Author Ian Duckworth recently sat down for an interview on the Conoscere TV YouTube channel to talk about his latest novel, The Snow Making Machine. In the interview, he shares insights into the book’s themes, characters, and the inspiration behind...
Bradford-based author Ian Duckworth has been featured in the Bradford Telegraph and Argus for his latest novel, The Snow Making Machine.
Set in contemporary Europe, the novel weaves together the lives of three distinct characters, each navigating their own theatrical world....
We are thrilled to announce that Ian Duckworth has been honoured with The Special Critics Award for his remarkable novel, The Snow Making Machine. The prestigious accolade was presented at the Milan International Literature Awards 2024, held on Saturday, 23rd November.
Ian traveled to Milan to...
The book is up on their website Europe Books and go to catalogue, specifically at europebookstore.com/products/the-snow-making-machine-ian-duckworth
Set in contemporary Europe, the kaleidoscopic story follows three characters, one in Stockholm and its island Archipelago, one in Berlin and its sluggish river Spree, and...
This March I will have been ten years in Girona. Now even living somewhere I still consider to be my perfect place I have started to look for improvements to my annual calendar - during July and August it really...
In the deep midwinter, with time on my hands, I put together my list of 65 twentieth century symphonies by 65 different composers. If you have time on your hands why not Youtube away and get some idea about the...
Estàvem en aquell punt on amb les traduccions a temps real ningu necessitava estudiar un altre idioma. De la mateixa manera de que la gent que no entenia massa de cotxes ja no necessitaven conduir-los.
‘Es riurien de mi si sabessin...
We’d reached the point where with real time translation no one needed to learn another language, just in the way most people knew nothing much about the vehicles they didn’t need to drive any more.
‘They’d all laugh at me if...
How did Shakespeare Write his plays? My own feeling, based on my being a bit of a playwright myself and so able to offer some insight into the practicality of doing such a thing, is from one simple established fact...
We have been featured at the "The Telegraph and Argus" newspaper.
Lately has seemed like a prelude to going nowhere - an introduction to an introduction to an introduction, something that doesn’t do anything to improve the mood. Over time one dismal thing after another has become wearing, what with there...
We sort of know what someone means when they say something is surreal, but looking at our own present planetary position it could well be an entire world that makes sense in its own terms might be seen as completely...
Inside the general malaise of bubbles and echo chambers I increasingly feel I’ve heard all my jokes before. Fortunately in the interests of breaking new ground, broadening things out and connecting up I can inflict them all on you. On...
With the ever greater need for content - we are all media channels now - I have extracted quick fire comedy tweets to send out and attract people to my site www.ianduckworth.net then convert them into followers. Not knowing exactly how this...
I am having a go at translating my short stories into Catalan, but have decided to lose the first two stories and add two later ones from the second English collection. So we’ll start with ‘Spotting Composers in Train Stations’,...
I bumped into someone I hadn't seen for sometime, but someone I've known in passing for say seven years. They are around twenty-five. He let on to me, because I never notice anyone in the street, which comes over as...
Divorce didn’t suit Sasha. Some people were naturals at it but he wasn’t. He hadn’t had the wit to miss out on the marriage and just go for the divorce - something that with hindsight would have saved a lot...
Printed versions of the Novels 'Euphoria' and 'Harmony of the World' are now available through Amazon, as well as the collection of 24 short stories in 'Asylum.'
Appearing soon will be the print versions of three novellas in one book -...
I’ve renamed the fourth novel ‘The Snow Making Machine.’ which comes from the very last line in the book. I think it’s a stroke of genius rather in the Wile E Coyote manner ‘It’s Genius! Sheer genius!’ I say as...
The sheer slow motion of all our days being one day has moved a bit more into the foreground during these isolating times. It is hard to see, given our fragility just how we manage to survive a single day....
A selection of words from my misleading pocket dictionary.
Balloon: An inflatable Belgian
Polish: An unguent for making Slavs sparkle.
Hector: A Trojan loud hailer.
Sofia: A Bulgarian Settee.
Defect: A sub-standard spy who’s looking to switch sides.
Thor: A defrosting God.
Attitude: A position it’s best...
I am getting to the end of ‘The Last Days of Mankind,’ the 500 page play by Karl Kraus. Appropriate reading. In anticipation of finishing it I have started on a thousand page Central European Novel by an author I...
Day six of the new rhythm, except that for me it’s pretty much the old rhythm minus the daily café break, weekly golf thrash and Friday night booze up.
The new absence of diary dates, unless they are work related international...
I am creating my own Comedy Sketch acting troupe to interpret short comedy sketches. With the longer thirty second plus ones lines have to be learned, but the quick -fire ten second burst comedy ones don’t even require that. A...
Attached is a new podcast of the short story Warning from the coming collection of Short stories Balloons and Walloons.
The Fira is finally over - ten days of Fairground, Fireworks and Flies. The Fly being the symbol of St Narcis Girona’s City Saint. This year politics put the kybosh on anything to do with youth.
A couple of weeks back...
There is a free short story podcast called 'Perfect' from my short story collection 'Asylum.' If you like this story you can but the full electronic book of 19 stories for hardly any money at all through amazon. And remember...
An update on the creative writing is due. I’ve slowed down on the short story production, though it took the turning circle of a tanker to do so. Two years from deciding to slow down to actually slowing down. I’m...
The first two pages of my Novel Euphoria can be heard for free on my first podcast. Just go to the Blog to hear it. The novel itself can be bought through Amazon in electronic and printed formats, though please...
If you like the opening you can explore or buy the complete Euphoria book on Amazon
Every repetitious job, or any sequence within a job not requiring high end thought will disappear in the next fifteen years. But what are people going to do? Write bad poetry? If Woody Allen’s film ‘Sleeper’ is a guide, then...
The general election in Spain in late April passed off with quite a decent result in the end. The right wing, including the new National Socialists fought over the same votes and the non-socialist socialists walked through the big gap...
Berga is the last chapter to be written of my third novel ‘The Land of Castles.’ It isn’t the last chapter of the book. It’s chapter 12 of 14 in Part Three of Three.
I acted on a hunch about Berga...
A type of story I would never have thought of writing but decided to try my hand at is a Christmas Ghost Story. A friend of mine who I won’t name but lives in Keighley has written a Christmas Ghost Story...
Feeling in a rut, though as Alan Bennett says, ‘the good thing about being in a rut is that you know where you are.’ Anyway, I decided to go back to doing things om my own that I wanted to...
I came across a nonsensical aphorism of genius by Stan Jefferson, also known as Stan Laurel lately, ‘Anyone can build a nest but not everyone can lay an egg.’ I tried to do something similar but couldn’t manage it. The...
I have spent two weeks in Yorkshire and other English Regions whose main positive was that it was ten centigrade cooler than in Girona. I quite enjoyed it. But underlying this pleasant coolness after about nine days was a low...
It’s a long hot summer, which suits me now I have learned how to do nothing during it. Close down the blinds to dismantle the sun. In the style of Sancho Panza summer is an ideal time for sleeping three...
Gogol stuck in the UK of 2018 would feel perfectly at home – A prime Minister masquerading a s Nose. David Davis’ Brexit negotiation diary that of a madman with no interest in connecting to what looks increasingly like reality....
Interested in classical music as I am and long since someone who is interested in what the narrow mainstream overlooks, I have found but also returned to a number of works over the last year. Havergal Brian Symphony No 3,...
Trapped by snow in the South of France is the more accurate title but I wanted to save time, which I haven’t done because I felt the need to explain it further. What happened was we chose the one day...
Every four months I will write an update of where I am with the writing, a view of things with the scaffolding still up so to speak. I usually work on three or four things at the same time, moving...
In the pre-recording past everything was always up to date. Only in the 18th Century did a sense for the not so distant past appear. Stories like King Arthur being something altogether different, more mythical than historical. The past of...
I have come across many people who call themselves writers but who if they were being honest with themselves probably aren’t. I think of the Peter Cook joke. who when someone told him they were writing a novel, said ‘Yes,...
Using the maxim, if you want to make something real, start doing it, I am now making a film. I don’t know how to make a film, but fortunately it seems to be a collaborative process. As Terry Gilliam said to...
When it comes to publishing your own writing. Do it yourself! Of course, the question of marketing doesn’t go away, but you can learn to do that incrementally in your own time. Or find someone and pay someone to do...
I have been writing comedy lately, trying to be funny and as usual failing. A page that is supposed to fill up with funny things is the blankest sheet of paper a writer ever looks at because there is only...
The seventh anniversary of the day my Mum died has passed by. Parents when they die are still around with you until the day you die, and it’s good to have them still around. You don’t need an audience to...
The blog is a little late this month as I was doing my yearly stint of house sitting for friends in Languedoc, West of Montpellier. It’s about 250 kilometres from Girona and maybe 125 kilometres North of my home city,...
It is the end of the school year at the Escola Hosteleria in Girona – the school of Hotels, Tourism, Cooking and Entertainment. They finish early at the end of May rather than the third week in June so the...
A new book has appeared on the site. A novella, ‘Love in Trieste’ which is downloadable electronically for one single pound, hardly much more than ‘un eurito.’ And so my international busking career continues. I’d like to thank everyone who...
I may or may not start writing a sit-com in Catalan with my friend, Marti ‘Brian’ Blesa, comic, cultural critic and photographer. Guess who’ll be doing the Catalan, though in three conversations today I knew most of the time what...
Catalans have started to move about on their roof line terraces here in Girona. Potted plants and plastic furniture are being dusted down ready for the long summer season through to mid-October. I naturally prefer my own world to this...
I like starting again, which is just as well because I always am. The second novel, a work of the ‘noughties’ modestly titled ‘The Harmony Of The World,’ Der Harmonie Der Welt in German should go up on site this...
Praise has been received for ‘Love In Trieste.’ Naturally I will not let this alter my lifestyle of lolling about in the Mediterranean. However, praise is something to face up to and accept, rather than run away and cower from....
Calling all followers. Calling any followers. This is the start of what I hope will be a monthly blog. It’s an age where no one writes letters anymore. Considered commentary seems to be missing in a world of facebook and...
I have begun to help crowd fund things I’m interested in. Reflecting my income I have set aside 200 Euros a year to fund in a small way things that come to my attention. It’s no more systematic than that,...
Goodbye then Wagland, (the union of England and Wales) The EU cannot say it’s been nice knowing you. These are interesting post Referendum times, but I am glad I am not living on the inside of the experiment, having made...
Swallows return March 23 – Yeah. I have started in a country diary style so I will continue. Lush Places – ‘Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole,’ that kind of thing. But when you are on the...
Many people are moving away from the larger television news channels – they now piece together their news from various sources, things they are interested in. If people make a list of where they go to for information it has...
One of my interests is classical music, for instance this week I have mainly been listening to the symphonies of Boccherini. I can now spell Boccherini.
Anyway last Saturday the 14th of November I went to see the Terry Gilliam production of...
Faced with putting a play on in Girona I had the problem of finding two English speakers to read through the text dramatically for 18th June 2015. So using my extensive network of people in the know I ended up...
I have begun to collect up the first thoughts of a new language called Catalan English. This means recognisable English used in Catalan but that doesn´t exist in the original version. I don´t mean Catalish, which is a mangle of...
I have now completed a year in Catalonia. It’s my second attempt to stay put here in Girona, the first one being interrupted after eighteen months. I’m now laughing more but still not in all the right places, but it...
As I was reading Twelfth Night, (I’m that kind of person), I thought;
‘It’s great, but these words and phrases which don’t mean much to modern ears kind of take the wind out of the old sails.’
So I thought I would...
Five intellectuals gather round to agree policy.
Lately I have been working on translating a play of mine from English into Catalan, which has meant working around phrases which are completely different in translation , and which through the difference perhaps give an insight into the two cultures....
Fracking companies want to give 1% of the business to areas they frack, if we are being generous to them that is. I suggest 10% is more like it. On 1.4 billion pounds of business in Lancashire this would mean...
The best solution for the UK’s European dilema seems to be the one no one ever mentions. London and the South East of England should leave the EU which will allow London to truly become the slash and burn economic capital...
I’ve been dealing with money lately. Unusual for me as I don’t usually have any. “What are you using the money for, and where has it come from?” are questions you get asked these days about your own money these days....
My first Novel Euphoria is now available in print format on Amazon. It is a clean read but the last part of each chapter (the chapter's last page) starts half way down a new page. I hope to correct this...
A type of story I would never have thought of writing but decided to try my hand at is a Christmas Ghost Story. A friend of mine who I won’t name but lives in Keighley has written a Christmas Ghost Story...
Feeling in a rut, though as Alan Bennett says, ‘the good thing about being in a rut is that you know where you are.’ Anyway, I decided to go back to doing things om my own that I wanted to...
I came across a nonsensical aphorism of genius by Stan Jefferson, also known as Stan Laurel lately, ‘Anyone can build a nest but not everyone can lay an egg.’ I tried to do something similar but couldn’t manage it. The...
