In our penultimate post of the year, Daniel Pavlu interviews Mr Martin about his brilliant dystopian novel, The Quiet ('engrossing and wholly original': Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One).  

Devils and Angels

The Booker Prize shortlist was announced yesterday: you can find out which novels made the cut here. On 9th November, the Kayton Library is hosting our annual 'Predict the Booker' event. Six Pauline readers will be debating the merits of the books on the shortlist, and trying to win the audience vote for their selected nominee: will we agree with the Booker judges? We have a track record of 100% failure so far - but this year could be different!! You can read the report of last year's event here.  

Appropriately enough, today's post focusses on creative writing, featuring a short piece of work in progress by Harper Katz, and an extract from Alex Twinch's historical novel, Heresy of Angels, which formed the basis of his EPQ.  If you're interested in reading more Pauline creativity, here's a link to the  digital version of the most recent edition of Pandemonium, the SPS creative writing magazine. 

Creative Writing

This week, SPS is celebrating the work of John Milton, who died 450 years ago this coming Friday.  Here at the blog, we're using the occasion to shine a spotlight on some contemporary Pauline writers, all of whom took a creative writing EPQ. Today, we have 'Pianoman', a short story by Sanil Ganguly, and an extract from an epic poem by Max Swinnerton.  

Poems of the Week

In honour of yesterday - Blue Monday, allegedly the most depressing day of the year - our first post of 2024 celebrates (if that is the right word) the morose, misanthropic, melancholic and often downright downbeat Philip Larkin.  

Philip Larkin (photo: Rogers/RBO)

4C have been studying Larkin's poetry, and capturing his bleak vision and disenchanted voice beautifully in their own writing. Many thanks to Mr Harris for curating their contributions.  

This week on the blog, we're featuring extracts from the creative work produced by 8th form students for their extended projects. Today's post is part of a collection of interlinked short stories, introduced by its author, Thomas Lamont.

For my EPQ I wrote a collection of fantasy short stories, Old Stories in Dark Places, based on the styles of authors such as Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, Neil Gaiman, and Terry Pratchett. This story, 'Three Magic Lizards', was the first story in the collection and served as a creation myth to the world I tried to develop for the stories.

Old Stories in Dark Places

    Orion sat at the bar, nursing his Souten. It sat in a hard earthen mug, the gray liquid a sweet fruity smell atop the worn wood of the bar. It was his third drink of the night, and he was getting ready to tell a story. The inn was in that ever so common midpoint of the evening where the musicians were taking a break and the customers were eating the last of their meals. Soon a silence would fill the taproom. Not a silence with no noise, but a silence of nothing important. A silence of mindless chatter without laughter, music without emotion, and the silence that is brought with the absence of a story.

    So, Orion had decided to tell a story. He knew a lot of stories and told a lot of stories, but this crowd was a hard one to tell a story too. You see, a story must satisfy everyone that listens, and in a busy inn in a busy city in a busy region such as this, almost no story will satisfy everyone’s tastes.

This week, we're publishing creative work produced by 8th form students for their extended projects. Today's extract is introduced by its author, Tom Salter. 

For my EPQ I planned out a plot of a historical novel, Scorched Grass, and wrote three distinct (non-consecutive) chapters. This excerpt is taken from the second chapter which would have been located towards the middle of the novel’s storyline, where my main character is journeying alone through a 12th century English countryside decimated by civil war. 

—For a while, I wandered across the countryside. If you could call it that. There was nothing at all which distinguished it from a barren desert. No Oxen and no Ploughman tilling the fields. Just the bare earth in the bare field, frozen solid from the winter chill.

As I crossed through, I came across a plough leaning against a hedgerow. The limbs of a hawthorn wrapped around the faded machinery, entwining it in its very own embrace. Stubbled branches stripped of their clothing encircled it, a slow process of deconstruction, the onset of a generation’s work. 

Tentacles hung from the plough, but now they were beginning to crumble as the strength of the sun began to take over. Having paused for a moment, I continued on my way to the end of the field.

Poetry Friday ...

As well as reviews, articles and recommendations, the Book Blog also features occasional creative writing posts. Today's is a poem written by Mr Harris, which was partly inspired by Philip Larkin's poem 'Going, Going' (you can hear a recording of Larkin reading this poem here) and particularly by Walt Whitman's 'I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing' - which you can read here.  

'As we wait on a packed train home'

As we wait on a packed train back home,
Trying to suffocate the noise of boys blaring
That rough racket from their phones, I stare
Out at the hedgerows that tumble past my window.

Late on a May Bank Holiday, white freckles
Of blossom, like a recent memory, soon
Blurred and behind us, to wilt in the June sun.
My eyes ache to focus on something so fickle,

So I turn to the fields beyond, shifting sands of green

And yellow, then clumps of semi-detached houses,
Rushing through a station where scattered crowds
Clutch at the last light from the sinking summer’s eve.

We burst through them onto pastures new, no high
Boundaries to break my eyeline and in the distance
Stood a farmhouse, cool and slow, indifferent
To the oak that had rooted in the living room and climbed

Up through the ceiling, splintering floorboards as it forced
Its way into the bedroom, where broad branches battered
At the sky and finally, upon breaking through, unanswered
In its stone tomb, flowering in defiant, lusty green. Time unlost.

I turn to you still frowning at my side, straw-haired and sun-kissed,
And smile. You reach over and hold my hand, as you always do,
And we sit in our own silence. In that way we whistle through
The fields and years together. The noise around us unmissed.

Many thanks to Mr Harris for sharing his poem: if you'd like to read more poetry on the blog, you can find Mr Anthony's poem 'The Spin' here.  We're always happy to publish creative work - just send it to any member of the English department. And if you're interested in getting more involved in creative writing at SPS, there are plenty of opportunities: Mr Harris runs the SPS creative writing society, which kicks off with its first meeting on Tuesday 21st September, at 12:40 in E7, and you can contact Mr Gardner (mtg@stpaulsschool.org.uk) if you'd like to contribute to our creative and critical writing magazines, or become part of the editorial team.  So get involved, and share your writing with a wider audience - have fun!  

How To Grow Your Own Poem

Some of you may have seen in the news or on Twitter the increasing prominence of the inspirational teacher and poetry guru Kate Clanchy.  Her students have been especially active during lockdown, publishing moving and inspiring works about life during the pandemic.  Follow her on Twitter and you will get a daily offering of one of her students' poems, some of whom have gone on to win national awards.

Check out her Twitter feed here: https://twitter.com/KateClanchy1

She has published a number of books, but her most recent, How to Grow Your Own Poem promises to be both inspirational and to offer you a chance to develop your creative skills at the same time.  The poems in the book are designed to help provoke a rich response in you, the reader, and there are exercises to help you write something of your own.  Why not try it out over the coming weeks?  Please do share your creative efforts with your teachers and remember that the school's creative magazines Areo and Pandaemonium (run by Mr Gardner) are always looking for submissions.

If you're someone who prefers criticism to creativity, perhaps check out Stephen Fry's useful and accessible book, The Ode Less Travelled as an alternative.  You'll learn a lot about literary techniques as well as learning about different ways of constructing your own verse.

The Stone Machine

Today's post continues this week's focus on the creative writing produced by L8th students for their extended projects.  Alexander Kwang's short story, The Stone Machine, was one of the pieces he wrote for his project exploring the theme of human aspiration, and drawing on the literary styles of H P Lovecraft and Jorge Luis Borges. 

The Stone Machine

Engraving on The Stone Machine

Amongst the infinite dark-matter filled pathways of space from Earth to the boundless planets that exist within the universe, there are two twin stars named Sirloth and Siriur. Around them, there are several planets in orbit, each a different size and home to its own civilisation. The closest planet, Czuria, is the dwelling place of a fittingly named species the Czurs. Characterized by bulbous red tentacles and elongated, cylindrical skulls, the Czurs have no visual stimuli system. It is thus natural that they remain primitive even among non space-faring species. The middle planet, Micregon, is inhabited by a queer species. The planet itself is constantly plagued by conflicts between rival clans. But the last planet, Axace, was where Earth’s contact with the unknown universe first found its purpose.

Axace was said to be a city of immaculacy. It was inhabited by a lively species with an intellect for magnificence. Each of them were 10 Akkads tall, a gargantuan size by Earthly standards. We citizens of Earth are hardly eight feet tall, and our sphere of existence, Earth, is just under 1,000,000 Akkads in circumference. As I had mentioned previously, their size is so colossal that they could be considered miracle workers of impossible human feats. A simple push by an Axacian is equivalent to the force of a thousand man, gathered collectively into a single heave. Despite possessing insurmountable physical energies, Axacians were a race of philosophers and mentalists. They were said to have prided themselves on their highly functioning mental capabilities. Amongst all Axacian inventions, one stood out solely above all others: The Stone Machine. My fellow clansmen have long-held the suspicion behind a replica of sorts residing on Earth, but knowledge of Axace has long since faded into the passing of myth and legend with time.

To those of us who are aware, Axace was plagued by a single predicament, the antithesis to their existence: ever since the conception of the planet, Axacians had suffered the millennia-long glare of the blinding red suns in the eternal daylight. If it was not the unquenchable rage of Sirloth that scorches the crops of Axace, it was the pulsating spears of Siriur that painfully embedded themselves into the skins of these Axacians. This race had never known the meaning of the dark, nor will they ever bask in the silvery shine of the moon.

This giant stone tablet below which I have written these musings is the only inkling of Axacian influence on us humans. From the wise Edimegas, my ancestors had learnt a vast wisdom that comprehend the Stone Machine at its simplest level. And it is now my duty to pass on Edimegas’s wisdom and advice, the remnants of his legacy, to the next generation of the Druids.

Signed: Druid Chieftain Erenor

Through Fields of Gold

This week, we're publishing creative work produced by L8th students for their extended projects. Today's extract is introduced by its author, Zack McGuire.

The following is a section from my EPQ story Through Fields of Gold, which I wrote in the style of Cormac McCarthy - the author most famously of No Country for Old Men. At this point in the story, which is set in the 1930s, the protagonist, a teenage boy, is working on an oil field on the plains of the Texas Panhandle.

10 Things To Do Before You Leave School

10 Things to Do Before You Leave School is the story of Ruby, a teenager whose life fell apart when her father died suddenly: now she's returning to school for her final year, and not sure how she's going to cope. The night before term starts, she finds a list left for her by her father: a list of ten things he thought she should do before she leaves school ...Will she do them? And what will happen when she does?

10 Things is an excellent young adult novel, which deals with serious issues, but is full of humour and insight into a whole range of topics - everyday family relationships, the minefield of teenage social life and love, and ludicrously pretentious student drama among them. It also has plenty to say about school life - including the fabled rite of passage that is 'muck up day' - and that's hardly surprising, because it's written by none other than Bernard O'Keeffe, ex-SPS English teacher and former 8th Form Undermaster. He was kind enough to answer some of the book blog's questions.

Why read fiction?

Sometimes we read only for pleasure – and that’s enough. Most recently I read The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope for precisely this reason. It’s a brilliant, sometimes scathing, sometimes exuberant satire of polite society. Tongue in cheek, fast and loose, it takes you on a rambunctious ride, and along the way you encounter a morally bankrupt group of high society miscreants. In short, Trollope is like Dickens - but racier.

Pandaemonium 2018

This term's issue of Pandaemonium, the SPS creative writing magazine featuring stories and screenplays by a range of current Pauline writers will be published on Friday: click here for a preview.

The magazine will be distributed during afternoon tutors.  If you'd like to get involved with the magazine, or submit any writing or art-work for the next issue, just e-mail Mr Gardner at mtg@stpaulsschool.org.uk

An Extract from 'Cheating Death'

Today's post is introduced by its author, Charlie de Waal:

'This extract is the opening chapter of a novel I planned and developed extracts from for my EPQ. It emulates some of the style of Sir Terry Pratchett, who is undeniably my favorite author (if you look back in book blog history you’ll see me defending him against J.K Rowling) and who has significantly influenced my writing style to be what it is today.

My EPQ centred around developing character building, in particular exploring and expanding upon Pratchett’s take on the Grim Reaper, Death. This story depicts the process my character of Death goes through to collect someone’s soul. I hope you enjoy it, and I thoroughly recommend any and all of Terry Pratchett’s books.'

'The Papers': a short story

As well as book reviews, from time to time, the blog publishes creative writing.  For instance, you can find the junior creative writing magazine, Pandemonium, here and here - as well as past editions of the senior publication, Areo - with the June 2017 issue here, and the 2016 issue here.  We've also featured stories by staff - such as 'Frank's Last Invigilation', by Mr O'Keeffe (formerly of the English Dept), and by pupils - among them the L8th formers who've chosen creative writing for their extended project: for instance, Alex Jacobs's short story, 'Avarice'. 

Today, we have a short story by Yang Hsu, who introduces it as follows:

This was the first story I wrote for my extended project. Implied to be set in the early 20th century, it tells the story of a Duchess, who, several years prior to the time of the story, was involved in an unspecified ‘incident’ (some sort of scandal or affair). Evidence of her involvement, in the form of papers, has now made its way into the hands of another person, Winston Blenthorpe, who uses this as blackmail to extort money from her to fund his own extravagant lifestyle.

I was inspired by the writings of Saki, who often focussed on people of a similar social class and time as my own story, examining their petty squabbles and interactions. I found writing this story a new and very positive experience and I hope you enjoy reading my story as much as I enjoyed writing it.'

Frank's Last Invigilation

Today's blog post is a short story by Mr O'Keeffe about Frank, a teacher on the verge of retirement, and the last invigilation session he will ever, ever do.

AVARICE

by Alex Jacob

The following is a story I wrote as part of a collection of seven, each depicting one of the seven deadly sins. It's the pithy tale of a man so consumed by his greed for money that he neglects his family, his wife, and ultimately, his own sense of moral integrity, only to fail at the last minute to fulfil his desires.

Avarice

“Ninety five,” shouted out Mr Nelson. 

“One hundred!” came the expected reply from the other side of the room. It was like an infuriating echo thought Mr Nelson to himself. From his place in the crowd, Mr Nelson could not source the face belonging to the voice, but he could make out chubby fingers waving frantically in the air. He could not help but feel personally insulted that the man had chosen to bid specifically against him.

His wife placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Mr Nelson snapped round.

“Get your hands off me!” he bellowed, with unexpected violence. He hadn’t meant to shout, but his anger at losing several bids in a row had culminated in an unexpected surge of aggression; unfortunately his wife was the only person there to receive it. He turned back round quickly so as to avoid the questioning looks from the crowd around him. 

Mr Nelson made his living by buying cheap antiques from auctions such as these, and selling them off at far higher prices. He fixed his eyes on a variety of items on the stage. Several items in particular piqued his interest. Years of gathering antiques had meant that Mr Nelson had an eye for fine furniture, priding himself on an ability to identify rare antiques merely by their design.

Areo

By Fahad Al-Amoudi, Andrew Farry, Andre Hirschler and Nikita Lysyuk

The June issue of Areo has now been published: read it online here.

There isn’t an editor’s foreword in the magazine so we thought this would be a good opportunity to thank everyone for their contributions to this immense piece of work. Firstly, we are very grateful that the book blog have agreed to host the online copy of the magazine in time for official release. Those who do not do English are not often aware of the magazine's existence and so we hope to attract more readers to this under-appreciated and under-rated aspect of St Pauls. We also want to extend a thanks to Mr Broughton who has allowed us to revive a largely forgotten publication and for giving us free rein to revolutionise it into our image. The people who deserve the most praise, however, are the incredible writers and artists who have populated the vessel of the publication with such vivid and complex characters. We are very proud to be the editors of this magazine and we hope that our example will inspire future editors to take up the torch and light the flame of future creativity.

Pandemonium: December 2015 issue out now

The December 2015 issue of Pandemonium has now been published. You can read it online, or pick up a paper copy from the Atrium on Tuesday or Wednesday. Thanks to all those who have contributed or helped to edit this issue.

Pandemonium

The latest issue of Pandemonium is available to read here:

https://drive.google.com/a/stpaulsschool.org.uk/file/d/0B0FKTwHCLuZoWk1tTVdNSnB6am8/view