Author Darran Anderson: “I write in an old man’s cafe, preferably by the fire”

I’m sitting in a corner of a pub in Wapping, not far from the old execution bench. I see the lights of Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf on the Thames. The silhouette of the figure is visible below, next to the bench. The boat, too dark to make out its name, floats downstream.

One of the few benefits of insomnia is having time to read. I’m almost done Nothing special Nicole Flattery and recently read Jan Ges In the other place and Benjamin Myers hug. You are all exceptional.

Every year I try to pick a topic I know very little about (US Civil War, Taiping Rebellion, medieval folklore…) and read as much as I can to fill in the gaps on the map in my head. This year it’s classical music. I started with reedyfrom the New Penguin Dictionary of Music.

Any writer who can take me somewhere completely different is now my favorite, be it Rimbaud. drunken boatAlice Oswald Troyrunning around Kyoto Ryunosuke Akutagawa…

I usually write in a Soho coffee shop during my lunch break. And late at night. When my son is with me, I work while he sleeps with headphones on in case he moves. When he is not there, I write in a cafe for the elderly, preferably by the fire.

grock [from the Moomins].

The women and girls of Iran who are now rebelling against tyrants and tyrants. If there is heroism anywhere, it is in them.