Fag”:
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