Ray Givans hails from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland but teaches English in County Down. He’s also a very gifted poet. He has published four pamphlet-length collections, most recently Going Home (2004) from Lapwing Publications. He has been awarded prizes for his poetry in Britain, the US and Australia and was the first recipient of the Jack Clemo Memorial prize for poetry. Tolstoy in Love, published by Dedalus Press, is his first full-length collection. BBC Writer in Residence Ian Sansom describes it as ‘a true poetic achievement … a work of great human value.’ I would agree with him. So after reading this interview, get the book and judge for yourselves.
Continue reading ‘Poetry: Tolstoy in Love’
Archive for August, 2009
One of the best blog posts I’ve read all week is over on Danny Stack’s Scriptwriting in the UK. If you’re wondering how to pitch your idea to the powers that be, zoot over there and see how Danny does it. But if you’d like to stay here and chat, please do so. Maybe you can tell us about your pitching highs and lows. This week I cold called a producer, not expecting a reply, and got a very warm response. A couple of emails later and I was sending him my feature screenplay which he’s looking at now. Sometimes it’s not as scary as you think. Go on, give it a try.
It’s an oft-quoted maxim in screenwriting that one should never write camera directions into a script. On the other hand, writers are encouraged to write as if viewing the scene through the camera lens. How does one achieve this apparently contradictory feat? The Crafty Writer asked writer / director John Allen to give us some tips.
