<meta name="google-site-verification" content="29DuIbbNvl5ebEkiceYVOoUK992_ILHqGMx7otby-A4" />
When I was a boy grown-ups would exclaim "It's a right old world!" when something surprised or shocked them.
It is indeed, now more than ever,
with reality and virtuality so cleverly but dangerously scrambled.
There's so much to think, talk and write about,
and there's more time for it when you're old.
So write, old world, write!
I'M SORRY TO SAY THAT THIS IS GOODBYE FROM ME.
WriteOldWorld HASN'T PERFORMED AS WELL AS HOPED AND, AT 84, I DON'T HAVE TIME TO SPARE FOR IT ANY LONGER. THE LITERATURE OF 10 PEOPLE OVER 65, MOST OF US OVER 80, PUBLISHED HERE IS WELL WORTH READING BY OTHERS, OLD AND YOUNG, IN MY OPINION, BUT FEW HAVE DONE SO. IF YOU FIND YOURSELF HERE, ON PURPOSE OR BY MISTAKE, DO SKIM THROUGH THE MATERIAL. YOU MIGHT FIND YOURSELF READING SOME OF IT WITH INTEREST AND ENJOYMENT. iT WILL BE HERE UNTIL JULY, 2024.
HERE'S A THOUGHT: WHAT WILL THE HUMAN - AND FAR, FAR LARGER NON-HUMAN - WORLD BE LIKE THEN, IN JULY 2024?
WELL, GOODBYE, AND - I SHOULDN'T NEED TO TELL YOU, BUT I WILL - MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR LIFE, EVEN AS LESS AND LESS OF IT IS LEFT!
Now it's WriteOldWorld's first July, and the real world hasn't got any better. That won't stop us looking, listening, reading, thinking, talking and writing about it, the real (and not so real) world, will it? WriteOldWorld is just a tiny part of the wriritng and reading about it, but it reflects the active minds of us old people, and of younger people who are interested in our thoughts.
Apart from things here, what have you been reading? Something 'best-selling'? Something 'classic-but-not-much-read-now'? Nothing at the moment, but writing something? Just bits and pieces online?... Well, depending on the B&Ps, that may be better than nothing.
I'm reading my second book from the Yale University Little Histories Series, A Little History of Economics, and not finding it as clear and interesting as the previous one I read, A Little History of Religion, and also a novel, Trespasses by Louise Kennedy.
She was not up to WriteOldWorld age (65) when she wrote her first two 'serious' books (after a previous 'fun' book, Bailey Boat Cat: Adventures of a Feline Afloat - though fun can be seriously important too, of course). But she was into the last half of her life (over 50), having spent most of it (30 years) as a chef. She wrote two books between 2019 and 2022 because she was diagnosed with melanoma and saw death not too far up ahead, like all of us eventually. She and I hope she'll write several more books. Note that The Guardian review of Trespasses describes it as masterly.
If there's a writer in you, it's never too late to give it chance... well, that's best not tested too long - it definitely can get too late to approach literary agents, magazines, and commercial publishers. But WriteOldWorld is here for you however long you've left, however much over 65 you are.
Comments to: eltinlapd@gmail.com
.png)
.png)
.png)
These are my three books on Amazon, in both Kindle e-book and paperback form:-
.png)
.png)
.png)
The first presents my impressions of Mexico from my 57 years living and working there, (that is, here, where I am now!) up to 2022. The second is a novel about an Irish woman who leaves Ireland, like so many others, and explores new worlds. And the third is a collection of poems and short anecdotes.
Naturally, I'll be delighted whenever somebody reads one of these books, hoping the reading is as rewarding as the writing was for me. I'll also appreciate any reviews on Amazon, even when they include positive criticism.
24.09.2022 INAUGURAL BLOG
In many ways WOW is the offspring of www.50plusartspace.org, my previous website, so let me pay tribute, then, to the contributors to 50plus over its two years of life. Many of them were over 70 years old, and several over 80 like me, doing some kind of art in the last stretch of their life, which can be the most creative part. 13 were writers (fact/impressions, fiction, poetry) and 11 visual artists (painting, photography, textile art). This post, about My Mexico: The country of an old English immigrant, is illustrated by work by some of the latter.
I'll risk a generalization: All art arises from experience (so does science, of course). In art, people take experience, however they perceived it, and react, compare, combine, modify, and invent, logically and imaginatively (while science doesn't play around like that). Logical invention - or creation, if you like - can become ideological, and imaginative invention can run wild.
In writing My Mexico: The country of an old English immigrant, I tried to deal with my 57 years of experience in my adoptive country objectively, but some personal ideology and a little imagination run wild probably crept in. I hope they, and the 'story' in general, are stimulating for most readers, provoking some questioning as well as much agreement in those who know Mexico, and some amusement as well as surprise in all.
Below are excerpts from the second chapter, about my first day in Mexico back in March of 1965. I was a 25-year-old Englishman from a small town in the countryside 40 miles from London (first row of images, textile art by Gill Davies - not related to me - and watercolours by Jeni Saretti). I had spent 4 years as a student in Dublin, and a total of about 2 1/2 years in Spain (4 months in Zaragoza and the rest in Madrid). And I had arrived by cargo/passenger ship (Satrústegui, image below the first row) from Cadiz, Spain, with 24-hour port calls in Tenerife, La Guaira, Venezuela, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo and Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic - a sort of step-by-step approach to and entry into Latin America and Mexico. The other illustrations - of Mexico - are paintings by Alfonso Portugal, Adriana Portugal, Ambrosio Guzmán, Carolina de la Vega and Estela Krause, and a photo by José Manuel González.
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)