Did you think a pencil drew a horizontal where the sea became clouds? Or a scalpel cut the petals from their green backdrop? Or the perfect vertical of the sill was inked using a pot of shade and crow quills? And did you believe we can divide you/line/me, or past/cut/future? We are a volume in…

I asked a lot of my favorite writers to contribute to Necessary Fiction in this, my month as writer-in-residence. Writers whom I’ve long admired for the “wildness” of their writing and by that I mean: daring, surprising, open. Steve Himmer said it very well in his kind introduction, that reading my book, Wild Life, was…

“Lovecraft had in fact always been a racist” [Against the world, against life Pg 103] This is the first sentence in Houellebecq’s chapter entitled: “Racial Hatred”. Houellebecq continues: “But in his [Lovecraft’s] youth this racism did not go beyond what was acceptable within his social class – that of the puritanical Protestant old bourgeoisie of…

‘Art altogether is nothing but a survival skill, we should never lose sight of this fact, it is, time and again, just an attempt — an attempt that seems touching even to our intellect — to cope with this world and its revolting aspects, which, as we know, is invariably possible only by resorting to…

Here’s part two of my essay on Michel Houellebecq: From the very first sentence in Against the world, against life Houellebecq is clear in his intent: “Life is painful and disappointing.” [Pg 27] Like Lovecraft, Houellebecq sees no value in modern life. He splits us into two separate camps and from the outset, and again…

‘At first glance, the preoccupation of the writer who writes in order to be able to die is an affront to common sense. It would seem we can be sure of at least one event: it will come without any approach on our part, without our bestirring ourselves at all; yes, it will come. That…

‘And I am writing here at the moment when my mother no longer recognizes me, and at which, though still capable of speaking or articulating, a little, she no longer calls me and for her and therefore for the rest of her life, I no longer have a name, that is what is happening, and…

Here’s part one of an essay I wrote about Michel Houellebecq: For all the noise and hullabaloo his fiction has generated in person Michel Houellebecq is, somewhat ironically, a rather quiet and unassuming individual who shuffles awkwardly into and out of crowded rooms surrounded by plumes of blue/grey cigarette smoke bellowing from his nostrils in…

So, I was asked by Steve to be the ‘Writer in Residence’ this month here at Necessary Fiction, which I consider to be quite an honour. If I understand things correctly, I’ve been given carte blanche at this blog so I’ll pretty much be writing about . . . well, anything that enters my head.…

Thanks to Steve and to all of you who have been reading this month at Necessary Fiction. I enjoyed the opportunity to share some of my work with you — and would have posted more this last week were it not for the unwelcome intervention of a car door on my right middle finger. I’m…

The middle finger of my right hand was nearly cut off Monday by a sliding car door. This has curtailed my activities, as it literally pains me to post. It has however been a sort of awakening experience. I hope to flesh out a few days of the month tomorrow. In the meantime, let me…

But wait, there’s more. Read all of Kind of Blue online. I just realized that the original online publisher of the work, the Frame Journal of Art and Technology, which his been history for a while, appears to have lost a part of their archive. This is sad, but good that I realized it —…