John Hartley Williams – författare

Alongside the names of James Hadley Chase and Erle Stanley Gardner we must now add that of John Hartley Williams - though Mystery in Spiderville is no run-of-the-mill hard-boiled thriller. The décor is by Dali, the plot is a mixture of Breton and Burroughs, and the main character - the protean and unkillable Spider Rembrandt - has six toes, sleeps in a grave and dreams of congress with the pert and playful Reedy Buttons. Sucked into the vortex of Spider's philandering mind is a narrator - sometimes Spider's adversary, sometimes his victim - who lies upon a bed brooding on the absence of a nameless, brown-haired woman. He, too, is protean: full of passionate longings and homicidal tendencies. A surrealist film-noir that blends the forensic with the erotic, the seedy penny-dreadful and the lyric prose-poem, Mystery in Spiderville is one of the strangest, strongest and most arresting fictional debuts in years.

Welcome to the Café des Artistes. Your host, the owner, bartender, master of ceremonies and only other guest: John Hartley Williams. Here you will be entertained and diverted - by bizarre stories of mapless roads and unreal cities, the Ostrich Palisades and the erotic stones of Bonehenge; by a spooked version of Rimbaud's 'La Bateau Ivre'; by encounters with Malcolm Lowry, the floating dead, the 'old men behind the waterfall' and the knitted poet; by poems about donkey jackets and dancing with donkeys, and a one-sided conversation with a decidedly un-Romantic polar bear two doors down from Dove Cottage.Long celebrated for his ranging, restless imagination, his baroque, elliptical narratives, his manic humour and maverick stance, Williams returns with another invitation to join him for a jug or two of wine in his out-of-kilter universe: a world that is both strange, and strangely familiar. Welcome to the Café des Artistes!

A series of murders targets the nation's best known poets. Remarkably, they are being murdered in a way that reflects the style of their poems. Victor Priest is given the task of finding the murderer but when a car bomb is discovered in his car, by the eccentric and hilarious young couple turned detectives, a desperate confrontation takes place

A comprehensive guide to writing poetryWrite Poetry - and Get it Published is a user-friendly and comprehensive guide written by two well-published poets that will prove indispensible if you're seeking creative guidance, inspiration and practical advice. Covering everything from mood, style and tone to poetry on the internet, this fully updated edition will help you find your voice. Containing straightforward advice and the very latest on prizes, festivals and performance poetry, this book will enable an aspiring or seasoned poet alike to gain the confidence and necessary knowledge to write and publish compelling poetry.Write Poetry and Get it Published includes:Chapter 1: What does it take to be a poet?Chapter 2: Bump-starting the poemChapter 3: A challenge to the reader: groundwork exercisesChapter 4: Getting started: working arrangementsChapter 5: I gotta use words when I talk to youChapter 6: Letters, alphabets and listsChapter 7: VisualizingChapter 8: Drafting and revisionChapter 9: Using modelsChapter 10: The co-operative approachChapter 11: Subject matterChapter 12: Context, mood and toneChapter 13: Writing in different modesChapter 14: StyleChapter 15: Getting the rhymes to chose youChapter 16: It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swingChapter 17: TranslationChapter 18: Writing for childrenChapter 19: Getting publishedChapter 20: ipoems and cyber verseChapter 21: Reading aloudChapter 22: Poetry prizes and festivalsChapter 23: ars poeticaABOUT THE SERIESThe Teach Yourself Creative Writing series helps aspiring authors tell their story. Covering a range of genres from science fiction and romantic novels, to illustrated children's books and comedy, this series is packed with advice, exercises and tips for unlocking creativity and improving your writing. And because we know how daunting the blank page can be, we set up the Just Write online community at tyjustwrite, for budding authors and successful writers to connect and share.