Today’s date: 17 Dec 2024 Hello Reader This is the December newsletter for Special Projects members. Thank you for being one. THIS WEEK(!) Writers Support Group Brought forward, this month only, to avoid Christmas. Thursday at the usual times: 12.30pm and 6pm. Zoom LINK: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7115311619?pwd=wta0p6xSe094BJRc6SITM66aN8rglx.1 Meeting ID: 711 531 1619 Passcode: 349566 Behind the scenes: WRITING I went to a book launch last week - a book of photos by Don McCullin. I can’t say...
17 days ago • 2 min read
Yesterday I told you that my late father in law, Jack, could distinguish between 50 to 60 industrial grades of paper. That got me thinking. Recently, on LinkedIn, I mentioned that printed newspapers still seem wonderful to me - even accounting for stories and opinions within them that I don’t like so much. One of the people who commented on my LinkedIn post made an interesting distinction between digital media and putting something on paper. Print demonstrates a commitment, he said. There’s a...
25 days ago • 2 min read
Hello Reader Yesterday I sent out a newsletter confirming that the next Writers Support Group takes place on 28 November (at 12.30 and 6pm UK). Someone gently pointed out that I have previously suggested, somewhere or other, that it would take place on 21 Nov. Aaargh. . [ Flintoff takes a breath. ] . Sorry for the muddle. . Where possible (not December, what with Christmas) I'd like to stick to the Fourth Thursday each month. So please join me on 28th November. BUT as it happens I was already...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
“For many years, I have been wondering how I could turn the bag of letters written by my father, in West Africa between 1942 and 1944, into some kind of story.” That’s what someone told me an email I received last week. Hi, this is my newsletter. I was excited by the coincidence of this particular request coming in November, because every year in November I think about offering a month-long course* on making an heirloom of family stories. A family project of that kind seems like a good thing...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
A few years ago, I got thinking about conversations that had changed my life. I became quite excited by the idea, and asked other people about it. Some of those people were (and are) well known, others less so. Some spoke to me spontaneously, as soon as the idea arose. Others scheduled a proper interview, thought about it beforehand, and talked for longer. Hi, this is my November newsletter I’ve got all the videos somewhere. This week I stumbled on the short highlight video I made at the...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Today’s date: 1 Nov 2024 Hello Reader This is the November newsletter for Special Projects members. Thank you for being one. Several new members have joined recently (hello 👋) so I thought I'd include a few introductory notes, dates and links (scroll down). But first, a bit of news about October... In tiny fragments of time between everything else, I’ve been slowly collaborating with Andrew Clover on a children’s book. The idea for the book was entirely mine, prompted by drawing silly...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Hello Reader How to get readers to read your next work - the next book, social post or email? Anybody who publishes - anything, anywhere - knows this problem. How do professionals deal with it? (Hello. This is my newsletter.) This week Audrey Ward, serials editor on the Sunday Times, told me how she chooses the best material for publication, then separates it into episodes so that readers who finish Part 1 are eager - desperate! - to read Part 2. Audrey, Zooming from the office. As it...
3 months ago • 3 min read
Hello Reader Greetings from Umbria in Italy, where I’m working this week with my friends at The Idler Academy. As usual I’m drawing pictures, in intervals between sessions teaching rhetoric and impro. But I'm also thinking of Special Projects members, of whom there are several new ones this month. Hello!, members new and not-new. Thank you for putting your trust in me. I’m writing this email on my iPad, and have a strong suspicion it may raise as many new questions as it answers old ones. If...
4 months ago • 1 min read
Hello Last week, without giving it a lot of thought, I posted on Instagram a photo of the last pill in my last packet of anti-depressants. I'd originally taken the photo, and marked it up, as a kind of mini-celebration to share with people in my house. Obviously (?), I felt a bit exposed sharing this on Instagram, but why the heck not. After all, I’ve posted all kinds of things about having been mentally fragile in the past. Indeed, I've stood in front of huge numbers of strangers in busy...
4 months ago • 3 min read