Books for Writers: “How Fiction Works”
I’m re-reading the critic James Wood’s excellent, readable little book of this title. Every writer should have a copy. There’s a superb...
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Richard Farr
- Oct 30, 2017
“Do you have a favorite writer (for children)?”
Not just one – but I’m happy to put in a plug for David Almond. Read beautiful Skellig. (Amazing, how he does so much with so little!)...
Richard Farr
- Oct 20, 2017
“Do you have a favorite writer?”
I’ve read pretty much every word George Orwell ever put in print, much of it over and over, and there is no writer I would rather have...
Richard Farr
- Sep 5, 2017
“Why not just write an outline?”
In the course of explaining why Angels in America is seven hours long, Tony Kushner offers a good insight into the myth of the nice...
Richard Farr
- Jul 10, 2017
An eighteenth-century Scottish Buddhist?
Catching up with my favorite podcast, Philosophy Bites, I was fascinated to learn that the eerie connections between one of my favorite...
Richard Farr
- Jan 12, 2017
“What does the Babel Trilogy have to do with the ‘Hard Problem’?”
Quite a bit of The Babel Trilogy is about consciousness: what is it, and where does it come from, and how is it possible—that’s what...
Richard Farr
- Oct 13, 2016
“Are you a quick reader?”
On the contrary – when I was 17, I discovered the philosopher Wittgenstein … He tends to say things like “In propositions thoughts can be...
Richard Farr
- Sep 7, 2016
“You teach philosophy. What IS philosophy?”
In my first philosophy class, the professor began by saying something I've been repeating ever since: “Philosophy asks just two...
Richard Farr
- Jul 12, 2016
Vesto Slipher and the expanding universe
One minor character in my Ghosts n the Machine is the Slipher Space Telescope. This is me giving a big fat fictional hint to NASA, in...
Richard Farr
- Jul 10, 2016
“No Twitter? No Facebook? No Instagram or InFog? Are you serious?”
The short explanation: I’m lazy. I can predict with great confidence that I will not die wishing I had spent more time at my computer....
Richard Farr
- Jul 9, 2016
“Does the Bretz Erratic exist?”
The Bretz Erratic, a giant rock, plays a minor role in the plot of Ghosts in the Machine, but it doesn’t exist, no—it just seemed like a...
Richard Farr
- Feb 26, 2016
“Is consciousness THE fundamental problem?”
The Babel Trilogy is about consciousness: what is it, and where does it come from, and how is it possible? But that problem is bound up...
Richard Farr
- Jan 7, 2016
“Are you religious?”
No. I was brought up in the Church of England, and I loved (and still love) the language and the music. But when I was 14 I realized...
Richard Farr
- Dec 21, 2015
“Tell me more about different cultures with spookily similar myths.”
In The Fire Seekers, Bill Calder is struck by the way similar myths emerge in cultures that have had no contact with one another, and in...
Richard Farr
- Sep 1, 2015
“What’s a ‘great book’ you actually enjoyed reading?”
A lot of Americans hate JD Salinger’s A Catcher in the Rye because it was forced down their throats as a ‘classic’ at school. I missed...
Richard Farr
- Oct 21, 2014
Has the Phaistos Disk been decoded at last?
As detailed in The Fire Seekers, many linguists have thought the Phaistos Disk will never be translated, because it’s a unique artifact –...
Richard Farr
- Oct 21, 2014
Devil in the Deep Blue Details: diving, GPS, and fact-checking
Alert Fire Seekers reader (and diver) David Jeffrey just pointed out to me that my description of divers using GPS to map an underwater...
Richard Farr
- Oct 10, 2014
A few thoughts on ‘Fire Seekers’ reviews
It’s fascinating. Some reviewers have said “The Fire Seekers” is great YA sci-fi. Others (including some who obviously enjoyed the book)...
Richard Farr
- Jun 3, 2014
A humbling experience with verbal tics
First, you do the writing. Then, the rewriting and throwing away and rewriting and rewriting. Then, editing, and more rewriting....
Richard Farr
- Feb 13, 2014
My Andy Warhol moment
On Tuesday, “The Fire Seekers” was ranked around #1,300,000 on Kindle – about typical, for a book that had not yet even been...