Current Feature Story:
“Orwell’s Last Resort”
Optimistic subtext in 1984
A literary pilgrimage can be rather fraught. One might journey to a famed writer’s studio or home, only to make a utterly unwished discovery – something that will diminish an author or his (her) work. But still worse, what if you gain zero insight – and the entire effort your trip required seems a waste?
A trek I made to George Orwell’s final writing retreat, on the wild isle of Jura, off Scotland’s west coast, fortunately resulted in no such debacle. Instead, I rambled into a scene of startling natural beauty, one providing some clues to messages of hope buried within Orwell’s dark and dystopic masterwork, 1984.
If you’ve not re-read 1984 recently, don’t worry! Present world news still invokes all its principal themes. Orwell envisioned a grim earth shrouded in three totalitarian governments, all perpetually at war against each other, with their benighted populations held in subjugation by a ceaseless flood of disinformation, comprehensive political oppression, as well as grinding poverty.
Mission Statement
I am a writer. I am a story-teller.
Stories are the way we tell ourselves about life, the earth, and each other. They are the way we create and order awareness. How we explain ourselves and all our deeds. The way we lead ourselves through a day, as well as how we share company with each other at night. The story of our hearts is told in love songs, the story of our hopes is told in the speech of prophets and heroes. I have been swept up and away by the potency of stories, and have made myself into one who relates them in poetry, journalism and fiction, and I remain constantly in search of a finer ways to work the magic and do this job.
I am a story-teller. I am a writer.
Welcome. You’re invited to poke the buttons, and enjoy a ramble through my site. Among its features, you’ll find links to a prize-winning novel (Deadlines
