Richard Gwyn

Illustrious insomniacs: 4.00 o’clock or whatever time in the morning

It sometimes happens that, as soon as I decide to write about something, the universe sends me little pointers and reminders, as if to corroborate the idea. Call it serendipity or call it synchronicity; whenever an idea looks… Read More

How long can you stay focused on anything at all . . .

I have been wondering about the capacity of the mind to focus on anything for more than a few seconds at a time. A lot has been published on this topic in recent years, especially relating to children’s… Read More

The Black Mountains and the human brain

There are days when the cloud cover is so dense and hangs so low that earth and sky are within hand’s reach of each other. We are all familiar with that sense of atmospheric density and its emotional… Read More

Alchemy, alephs and insomnia: origins of The Blue Tent

The Blue Tent is released by Parthian as an e-book next Tuesday (20th August). Since the novel has provoked quite a few questions from readers, I thought it might be helpful to publish the text of an email… Read More