Thoughts and words

Catharsis Rocks!

Catharsis is a Greek word. It means cleansing. Writing a novel, a diary or poetry may sometimes be inspired by the need to cleanse the mind of experiences. I understand this to mean that the act of writing is the means by which the writer can make sense of, and... Read more →

July 2017 - Return to the Schoenbuch Forest 4

The first photo above shows the entrance to the cemetery in the centre of Herrenberg. It contains the graves of several soldiers who are known to have been with Viktor Wagner when he died. His death and the ensuing mystery inspired my book. On the last day of my stay... Read more →

July 2017 - Return to the Schoenbuch Forest 3

This description of Joerg Eisenmann's garden was inspired by a garden I used to pass every day while living in Herrenberg between 1997 and 2000. The garden has changed a bit but I guess the people who lived there 20 years ago are still living there. The two pictures below... Read more →

July 2017 - Return to the Schoenbuch Forest - Herrenberg and the church

Herrenberg is the gateway to The Schoenbuch Forest. The author lived here between 1996 and 2000. He began work on the novel in 2001 but the thoughts behind the book had been churning away for some time before that. There is also no question that a sort of homesickness for... Read more →

Truth can be better than fiction! Lights over Bellano, the Pietro Maso case and accidental bombing

Sometimes, things happen in life that makes you think: What the hell? How on earth did that happen? It was such an incident that inspired me to write the book "Lights over Bellano." The "thing that happened" in this instance was the case of Pietro Maso. In 1991, and in... Read more →

Nostalgia 4: favourite novels that deal with nostalgia

There are many novels dealing with the theme of nostalgia. What are your favourites? You are very welcome to put your contributions in the commentary box! My own list would include: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani - concerning the lives of Italian Jews in the northern Italian... Read more →

Nostalgia 3: nostalgia and the past in "The Poor Singer of an Empty Day."

It is 1998 and Julian Everett has arrived in England after a 30-year absence. He is walking on the cliffs of Dover when he sees the face of a girl he once knew on the front page of a newspaper. He had stopped to wonder at the ships that steamed... Read more →

Nostalgia 2: Be careful - nostalgia bites!

There is little doubt that nostalgia can be a useful spark for writing a book. Evidence is the market for memoirs and books that deal with the twenties or with WW2. But if readers are looking for a better place than the present, they need to watch out! Was the... Read more →

The Power of Nostalgia

At least 3 of my novels have been partly inspired by nostalgia. “The Poor Singer of an Empty Day” came to life while I was living in Herrenberg. One morning I woke up feeling nostalgic for England and, in particular, for my childhood – hence the dedication and the fact... Read more →

What inspired the novel "Lost Property?"

“Lost Property” was inspired by the current refugee crisis and by my discovery of an earlier refugee crisis - that of 1945/46 when around 12,000,000 ethnic German civilians were forced out of their ancestral homes in, for example: Sudetenland, Hungary, Rumania, Ukraine and Poland, and sent back to Germany to... Read more →