Alan Grant

Why liberals should back CANZUK Reading the Financial Times is not for the easily troubled. At once the news it is mission-bound to report is confusing, intimidating, and depressing when the reader becomes aware of just how much mon...

Chuffed to be making my @libdemvoice.org debut today with an article on why it's time liberals supported greater cooperation between Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and our own United Kingdom.

Give Me Back My Peanuts: A Review of The Monkey The Monkey (2025) is terrible. More specifically, it is such a gruelling, unfunny, and unfrightening experience that it has brought me back…

New from me. My review of The Monkey.

#writersky #criticsky #moviesky #filmsky

Correcting Ms Daisy: Why We Must Still Go On about Shakespeare In defence of learning Shakespeare. Because apparently that’s needed in 2025…

New writing from me on Daisy May Cooper’s staggeringly ignorant comments about Shakespeare and why we must still “go on” about him.

medium.com/@alangrantwr...

#writersky #blogsky #writer #newwriting #shakespeare

My Mother Does What? A reflection on the lasting power of The Exorcist (1973).

New writing from me. A personal reflection and a deep dive into the importance of 1973's The Exorcist.

medium.com/@alangrantwr...

#writersky #moviesky #cinemasky

Progressives lost hearts and minds over DEI because they argued that diversity, equity, and inclusion were good things in themselves and failed to argue that they lead to good things.

I've written a novel. I need an agent.

It's good. I know how to write. Ask The Express or the Times, and they'll tell you.

It's dystopian. Set in a world where a worse pandemic followed COVID, the rich retreat to a high-tech island.

Email me: alangrantwrites@gmail.com

There once were two buns in a box,
That was secured just like Fort Knox,
Gayly they played,
Eating and getting laid,
Until the arrival of a lock-picking fox.

I sent my novel to a bunch of publishers and didn't hear back from them with a glowing acceptance instantly, so of course, I've decided I'm the worst thing to happen to words since mumble rap.

The Bishop of Central Vancouver,
Used to pleasure himself with a hoover,
But he ran out of luck,
By underestimating the suck,
And when it got it out it was smoother.

There once was a woman from Skye,
Who could never stick to one guy,
And she said with a grin,
That stretched down to her chin,
Most are rubbish but the best of them try.

My novel is ready! A publisher and agent would help. So, if that's you and you would like to read a dystopian chiller set on an island hiding from a second, even worse, global pandemic that grips the world after COVID-19, please get in touch.

#booksky #writersky #authorsky #literaturesky

Oh my goodness, no. Tolkien is precisely who I had in mind in my original post.

I’ve find ‘fantasy’ really boring. All that orcs, hobbits, wenches, knights, swords and armour stuff looks and feels the same to me and my eyes glaze over when I see it. Plus, they run to 1000s of pages. But, I always work assuming I could be wrong so what book would change my mind? #booksky

A Happy New Year to my nascent BlueSky community. I hope you had fun. Personally, I'm going into 2025 happier than I went into 2024 in so I thought I'd play with a fun idea.

As a proud #booksky guy, I'm pinning this thread here all year and recording what I read. Come join me!

If you’re not writing about the most interesting thing that has ever happened to your characters, why aren’t you writing that instead?

This New Year's Eve (Hogmanay to my fellow Scots), I find myself halfway through the redraft of a novel that was a mere thought this time last year. I expect to have it in a fit state in mere months.

I had my doubts I could get this far with it. #booksky #writersky

Remember fellow writers, if something can be cut from your work then it should be.

Nobody wants your second best.

I’ll stop banging on about how great dark academia is when it stops being so great! This was superb. More supernatural than I usually go for, but very enjoyable nonetheless. Read the whole thing in three days. Great characterisation and suspense building. Catelyn Wilson is a talent.

But no, they’d rather be Joey, chucking his copy of The Shinning in the fridge because it’s scary.

And what I hate most about this is the cowardice. Bravery would be to address, discuss, and criticise the attitudes and elements that we find distasteful and consider what in our day might end up that way.

The same people will read a single slur in Lord of the Flies or read themes of domestic abuse in Gatsby and chuck them out in favour of some concrete poetry by some berk in a beret. They are barbarians, leering at the ornament of a tradition they hate but can’t understand. #booksky

Of Mice and Men: Classic US novel taken off GCSE course in Wales The book's removal is welcomed by the children's commissioner amid concern about racist language.

If you read Of Mice and Men and find it “harmful” then you have my pity and the ideologically imprisoned morons teaching you, and the callous zealots who trained them, will have to make do with my contempt. Sheer ignorance of the value of a jewel of 20thC American literature. bbc.in/3ZNq59C

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.

#BookSky💙📚
#Books
#BookChallenge

Day Twenty

Oh totally, this is one Alan’s opinion and carries exactly that amount of heft.

For me, it’s the difference between enjoying a perfectly cooked fillet steak and eating the entire cow. But again, none of it is compulsory. What I had in mind during the above comment was stuff like GoT which is some moments of brilliance hidden in blubber.

That’s a fair point. This is hugely subjective. For me, if it takes so many books to build your world, you’re an inefficient builder.

Point is, it shouldn’t. We should see your best and that’s it. “Kill your darlings”, is as good advice as it ever was. Stick by it if you want my attention. #booksky #writersky

It’s a bit like in video games. Stuff like Final Fantasy, is packed to the gills with added on detail and fluff. A pal legitimately told me that one game “gets really good ten hours in.” I’ve been told, “you should read this series, it’s great after book three.”

I’d much rather read a tight story over 60K words than be drowning in backstory and verbose, unneeded detail. Anyone can write quantity, writing briefly and powerfully is hard.

Might be controversial to say so, but I think lots of people confuse quality and quantity in books. An eight book, 90K word each, saga is obviously too long and could be cut down. Especially in sci-fi and fantasy. If you’re not telling me the most interesting bit, ask yourself why not?