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Showing posts from May, 2012

Writers News and Bar-room Blues

Something positive to start the week from Writer's News/ Writing Magazine. Thoroughly recommended for any author looking for competitions, tips, and gudiance on the maze (or minefield) of writing and publishing. And in this case, for giving a debut author some highly valued column inches in a national magazine. Click for more info about Writing Magazine  & thanks to Tina Jackson at Writer's News . 

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers: Running Down a Dream

A four hour documentary about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I thought the TV guide had misprinted. Nothing against the band, I’d always liked the sound they made coming out of the radio and an old friend had introduced me to songs like Refugee and Here Comes My Girl in the early 80s. I’d even seen them live – supporting and backing Dylan in 1987 (have to say I remember it more for a scary walk home the night of the great storm than a Wembley Arena show with bad tickets) All the same, a four hour music doc is a tough ask even for an avid TP fan – for someone who never bought a Tom Petty record, you’d think it way above and beyond. Not so. Directed by Peter Bogdanovich ( Last Picture Show, Paper Moon ) and released in 2007, TomPetty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin’ Down a Dream showed exactly why this is a band who have outlasted virtually all their contemporaries. It’s more than a collection of great shirts, ace songs, judicious use of Rickenbacker guitars, and a cast li

Frank's Wild Years: Back on the Road

This Saturday sees a return to the northern leg of the book tour. The Frank’s Wild Years flag will be planted in Doncaster Waterstones from 11am (Leeds likewise on Saturday 19th May). As authors, increasingly aware in a crowded market that writing, publishing and promoting a book are only half the story, the need to project a ‘brand’ has become something of a pre-occupation. In many ways this flies against creative instincts: focus should be on the work; art is art and marketing and sales are someone else’s job. Not so, you’re involved. And when it takes you into the high street, you’re on your own. Herein lies a contradiction: if you’re brand is anti-brand and your image is an honest one, the thought of selling yourself brings to mind bullshit merchants like Stuart Baggs – ‘The Brand’   (Apprentice, Season 6): "I’m not a one-trickpony, I’m not a 10-trick pony, I have a whole field of ponies – and they’re literally all running towards this job." As if Alan P