Friday 18 November 2011

A WRITER AND ILLUSTRATOR'S JOURNAL


Having spent 30-odd (very odd) years concentrating on visual art ( www.mikehawthorne.net ), I recently turned my attention to Creative Writing, joining the course at Roehampton University, London, as a part-time undergraduate. If you like my pictures, I'm hoping you'll like my writing.
I'm lucky. Being part-time means I don't have to juggle three subjects per term like the proverbial blue-arsed fly...but I'm old and creaky too; a tortoise rather than a hare. This blog is part of my last 'Publishing For The Internet' module before graduation in July 2012.
This wrinkled, grumpy tortoise is being forced into the backlit glare of the computer screens, trudging through the final month before Christmas. My portfolio story will be about art and culture in Santiago de Chile, as I explored it during the summer break. There'll be a relevant post about Santiago soon.
We have also been invited to submit a short piece for the Roehampton Writers' competition. I'm thinking about Rosa Bosquet, aka Madame Max Adolphe, the infamous Haitian torturer. Luckily I can understand enough French to read about her activities in Fort Dimanche, the 'Dungeon of Death', to fill in some background. We'll see if Madame Max triggers a short story before the end of November. Come on, lay an egg for me, you evil Voodoo bitch!