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When My First Book Was Rejected

August 21, 2023

Recently, searching through boxes containing ancient paperwork, I found the manuscript of my very first novel! Unsurprisingly, it was also my first book to be rejected.

Though this was ages ago – we’re talking late 90s – I still remember plenty of things about that experience. Perhaps some factual details are a bit different (memory is a tricky thing when it comes to that), but I certainly remember the “how it felt” part very well. In any case, I certainly don’t intend to read such a super-cringe old thing.

So join me in this hilarious trip of recollection, where the road to literary hell was paved with good intentions, and let’s make fun of my naïveté!

donkey; book rejected
“What do you mean, ‘book rejected?’ There must be some mistake!”
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“A Summer Evening in Another World” (Short Story)

August 14, 2023

If you are are reading this short story on or around the day it went live (and you live in the northern hemisphere), you are reading it on a summer day – and maybe evening. Quite by default, you are reading it “in another world”, because each one of us constructs their very own individual universe in terms of perception: You are the center of the world because that is the only way you can experience whatever “out there” reality that exists.

Fancy linguistic and conceptual wizardry aside, this is a short story I wrote in a sunny afternoon in April. As it often happens in art (certainly in my art), it contains plenty of references to experiences and things uniquely meaningful to me but which are entirely opaque to you. It’s “another world”, but one you can perhaps still see forming tangents with your own.

As it should also be fairly obvious, considering the title of this story, it’s part of my eponymous flash fiction collection, A Summer Evening in Another World.

Most of my fiction is available as an immediate free download – simply visit the Fiction page on the main site. And remember, you can also just email me and ask for a free, no-strings-attached (e.g. review etc.) digital copy of any of my books.

another world
Another world awaits me…
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Ophelia’s Secret: Agency and Conceptual Cohesion in Art

August 7, 2023

The title seems very opaque and ambiguous, I’m sure (welcome to my world). “Ophelia’s secret? What secret? Ophelia who?” I hear you ask. “And what on earth do you mean by ‘agency and conceptual cohesion’?”

First things first: With apologies to non-fictional Ophelias (and any secret they might have) out there, there is only one Ophelia: Shakespeare’s Ophelia.

Ophelia is a character in William Shakespeare’s drama Hamlet (1599-1601). She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes and potential wife of Prince Hamlet, who, due to Hamlet’s actions, ends up in a state of madness that ultimately leads to her drowning.

Wikipedia

So, what is Ophelia’s secret, and what does it have to do with agency and cohesion in art? To explore thisLike hell! Rather, I first began composing the album and then, along the way, I discovered the lessons., I composed a music album titled Ophelia’s Secret.

Ophelia's Secret album art
Album cover of Ophelia’s Secret, designed with the help of Bing Image Creator
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