Blog
Celebrating inspiration, creativity and good books
Book illustration: Q&A with Kate Heiss
British printmaker and illustrator Kate Heiss talks about her creative process and reveals how she approaches book illustration What inspires you? Nature: the flowers and birds in my garden and walks in the countryside. If I’m on a walk and…
Tidings: A Christmas Journey by Ruth Padel
Do you love a well-told Yuletide tale? I must admit I do. One of my favourite festive books last year was Tidings: A Christmas Journey by Ruth Padel (Chatto and Windus, 2016). This moving narrative poem has all the hallmarks…
‘Tyne undertow’ published in Poem of the North
I'm excited to announce that my poem Tyne undertow is now available to read online as part of the Poem of the North. Commissioned by the Northern Poetry Library, this unfolding digital artwork serves up a gorgeous smorgasbord of new…
Written in the landscape
The author David Almond set his third children’s novel Heaven Eyes on the banks of the Ouseburn where it winds down towards the Tyne. The post-industrial wasteland that inspired the book is slowly transforming into something else. People have come…
Rocket: the ghost of the machine
Robert Stephenson's Rocket has returned home. It stands in pride of place at the Discovery Museum, Newcastle, just a few streets away from Stephenson's works. It is on loan, of course. A star attraction of the Great Exhibition of the…