We don’t like to talk about failure. It’s icky, depressing, and we fear it’s contagious. But unless we acknowledge failure as a necessary condition for moving anything forward, we do ourselves a great disservice, and we risk believing in the myth of “overnight success.” Creative people – writers, musicians, actors, artists, poets – know this all too well. I ...

This week I attended my very first Edinburgh Television Festival.  The EITF is an annual conference of the great and the good of the British (and increasingly global) TV sector, and since Awesome is playing in primetime drama, thought it was worth showing up (inspired by Woody Allen: “80% of life is showing up”) and I’m ...

I’ve just returned from nearly a month in Canada, and was lucky enough to catch iconic (but largely unknown outside of Canada) band The Tragically Hip twice in their farewell tour. Last night, the band gave their final concert before a smallish venue in their hometown of Kingston, Ontario (my college town, where I first fell ...

This evening I’ll be participating in the weekly twitter discussion, under hash-tag #UKMGchat.  It’s organised by the awesome Miriam & Lorraine for the benefit of all book-loving twitter folks around the world. I usually miss out because the 8 pm (British time) start time coincides with putting my kids to bed, and I have to catch ...

I usually keep this blog for riffing on creativity, storytelling, and all things literary. But unless you’ve been under a rock these past weeks, you know there’s a very important referendum tomorrow. The people of the UK are being asked to cast a vote to support staying in the European Union (EU) or leaving the EU. I’ve ...