D.K. Powell's Blog

“…Lawrence has succeeded in keeping my interest… I still finish the last page wanting to know more…” This epic ploughing through of Caroline Lawrence’s children’s/young adult’s stories set in ancient Rome is nearly at an end. It has taken longer than expected because the last eighteen months have been pretty catastrophic personally leading to a […]

Here’s your two favourite Cumbrian authors with a special Easter edition of For Whom the Book Tolls. Nick and I discuss Easter and anything even vaguely literary to do with it (and we do stretch definitions). Looking at the often controversial interpretations of the Easter story – and the Christian faith in general – we […]

“…sdfdsf…” Having admitted recently that I am not a zombie fan, you might be surprised to find out that I am a very definite massive Alien fan. And by ‘alien’ I do, of course, mean ‘xenomorph’. Technically, I was too young to watch Alien when it came out in 1979. I was eight years old. […]

“…For any zombie fan, it’s a must….” I am not a huge fan of the zombie-apocalypse kind of movies. I don’t mind them, but this particular subgenre of horror movies is always rather lacking in style and often the plot is more or less non-existent. Comedies such as Shaun of the Dead, Warm Bodies and […]

“…every chapter contained either badly written guff or morally questionable material…” Recently, I’ve been reviewing Christmas shows at various theatres. At Theatre by the Lake in Keswick, The Wizard of Oz was their seasonal production last Christmas. It was a very interesting attempt to reinvent the story and make a new kind of musical out […]

It has been a while but here we are again just on the cusp of Christmas itself with a special Christmas edition of For Whom the Book Tolls. Nicholas Graham and I discuss the question, “What makes Christmas?” We take a fast tour through stories, poetry, musicals and movies to ponder how our modern-day traditions […]

I am busy recording a new podcast (finally!) with my good friend, Nicholas Graham (author of the highly-acclaimed The Judas Case), this afternoon. It’s a special Christmas one and so we’ve got guys in to spruce us up and make us look less shoddy than we usually do. Well – make me less shoddy. Nick […]

“…if you love this series of books…stay well away from the movie. It will actually hurt you….” If you’ve followed my posts for long enough, you should recall that I absolutely adore Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series. I’m not a great fan of detective novels, nor of murder mysteries in general. Yet, somehow, Osman […]

I don’t often boast about my work as a teacher (outside of my professional promotions, of course) but I do like to think that I taught poetry well to my English students over the last twenty years or so, largely because I don’t like – and don’t understand – poetry. Confused? Allow me to explain. […]

As I announced earlier in the week, I was interviewed by Jen Bowden for Northern Voices. In the interview I talked about my book, The Pukur, my life and work in Bangladesh, theatre and the difficulties facing writers in the north – specifically my neck of the words, Cumbria. I hope you find the time […]