blog

The Boring Spy

21/11/2024

To mark what would have been my father’s 105th birthday, I recently posted a photo of one of my most prized possessions: a cupboard door off my parent’s sideboard, which emigrated from the Netherlands to South Africa and back. The door is decorated with hotel stickers from my father’s travels to dozens of countries, including several behind the Iron Curtain, in the Cold War years.

review

#BookWalk – excerpts from Vivian Gornick’s “The Situation and the Story – the Art of Personal Narrative”

21/11/2024

warning: This is a book for writers and should be avoided by readers at all costs, because it explains the trickery behind the illusion, basically spoiling your enjoyment of excellent books in much the same way that a floor-to-ceiling mirror can spoil an evening%E2%80%99s dancing at the discotheque or nocturnal shenanigans in the comfort of your own home. Allow me to illustrate...

review

#BookWalk | The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet | David Mitchell

21/11/2024

This is a ten-excerpt review of David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, preceded by some musings on the dangers of reviewing the work of colleagues.

A War Story in Celebration of My Mother's Life

21/11/2024

To mark the 100th anniversary of my mother's birth, I'd like to share a story that captures the resilience and stubborn pragmatism of a generation who were robbed of their youth by a five-year war. Had she been alive today, I'm sure my mother would have expressed bitter disappointment that, despite the hardship and horrors endured by so many, we have been unable to find our way to lasting peace.

Chapter 92 | Had I intended to write all this? ⁠— a letter from 1943

11/10/2023

In early 1943, the German occupying forces tightened restrictions on telephone traffic. Travel by train was dangerous due to attacks by Allied warplanes, so my grandparents and aunt began writing letters to mother, who was then 20 and working as a trainee nurse at a psychiatric institution for women and girls, located out in the countryside about 100 kilometres from home in Amsterdam. After my mother's death, I read the 25 letters she had kept for the first time. My grandmother died in 1947, so these letters are my only connection with her.

Dutch Skating Traditions — all the ficts

11/10/2023

As temperatures drop, Dutch people become increasingly excited about strapping razor-sharp knives to their feet and getting in each other's way on a stupidly slippery surface. That means it's time to share some ficts about this great Dutch tradition.

"The dark cloud envelopes us again" – excerpts from the wartime diary of Max Hes

11/10/2023

In the summer of 1942, a Jewish haberdasher from the Dutch town of Zwolle sought refuge in the Trophy Room of Zwaluwenburg Manor, which was then a psychiatric institution for women and girls. Michel Leo (Max) Hes meticulously recorded the mounting tension in his journal.

Gurney Ho! — a Shakespearean hospital short

11/10/2023

While watching an episode of ER about 20 years ago, in which an emergency team were treating a gunshot victim, I wondered what the Bard would have produced if he had written for the operating theatre.

oorlogsherinnering

Mijn moeder en de Schriele Gevangene

18/11/2022

Mijn moeder zou vandaag 99 zijn geworden. Altijd als ik gesoigneerde fascisten op de kanalen zie moet ik aan haar denken. Vooral aan het oorlogstrauma dat ervoor gezorgd heeft dat ook ik weet dat iedereen een stem mag hebben, zelfs als daar uitsluitend haat mee wordt gezaaid...

Blog

FICTION NEEDS TO KNOW – on writing and war

11/10/2022

In the past week, my fiction processor has been asking some big questions. 

#Lekstraat #MurderedNeighbours

The Three Surviving Widows, one of whom survived Mengele's experiments | Lekstraat 4 – 1st floor

11/10/2022

Our quest to reconstruct the lives of all the Jewish families deported from Lekstraat in Amsterdam continues with the Snijders-May Family, who lived on the 1st-floor at No. 4. They are among more than 230 Jewish neighbours deported from Lekstreet and murdered in concentration camps during the Second World War.

#Lekstraat #MurderedNeighbours

Overlooking the Steel Delta | Lekstraat 3 – 1st floor

11/10/2022

Our quest to reconstruct the lives of all the Jewish families deported from Lekstraat in Amsterdam begins with the Cartoef-van Stratums, who lived in the 1st-floor apartment at No. 3. They are among more than 230 Jewish neighbours who were deported from Lekstreet and murdered in concentration camps during the Second World War.

kort verhaal | essay

Intussen lees ik ook romans | 100 jaar boekhandel Blankevoort

11/10/2022

Ter viering van het 100-jarig bestaan van boekhandel Blankevoort mocht ik een bijdrage leveren aan hun jubileumbundel, waarin diverse collega's vertellen over het belang van boekhandels, boeken en lezen. Hieronder mijn bijdrage.

#Lekstraat | #MurderedNeighbours

The Restless Hatter | Lekstraat 12 - ground floor | Amsterdam

11/10/2022

Here’s a story set in the summer of 1942. The fact that you’re looking at this intimate snapshot of six teenagers, basking on a flat roof in Amsterdam, means at least one of them survived the war and saved the picture.

blog

Mobile Monument

19/5/2021

This blog was previously posted in November 2007. Many more ghosts have now gathered on my mobile monument, moving from the Silver Simcard to the Great Cloud.

short story

Like hand grenades?

19/5/2021

So on Sunday I was taking a stroll with my youngest daughter, who seems to have inherited my eye for detail or, more accurately, my squirrelesque habit of being distracted by tiny tidbits. Anyway, we’d stopped halfway to buy some water and an ice-cream, when she spotted the CD.

blog

Drie generaties meelopers

19/5/2021

‘Het is makkelijk praten vanuit de helikopter,’ tweette ik gisteren aan een vriendin, toen ze haar bezorgdheid uitsprak over het protest op de Dam, waar mijn jongste dochter aan meedeed. Ze is negentien maar gaat inmiddels al aardig wat jaartjes haar eigen gang in Amsterdam.

Poetry

#FiveTwitterPoems | WHO'S YOUR DANDY?

17/6/2020

Five Poems | WHO'S YOUR DANDY | LITTLE CANNIBALS COMING | SUCH A SHIT DREAM | STONEFISH FLOATING | NO ONE EVER ASKS

poems

#FiveTwitterPoems | BLOODY DARLINGS

17/6/2020

A collection of five poems previously posted on Twitter.

a short story

The Unmatched Power of Ligions

17/6/2020

a short story about the history of stories, as told by a story

Letters

Preemptive Letters of Rejection

19/5/2021

A series of letters to McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Paris Review, Playgirl, The New Yorker, Granta Magazine, Oprah Winfrey, the Nobel Prize and the Prime Minister of Canada, pre-emptively rejecting their offers to exploit my literary assets.

kort verhaal

Allemaal onzin natuurlijk

19/5/2021

Dit verhaal verscheen eerder in een bundel ter viering van Guus Bauers 60ste verjaardag, waarin schrijvers op uitnodiging van David de Poel vertelden over hun meest miserabele bijbaantjes.

Recensie

BookWalk | Een soort geluk | Peter Abelsen

19/5/2021

Wandel mee door Peter Abelsens Een soort geluk (Ambo|Anthos, 2018) in tien inkijkjes en vergezichten.

Poem

Things I Have Said About Rain

19/5/2021

A poem about love composed of selected #walk tweets about rain.

Analysis

The Anatomy of WET ZEBRA

19/5/2021

Dissecting WET ZEBRA to offer insight into the story’s anatomy.

[The author decides to write his analysis in the third person, thereby making himself an invisible character in the story; a concealed and troubled god, if you will. His thoughts and actions will be given in square brackets.]

Overview

Xenophilia – mapping my love of strangers

19/5/2021

You can test your love for me by reading this overview of 24 short fictions inspired by my latest novel. Or you can do what any normal person would do and just ignore it entirely. Cling to your hatred, fool. See if I care.

News

“Spring Cleaning” nominated for Pushcart Prize

19/5/2021

This week Ellipsis Zine announced that my flash piece “Spring Cleaning” was one of their five nominees for the Pushcart Prize. Only later – after scouting around online – did I realise that it’s quite an honour to be nominated for this prestigious award.

Short story

Me and Tweety and Dog Man and You

10/12/2017

There are guys in here who make Charles Manson look like Mr. Bean with a beard. They are feral and fickle and unshackled by conscience. But I do not fear them, for I am one of them.

News

Unbearable Joy – a Slovenian translation from my latest novel

10/12/2017

Neznosna radost – Unbearable Joy – is the beautiful Slovenian title of a story from my latest novel Van Kleine Helden (All The Little Heroes), which was recently published in the leading Slovenian literary magazine Literatura.

Interview

An interview with ZeroFlash

19/5/2021

What got you into writing?

What inspires you?

These are just a few of the questions I answered for ZeroFlash Magazine.

What makes you write even when the nights are long, your fingers ache and your eyes droop?

Review

“Life in a box at his feet” | excerpts from EllipsisZine's ONE

19/5/2021

How does one characterise such a rich and incredibly diverse collection of flash fiction? “Genius might be pushing it a bit” (Sarah Wallis), so I think I’ll go with “life in a box at his feet” (Nick Black).

Nieuws

Van kleine helden | recensies, interviews & optredens

19/5/2021

Mijn nieuwe roman Van kleine helden verscheen op 30 mei bij Nijgh & Van Ditmar. Hieronder antwoorden op brandende vragen en een overzicht van recensies, interviews en optredens.

Nieuws | Van kleine helden

Presentatie 'Van kleine helden' in De Balie op 8 juni

30/5/2017

Eindelijk is het zover. Op 8 juni wordt mijn nieuwe roman feestelijk gepresenteerd in De Balie met het programma Goddeloze Barmhartigheid, met bijdragen van Stella Bergsma, Pieter Hilhorst en Rebekka de Wit. Lees verder om kaartjes (met of zonder boek) te bestellen. Ik verheug me op jullie komst.

Nieuws | Van kleine helden

Schietstoel | nu in De Revisor

12/11/2017

Het verhaal "Schietstoel" uit mijn nieuwe roman "Van kleine helden' is nu te lezen bij De Revisor.

Kort verhaal | Van kleine helden

Bijzonderheden | Praag

13/11/2017

"Ignác Vrana haast zich in de kleine uurtjes van een woensdag door Havlíčkovy Park als hij een laken aantreft, dat het landschap ontsiert als een bleke gumvlek in een fraaie potloodtekening." - een kort verhaal uit mijn nieuwe roman Van kleine helden.

Short Story

Peculiarities | Prague

13/11/2017

Ignác Vrana is hurrying through Havlíčkovy Park in the early hours of a Wednesday when he spots a large, white sheet, marring the landscape like an eraser smudge in a fine drawing...

On writing

The first time I died - thoughts on writing

11/4/2017

This is a cumulative collection of musings on creativity and writing, excerpted from interviews and blogs, to be supplemented and revised from time to time.

A 600-Word Story

Flasher of Fiction

30/5/2017

There once was a writer whose mind was like an overexcited child, incapable of sitting still, unable to shut up, raised on a diet of candyfloss, Coca-Cola and electricity. To keep the unruly child occupied, the writer churned out an incessant stream of novels, short fiction, blogs, poems, six-word stories and #OneWordHashtags.

Reblogged from 2009

Dr Obsequious & Mr Raving Psycho Loon

11/4/2017

Because I am not the only person living in my house, we have a cat. The other people living in my house (a woman and two small children) love the cat, but they very quickly broke their promise to feed and water it and to clean out the kitty litter. They leave that to me, the only person in the house who is indifferent to the cat. And so the cat loves me most.

Poetry

Five Twitter Poems | Trumposaurus Rex

11/4/2017

Don’t push a poem

don’t drag it out

against a wall

and stand it up

Poetry

Five Twitter Poems | Your Grim Equation

11/4/2017

My mother is building a monument

bigger than the Great Pyramid of Giza

my memory her loyal slave

reducing my mind to desert

Blog

How Racism Works - A 15-Point Primer

11/4/2017

Racism is much like superstition, phobias and even religion. Bear with me as I walk you through my thinking.

On writing

Compendium of Useless Writing Tips

31/8/2017

This compendium of #UselessWritingTips will be regularly updated. Or not. They have been posted in reverse order to save you having to scroll down. You should be writing, not reading tips.