‘He said, “How many songs did you write?” I’d written zero; I’d lie and say ten. “You won’t be young forever. You should have written 15. It’s work.”‘ – ‘Work’, Lou Reed & John Cale In the later years of ...
Read More »The Art of Asking: How to ask for help and beat your inner Fraud Police
I have been a fan of Amanda Palmer’s for many years. I can’t remember who or how I was first turned on to the Dresden Dolls (her band before going solo), but I fell in love with Yes, Virginia and ...
Read More »Creative writing: Why face-to-face is always better than online only
I have started seeing a lot more about online creative writing courses in the past year. Last week, I received an email from Random House’s own programme, The Writers’ Academy, pitching their newest online course. The email highlighted three main ...
Read More »Ocean at the End of the Lane: I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else
*Spoiler free review* I’m only a recent convert to the Neil Gaiman way of life, but when I saw his most recent novel, Ocean at the End of the Lane, on sale for £0.99 for the Kindle, I couldn’t buy ...
Read More »All aboard the Neil Gaiman train
Back in 2010, I was fairly new to Twitter. As always, I was desperately (or cleverly?!) trying to keep up with the modern world. I had heard about this ‘one book one twitter’ book club event taking place; the idea ...
Read More »The original isn’t always better: Cover songs
I was minding my own business in class one day when another girl (who knew I was absolutely mad about Prince) decided to do her best to piss me off. ‘Prince’s cover of “Kiss” is terrible,’ she said. Some might ...
Read More »Amanda Palmer, controversy, and Internet abuse
Last year I joined a community of mega AFP fans and bought a place in a ‘house party’ from her Kickstarter campaign. It seems so long ago now, but it finally happened on October 27th. This wasn’t just any old ...
Read More »The Universe Report: A roundup of the week’s pop culture news
Are you curious about what’s been happening in the pop culture universe this week? Look no further… The MTV Video Music Awards were held on Sunday night in the US. And since then, all anyone has been able to talk ...
Read More »Kickstarter: Crowd funding, yay or nay?
Kickstarter first caught my attention last year when a friend put out a call on facebook to get enough money together to purchase a ‘house party’ by contributing to Amanda Palmer’s Kickstarter campaign. I had been a big Dresden Dolls ...
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