Opinion

Here I comment on a wide range of issues from education to politics, the arts and more. I welcome lively and opinionated debate, so please leave your comments.

Towards boundary crossing: primary and secondary school teachers teaching creative writing and its redrafting
This academic article, written by Professor Tom Dobson and I, explores the research we did looking at primary and secondary school teachers attitudes towards creative writing and redrafting. This is a rare piece of research which compares primary and secondary school teachers’ approaches to teaching creative writing. It shows that primary school teachers can be formulaic in the way they teach creative writing, using product approaches. However, in secondary schools the picture is different: teachers, particularly those, who are writers themselves, give students more agency in redrafting and shaping their writing. This indicates how professional development should involve primary and secondary school teachers in dialogue with one another to cross boundaries of practice.

The British Library, research and creative writing
Creative writing can be used to help people engage with the British Library and its collection. MA students led members of the public through the Library, inviting creative responses to its archive and exhibitions.
What can the opera ‘Carmen’ teach us about domestic violence?
A blog written for my publishers, Blue Door Press, which explores how and why the opera ‘Carmen’ can be seen as a critique of violence and masculinity.
Four reasons there is a Connected Curriculum at Goldsmiths
Why bring all the students at a university together to learn critical thinking and research skills?

Kiran Desai — The Inheritance Of Rubbish

Tried reading the Booker prize winning novel, The Inheritance Of Loss, and had to give up because it’s so poorly written: episodic, unengaging, and predictably politically correct. My feelings were confirmed when I listened to her reading at Bookslam: she read a passage from the novel about an Indian working in a restaurant in New […]
Local Radio Interviews

Appeared on four radio shows today. Sitting in a lonely, sealed-off room in the far reaches of Broadcasting House, I spoke through the microphone to BBC Three Counties Radio (pretty brief one) BBC Radio Shrewsbury (v g, the DJ actually had read bits of the book!), BBC Radio Wales (a half-hour interview), and BBC Radio […]
My book launch
Gilbert on Radio 4
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Whateverman
You murdered me — Rachel Cusk’s ‘Arlington Park’
Sweet Bird Of Disaster
BBC London News Debate

I was a guest on Thursday night on BBC London News, talking about whether children between the ages of 10-14 should be put in prison. The other guest was Enver Solomon, the Deputy Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. He was arguing that children should be given therapy instead of being punished. […]
Readings and parties

On Saturday and Sunday night, there were two major parties for the festival. Saturday’s party was hosted by GQ and Wasafiri,
The Limbs of Shiva — Elephanta Island

I was told that it wasn’t safe to drink coca-cola because the monkeys would swoop down and snatch it out of my hand. I chucked my can in the bin, and followed my guide in the Elephanta caves. I had spent an hour on the boat, feeling the cool breeze against my forehead, and looking […]
My Talk — Saturday

Blake Morrison raises his eyes to the heavens as he looks at the title to my event over breakfast. So you’re speaking about the role of the writer, are you Francis? That shouldn’t take long to sort out,’ he says with a wry smile. Blake is a renowned poet, whose anthology of British Poetry in […]
First Day in Mumbai

The drilling next door made the whole of my hotel room vibrate. I immediately regretted not buying the long, deep earplugs I saw at the airport. I had slept for three hours and I knew now that that was my lot. And yet, I didn’t know where to go next. Fortunately, Sunita, an organiser from […]
The Buddha in Colombo

The Buddha looked down at me in the murky temple. Nirpal Dhaliwal, a fellow writer going to speak at the Kitab Festival with me, explained that this was a good religion, a gentle religion, one that didn’t specialise in making you feel bad about yourself. I looked at the elephant munching at the sticks of […]
The Green Moss Code

He was staring at me, his face emerging from the rock, his cheeks covered in silky moss, his lips puckered green and glistening, his eyes sad and tearful. I stared back him at him, amazed. I hadn’t expected this. I hadn’t expected to go on what I felt would be a mundane tramp around the […]
The Ultimate Stress Buster: a quick dip in the Welsh Sea

Theo ran up and down the beach shouting. He couldn’t believe I was going to do it. The sun was shining, but the breeze was brisk, rippling against my goose-pimpled skin. The waves glittered before me, saying ‘Come unto me, I will wash away all the stress, and you will be a new teacher, a […]
The Famous Biographer and the Cheeky Waiter

It’s a cold, rainy Friday evening. I scooter through town, clattering along bus lanes and over the pavement, nod a polite hello to my great-great grandfather’s sculpture Eros at Picadilly Circus, and arrive at a posh hotel, where a famous biographer and his husband greet me warmly in the lobby. I’ve known him for years […]
New suit, new tie, new person

First day back after half-term, and everyone is astonished at how smart I am: I am wearing a new black suit with those trendy small lapels and a longish cut, a new swish tie with silky red stripes, and I have a neat, short back and sides haircut. L in the office says I look […]
Scooter At The Opera

I took my scooter to the Opera this week. It was the first time my scooter had ever been there, and only my second trip. I asked the check-in lady whether she had ever checked in a muddy push scooter at the Royal Opera House before. She said with a wry smile that she hadn’t. […]
Lost Worlds

My father remembers how different things were when he was a child growing up in Northumberland: ‘I can remember when there was a bakery at Christon Bank, in the village near where my parents lived. I can still recall the smell of baking bread early in the morning, and buying the bread from the bakery […]