Sometimes, it can be very difficult to succeed in poetry, when everything is public and open to criticism. With its growing popularity, the industry is becoming more and more saturated with work. Instagram is full of it and so finding the right recipe of engagement, marketing and quality of work while staying true to your … Continue reading The Moon – K.Tolnoe | A Book Review
There are some blogs that I write that come like a swift thought. Others take months to fester inside me until I can find the words to give the subject justice. This one is one of those. It's about people-pleasing. It's about painful situations and more than anything, it's about staying true and hopeful in … Continue reading The Moment I Stopped Trying To Be Someone I Wasn’t.
As I finished Ruby Dhal's latest poetry collection (My Hope For Tomorrow), I was on the Gatwick Express from Brighton to London Victoria. It was late at night and I had just been to see a friend's gig. Life was looking up and I had been reflecting quite regularly upon the changes that have … Continue reading My Hope For Tomorrow – Ruby Dhal | A Book Review
I recently reached out on my Instagram (@LiamXavier95) and asked for any writing advice questions so I could answer them in full here!... It worked better in theory than in practice, but we did get one question! (shout out to you) and it's a cracker: "How Do I Write When I Work So Much?!". It's … Continue reading How Do I Write When I Work So Much?! | Writing Advice
Should we really write so personally? All these examples of poetry, novels, blogs and plays that are so heavily grounded in a real-life situation, should we really be so open? Absolutely! With a few important side-notes and a powerful fearlessness, being so honest and open not only heals us, but it has the potential to … Continue reading Stop Being Afraid To Write What Happened | Writing Advice
It must have been around about 2017 when I first heard Freya Ridings. I was working in JD Sports in Colchester and it was added to the playlist. Every now and again they'd chose a slower song to switch things up. The song at the time was Blackout. This memorable, piano-driven melody, ghostly in essence. … Continue reading Freya Ridings | Album Review
After what seemed like an endless tease all day, Chance The Rappers much-awaited debut album 'The Big Day' dropped. It's really strange to say 'Debut' being that Chance's mixtapes over such a long period of success have felt like albums in themselves, but The Big Day is arguably his strongest and certainly his largest release … Continue reading Chance The Rapper is Back with ‘The Big Day’ | Album Review
(I seldom post poems on here these days, but I miss writing long-form poems that I don't feel fit my Instagram, so along with my reviews, I'm going to start posting more poems here so keep an eye out.) There is a name for this kind of feeling but it eludes my tongue. It is … Continue reading A Most Unnameable Thing | A Poem
I must admit, when I opened the book and noticed the lack of quotation marks when it came to the characters dialogue, it completely threw me. What threw me more, however, was how easily I could still distinguish paragraph from dialogue as if the quotation marks were there the whole time. There's not much to … Continue reading Conversations With Friends – Sally Rooney | A Book Review
After finishing Dream A Little Dream (2015), I noted that reading Giovanna Fletcher's writing was like having a chat with an old friend. This is still true and, perhaps, has evolved in the tone and narrative in Some Kind of Wonderful (2017). When we begin to read a book, we want to be able to … Continue reading Some Kind of Wonderful – Giovanna Fletcher| A Book Review
Liam Xavier 