Emily Perkins’ new novel The Forrests made a more noticeable impression on me than any new book I’ve read in 20 years; in fact, by the end of it I was buzzing as though I’d taken a drug. I had to go back over the last 30 pages and immediately reread them because the effect was so powerful. An interview with Perkins has been on the cards (or the books) since The Good Word became required viewing for writers and book lovers, a show that will be sorely missed when the station is closed down in June (boo!). (Photo: Patricia Phelan)

This began as a post in praise of the Kindle as a reading device. For writers the Kindle is much more than that. KDP transforms the e-reader into a publishing platform, and the most powerful device a writer has at his or her disposal. But don’t be fooled into thinking you necessarily need professional help to format your e-book. While an editor is invariably beneficial, designers and other opportunists are trying to mystify e-book formatting and cover design for profit. The paybacks of the Kindle will be self-explanatory to anyone who’s held one for longer than a minute. Writers who own a Kindle that doesn’t contain their entire body of work are either slow or have never had cause to refer to their own writing. Being able to instantly search text strings while away from your desk, look up words in the dictionary, research online via a wireless connection, highlight sections earmarked for revision and tweet quotes are just some of the more obvious benefits.

A poem partly inspired by reading about Jake Wilson‘s song cycle ‘All’s Well’, which was written from the point of view of the polar explorers who died on Captain Robert Scott’s 1912 Antarctic Expedition. But it is mainly a tribute to the anonymous explorers who have taken part in foolhardy ventures big and small since the beginning of time – we are all unsung heroes.

“While cutting back the flat-leaf parsley today I discovered a South American rainforest tribe living in the vegetable patch.” Those who know me and who are familiar with my writing won’t be surprised to discover that Steve Jobs doesn’t appear in this new, previously unpublished short story. It doesn’t include his much-reported last words, either; so if you don’t know what they were, I recommend the search engine of your choice. The first ‘chapter’ follows, by way of a teaser. “Steve Jobs’ last words” is US$0.99 from the Amazon Kindle Store and if you join Amazon Prime you can borrow it for free.

This year is the 10th anniversary of SA4QE, the Slickman A4 Quotation Event, in which fans of Russell Hoban celebrate his 4 February birthday by placing quotes from his books in public places. Diana Slickman, its originator, proposed when SA4QE was established in 2002: “We each, on February 4, write our favorite passage, of any length, from any Russell Hoban book, on a piece of yellow paper and drop it somewhere public and then walk away, leaving chance to do the rest … I would recommend leaving it someplace rather than just dropping it on the ground … The paper should at least include the name of the book and Russell’s name … leaving chance to do the rest … let the mystery of things take it from there, let the paper find its way (or not) to some receptive (or not) person who would then go seek out the book (or not) and become another fan (or not)…”

The best sentence I know in the English language is from Page One of Russell Hoban‘s novel, Pilgermann (Jonathan Cape, 1983):

“Suddenly there came flying towards me with a mouse dangling from its beak an owl, what is called a veiled owl, with a limp mouse dangling from its cryptic heart-shaped face.”

Russell Hoban, chipping away at the limited reality consensus since 1925. For that I’ll love you always, Russ. What follows is the essay I wrote to commemorate his 80th birthday in 2005.

Photo of Russell Hoban at his lamplit binnacle by the wonderful Mr Dave Awl.

The writer Russell Hoban is in hospital having a pacemaker fitted. He’ll be 87 in February. Friends, acquaintance and visitors to this website know he’s frequently in my thoughts. I think about his health more often than I think about that of most members of my family. That’s what happens when you follow a writer for 30 years. They become part of your family, bigger than the books, as important as the language. Russ has in fact been in hospital for a couple of weeks after suffering heart failure. He’s been feeling much better in recent days, and I’m taking the fact that this operation is going ahead to be a positive sign. Russ took the trouble of phoning a member of The Kraken so his fans would know. It was suggested he take it easy, to which Russ – as always in Hobanseque character – replied, “I can’t take it hard.” Again, my thoughts are with him while I head for the bookshelf in search of comfort.

The Bridge is one of those books I first read long ago but have no recollection on whose recommendation it was. More unusually, I don’t remember where I was when I read it for the first time. It was published in 1986, when Banks was 32. He apparently told SFX magazine’s Mary Branscombe in 1996 that The Bridge is the intellectual among his bibliography. “It’s the one that went away to university and got a first. I think The Bridge is the best of my books.” As such, he warned against reading it before his other books, which I did.

I love it because it’s a novel in which the writer takes some hair-raising risks.

Writing: it’s a funny business. Until Tuesday I’d never heard of 13-word stories and knew nothing about Granta magazine’s competition on Twitter. Ridiculous, I thought, no way could you write a story in thirteen words! And even if you could, why bother? Much the same as you do when you hear about a haiku or a tanka or a short-short story for the first time. I ended up entering more than 10 13-worders. I don’t write horror stories and I read very little of it these days. But one of my stories was published in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, so it would be churlish of me to denigrate it as a genre. I put neither much time nor effort into my first entry, inspired by a phenomenon on Twitter where my followers were all suddenly replaced with an error message. When they returned I looked at what some of the other competitors were entering and decided it looked like fun. I turned my thoughts into a tweet, as I’ve done more than 7000 times before, double-checked the word count and off I went. (Image: Granta’s horror issue.)

I’ve always enjoyed reading anything other writers have to say about their writing processes, and in particular the series of Guardian articles featuring the rooms writers work in. Why this should be I’m less sure about; it may be that my subconscious hopes there’s something alchemical about writing; some secret formula that, if known, can be replicated. But my rational brain sees straight through this conceit. You can’t make writing easier, you only strive to make it less painful. For that you want your tools of the trade to hand, your mascots around you, your works of reference and your gurus looking down on your work, imparting whatever wisdom you’re capable of absorbing.