Porcupine Press

Saturday, 16 November 2013

Blaze - The beginnings: Daily sun, October 2013

Blaze - The beginnings: Sowetan, October 2013

Blaze - The Beginning: Drum Magazine, November 2013

Notes from Porcupine’s ‘resident writer’

I have now returned from the Middle East. I can report that Oman is extremely wealthy and ordered, and that Iran, in its geography and its past, is majestic.

In Oman’s capital city of Muscat, there is a massive place of worship called the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque. This Sultan (Qaboos bin Said) has ruled Oman since the early 1970s. Everywhere, there is evidence of his lavish spending on the country he has so successfully ruled. The national Opera House, an edifice of white marble, is an imposing example. But the Grand Mosque is the pinnacle.

My guide gave me some of the facts. It took six years to build, finally opening in 2001. The main minarets rear nearly 50 metres into Muscat’s deep blue sky. Inside the main space hangs a sparkling chandelier weighing 8,5 tons; and on the floor at 60 by 70 metres is the world’s largest carpet, comprising 1700-million knots and 28 colours. The carpet had been made in Iran by 600 people working fulltime for four years. The grandeur of the place – the acres of intricate mosaic, the symmetry of stained glass, the vistas from the formal gardens – reminded me of another place of worship I had visited some years before.

The Basilica Notre-Dame de la Paix, the largest cathedral in Christendom, reared out of the African bush at Yamoussoukro, nominal capital of Cote d’Ivoire. This place of worship had also been built by a successful leader. In one of the stained-glass windows, Felix Houphouet-Boigny (president of Cote d’Ivoire from 1960 to 1993) is depicted kneeling before Christ, his arms outstretched is if in offering. ‘He is giving the church to God,’ someone had told me.

The Grand Mosque was almost certainly a gift that had been given in similar humility. It struck me that these impulses, expressed by Christian and Muslim alike, bound the worshippers of the world together in a simple knot. But the thought seemed not to accord with reality.

I asked my guide how much the Grand Mosque had cost to build. He smiled. ‘I always give the same answer,’ he said. ‘Only God knows.’

David Robbins.

Saturday, 19 October 2013

Notes from Porcupine's 'resident writer'

I began writing in my teens and got a short story published when I was nineteen. I’ve been writing ever since, and I’ve just published my 20^th book, a collection of stories entitled Oblique Light – published by Porcupine Press, of course.

These days, I write and work in my study which is directly above the Porcupine Office. My job at Porcupine is rather grandly named: I’m the Editorial Adviser. In practice, this means that I deal with authors who make contact with us. There are several of these each day, sometimes more. This has opened a window onto a world I know well. It is a world of writing and aspiration and often of long apprenticeship. It look me around 25 years of writing before my first book appeared in print. I must admit I enjoy my email conversations with other writers. I also enjoy looking at their work. Porcupine offers a free assessment service, and I’m usually the person who makes the assessments. The range of writing proficiency is quite as wide as the subjects with which the writing deals. I find it particularly interesting to remember how terrible I was when I began, and how slow and painstaking my progress has been over the years. I suppose one’s apprenticeship never really ends.

As well as chatting to authors about their work, I also do some editing of manuscripts – normally the ones that particularly interest me. And I even lay out actual books in InDesign, a software package I am gradually beginning to understand. There’s nothing quite as pleasing as a neat page of black type on a white or cream-coloured page. I often think, when I admire the prowess built into the software, of the early days of printing, the idea of moveable type and the massive impact on our lives that invention presaged.

With all this Porcupine work, do I have any time for my own writing? The answer is: yes, I do. I am never without a project. Later this month, I am travelling to the Middle East to work on my latest one. Perhaps I’ll write a few notes from Muscat or Iran in the days to come.