I’ve just uploaded a photograph of myself with my guide dog Trigger to my Amazon author page. Anyone in search of a good laugh please click here! http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B00CEECWHY
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Category Archives: literature
The Thing
Like a living thing it lurked in the spare room quietly clicking away to itself. No one knew about it save for the boy and he told no one. What would have been the point of telling? Had he told they would have called him mad, a strange child with a tenuous grip on reality the adults would have remarked. Sometimes even he doubted the existence of the thing. During the day the room stood silent and empty except for the presence of a chest of drawers, a single bed and a wardrobe. The homely presence of the furniture, solid and dependable reassured the boy during daylight that all was well in the house. When the sun shonne on the walls the horses imprinted on the wall paper filled the child with delight. He imagined them galloping across sunlit green fields their long mains blowing in the wind. He galloped with them wild and free, nothing could hurt him, his spirit was one with the sky and the wind.
At night the thing came. Click, click it said crouching in it’s corner coiled and ready to pounce. The thing never left it’s lair but the knowledge of the loathsome presence filled him with dread. Click, click it said waiting patiently in the dark for it’s prey.
Looking back he never could recall having entered the room. Some how or other he was there in the presence of the unspeakable clicking thing. It never spoke, perhaps it was incapable of speech, the thing merely bided it’s time and when the time was right struck like a beast launching itself upon his prey. Click, click the machine whispered to itself it’s tentacles reaching for the boy’s neck. Choking he fought with the thing. It was strong but he always managed to wriggle away somehow. Perhaps the thing wanted him to escape. Like a cat which takes pleasure in catching a mouse, releasing it and giving chase once more the thing would let him go only to wait, patiently for the next tussle.
He called it the strangling machine on account of it’s propensity to choke him. Click, click, click echoing down the years the thing reached into his nightmares, filling his brain with the terrors of the night. Click, click click … …
Kindles are forever but you don’t need to own one to read ebooks
When I told my friends and acquaintences that I had published my book, Samantha they expressed interest in reading it (well feigned it convincingly anyway)! However a number of people remarked that as Samantha is an ebook and they don’t own an ebook reader it would not be possible for them to read Samantha.
It is a commonly held misconception that possession of a Kindle or similar device is essential for the reading of ebooks. In fact Amazon offer a range of free apps which allow for the reading of Kindle content on computers, Ipads and Ipods (see http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_164007747_3?ie=UTF8&docId=1000425503&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-9&pf_rd_r=1MNRJQD1S63J3G4XJ48E&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_p=396445167&pf_rd_i=1000423913). I love the portability of my Kindle but it is good to know that there are other options available for reading ebooks sold by Amazon.
Paid for: My Journey into Prostitution by Rachel Moran
I am currently reading “Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution: One Brave Woman’s Account of the Violence that is Prostitution [Kindle Edition], by Rachel Moran (see http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00C7735X8?ie=UTF8&ref_=oce_digital). The author grew up with two mentally ill parents. Her father committed suicide when she was still a young girl. Rachel’s mother’s schizophrenia worsened following his death leading to increased pressure on Rachel and the other children of the family to grow up before their time. For example the author relates how she had to collect her younger sister from the hospital unaccompanied by her mother while still a young child.
The pressure cooker environment leads to Rachel leaving home in her early teens. She moves from hostel to hostel experiencing periods of homelessness in between. Due to hunger she turns to shop lifting but not being adept at it frequently ends up in the local police stations.
At the age of 15 Rachel’s 21-year-old boyfriend suggests that she enters prostitution. Believing that sex work will empower her Rachel agrees to this suggestion and at the age of 15 enters street prostitution.
I am under half way through the book and have therefore not formed a view as to it’s overall merits. What I can say is that Rachel Moran knows how to string a sentence together and that the reader feels compelled to agree with her assessment that given her chaotic childhood the author’s entry into prostitution was predictable (I don’t think that one can say inevitable).
I will post a full review once I have finished reading Moran’s book.
Man does not live by bread alone
Today I fell into conversation with a young Polish lady. We conversed about a variety of topics and during our conversation I asked her whether any Poles looked back with nostalgia to the time when Poland was ruled by the Communist Party. I must confess to being somewhat taken back by the answer to my question which was, in the words of my acquaintance that
“you can have to much freedom”.
The lady then went on to say that she thought that things had in some respects been better when Communists governed her country.
For reasons which I will not go into here I was not able to tease out what exactly my companion meant by her statement that people can have to much freedom. Her comment did however get me thinking about why I prize freedom, by which I mean the right of the individual under law to live their life, broadly speaking as they choose without undue interference from the state or society as a whole. As a writer I value the freedom to write what I please without the fear of the midnight knock on the door. We in democracies take freedom of expression for granted, however we should remember that the Nazis burned books by Jews and others they believed to be undesirable while Communist states prohibited works (fiction and non-fiction) which criticised the ruling ideology. Indeed Communist states have banned works by fellow Marxists who happen to have a different interpretation of Marxism from that held by the ruling elites.
I don’t want to live in a society in which books are censored. At the very least this would lead to a truncated intellectual climate and in it’s most extreme manifestation to tyranny.
It is postulated by apologists for various authoritarian systems that they maintain order by fostering equality by, for example ensuring full employment and universal social welfare. The argument often seems to boil down to “sacrifice freedom of a few intellectuals for the greater happiness and prosperity of the community”. Those who argue in this manner tend to downplay or deny the Soviet gulags and the intellectuals confined to mental institutions for criticising the regime. It is a delicious irony that apologists for tyranny frequently reside in democratic societies which (quite rightly) leave them free to express their views so long as they do not advocate violence. The freedom enjoyed by those who express contempt for democracy would be denyed by them to their opponents (oh irony of ironies).
Man does not live by bread alone and if intellectual freedom is sacrificed in the name of economic security we will, in all likelihood, ultimately end up with neither prosperity or freedom.
Update to my Amazon Author Page
I have now added a brief biography to my author’s page on Amazon which can be accessed here http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B00CEECWHY
Choice in prostitution?
In February 2012 I published Samantha which tells the story of a young girl forced into prostitution in the English city of Liverpool by her brutal pimp Barry (see http://newauthoronline.com/my-books/). Samantha is subjected to horrific psychological and physical abuse. It is touch and go as to whether she will survive or end her days in the murky waters of Liverpool’s Albert Docks.
Given my writing of Samantha, I was interested to read that Rachel Moran, a former prostitute has written a book recounting her experiences as a prostitute (see http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Former-Irish-prostitute-calls-on-men-who-buy-sex-to-be-named-and-shamed-in-new-book-203827051.html?page=2). As a homeless 15-year-old living in Ireland Rachel entered prostitution seeing it as a means of survival. She exited sex work at the age of 22 and is full of anger regarding her experiences. The author calls for those who purchase sex to be named and shamed as happens under the Swedish Law on Prostitution.
Not everyone shares Moran’s view that criminalising the purchasers of sex is the answer. It has been argued by opponents of the Swedish model that criminalising sex buyers means that clients who come across a person who is underage or who has been trafficked will be less likely to report the matter to the authorities than is presently the case. (In the UK it is not currently illegal to pay for sex but anyone who purchases services from someone who has been compelled into prostitution is guilty of a crime irrespective of whether he new that the prostitute was being coerced). Were the law to be further tightened buyers would according to this perspective be less inclined than at present to report their suspicions owing to fears of arrest due to paying for sex, potentially leading to more (not less) exploitation.
Another argument advanced against criminalising people who buy sex is that not all sex workers are forced into prostitution. In my story, The First Time we meet Becky a young graduate who enters the world’s oldest profession in order to clear her credit card debts. She fears being made homeless as a consequence of not being able to meet her bills and turns to escorting as a means of making money easily and quickly. Becky feels compelled by circumstances to become a sex worker however there is no brutal pimp, as in Samantha coercing her into sex work. Would it be right to punish men (and women) who purchase sex from escorts like Becky who have entered prostitution voluntarily? In response to that question proponents of the Swedish approach will respond that no one truly chooses to enter prostitution, they feel compelled to do so by circumstances which are often beyond their control. It is in other words a choice in theory only. Others will reply that not all who face the financial difficulties of Becky in The First Time choose to go down the route of selling their body, consequently Becky does, in the final analysis make a decision of her own free will to enter sex work.
Essay Writing Competition
Literary Bits is running an essay competition on why writers write. For further details please visit http://www.literarybits.com/literary-bits-first-essay-writing-contest-starts-monday/
ME
Below is a short biography of yours truly. I won’t claim that it is comprehensive, it certainly isn’t, nor will I state that it reveals any secrets (not that I have any secrets to reveal you understand)!
KEVIN MORRIS BIOGRAPHY
I was born in Liverpool on 6 January 1969, a year best known of course for my birth. Well no actually it is better known for the moon landings which certain peculiar conspiracy theorists still maintain never took place (the moon landings that is, not my birth).
One of my earliest recollections is of eating roast dinners, on Saturday in British Home Stores with my grandfather. Although cooked in the kitchen of a department store they tasted wonderful to a small boy but then again it is easy to look back at one’s childhood with rose tinted spectacles.
On Saturdays my grandfather and I would invariably pop into W H Smiths and buy a book. Often he bought Enid Blighton books and I’ve happy memories of him reading to me about the adventures of Julian, Dick and Ann not forgetting Timmy the Dog (who could)! Being blind it was a real treat to sit on my grandfather’s knee hearing him regail me with children’s adventures. It was from my grandfather a man who had never so much dreamed of going to university that I derived my love of literature.
As I grew older I learned to read braille which opened up a world of independent reading to me. Only a tiny proportion of books are available in braille, however it was still amazing to me, as a young boy to be able to sit with a book on my knee reading for myself. Besides braille I was also a huge consumer of spoken word cassettes, everything from Treasure Island to Wuthering Heights. I still possess almost all of the many cassettes which I have purchased and had bought for me over the years but many of them have now warped with age so are, sadly unusable. Today it is the text to speech facility on my Kindle and Ibooks (using voiceover) on my Ipad which is my favourite means of accessing the wonderful world of literature.
I attended school in Liverpool and later went onto read history and politics at university. I must be a glutton for punishment as having obtained my degree I went onto study for and obtain a MA in political theory (I can see your eyes glazing over already)!
Since 1994 I have lived and worked in London. I live in Crystal Palace a part of London high above sea level and famed for it’s steep hills. It is very green and the air is much fresher than many parts of London. I like were I live and I’m lucky that my home overlooks a large garden and an historic park.
Enough about me for now at least.
My Amazon Author’s Page Is Here!
At long last I have taken the plunge and set up my author’s page on Amazon, http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B00CEECWHY. I have intended to do this for some time but for some inexplicable reason put it off due to labouring under the misapprehension that it would be difficult.
The advantage to having an author’s page is that it allows readers to see all your content in one place (E.G. books, book reviews, biography etc). The lack of an author’s page may lead to people not knowing that you have produced several books as titles are scattered throughout Amazon with no golden thread to link them to the same author.
I have experienced one minor hiccup. My book, Samantha appears under the name K Morris while my collection of short stories, The First Time shows under my full name, Kevin Morris. As I’m registered with Amazon as K S Morris I’ve been able to add Samantha to my author’s page but not The First Time. I’ve emailed Amazon who will, I’m sure resolve the problem.
