Audios and Video

Why I Write

  • It took a long time and a lot of journalism before I had the confidence to write a book. I wrote the first because I was asked to, and found in the making of it an unprecedented joy.

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Life Changing Literature

  • To me then it was like finding a key. It took me through a door into the next room of poetry appreciation. I understood that poetry could use language differently.

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Writing Changes The Writer

  • There’s a change, or at least a preoccupation, not only as words are being penned or typed but also, invisibly, during other activities. But this is transient, like having your arms full so there are tasks you can’t complete until you’ve put everything down.

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Letter To My Younger Self

  • Neglect your children, lose touch with your friends, live in disorder, get into debt; only when these things happen do books get finished. Neglect your children, lose touch with your friends, live in disorder, get into debt; only when these things happen do books get finished. Make a schedule that is instead of, and not between, other activities. Stick to it.

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  • She begins with a look at the explosion in outstanding illustrated non-fiction for young readers. Future videos will feature interviews with authors such as David Baddiel and Philip Reeve, Jones’s selection of favourite poetry books for children, and a fun look at what to buy for Halloween.

  • This week her video recommendations surround everything to do with Children’s poetry.

My Reading Habits

  • Under pressure, or in the grip of a story I can’t tear myself from, I occasionally read as I walk along the street. Under pressure, or in the grip of a story I can’t tear myself from, I occasionally read as I walk along the street. Fortunately I have great peripheral vision for lamp posts and other pedestrians.

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The American Art Tapes

A unique insight into the vibrant art scene of mid-1960s America from an archive of recordings made then. In 1965, painter and teacher John Jones headed to the USA for a year, intending to record the most important and most influential artists he could find. His wife Gaby and their two young daughters went with him. One of those daughters, Nicolette Jones is now a writer and critic and she tells the story of how they lodged in New York, while her father grabbed interviews with Yoko Ono, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg and many more. This was the moment of Happenings, Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism, while the long shadow of Dada and Surrealism, represented on the tapes by Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, reached forward to Louise Bourgeois.

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