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Showing posts from January, 2013

The Art of Impossibility

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left: front cover / right: author photo with Sappho What would you do if every piece of your identity was stolen? This is the fascinating premise of Exeter Writer member Bill Wahl's debut novel, The Art of Impossibility . We loved hearing extracts from this prior to publication and are convinced that this compelling and quirkily comic novel will be a big hit. How do you know who you are? For many years Michael Wilson had managed to disregard the emptiness of his life, until one day every piece of his identification is stolen. His farcical attempts to renew his identity expose him to a world of relationships he can no longer avoid – a world where Mary Magellan, an unpredictable conceptual artist, becomes important in ways Michael could not have imagined. A world where Michael must rely on Larry, a disgraced professor of logic, Sam, a lonely metal head living in his basement, and Julie, a manager of the Vital Records Department who takes a VERY personal interest in Michael

Margaret Starks 1913 - 2013

Teignmouth-based writer and Exeter Writers member Margaret Starks has died at the age of  ninety-nine. Born in London in 1913, she lived an active and adventurous life. In the 1930s, she travelled by bicycle through northern France. In the 1950s - after her marriage to Devon-born Naval Architect John Starks - she moved (with her two young sons) to the United States, and then in the 1960s to Scotland where she wrote the first two of her books. In the 1970s she and her husband moved again, spending five years in Rio de Janeiro, giving Margaret the material she needed for her third book, 'Candles on the Pavement'. When the two of them retired to Teignmouth in 1977, Margaret joined the Exeter Writers Group where she is remembered as "quiet but very friendly, a wise person, fair-minded and always good with her advice".  Later, she joined the local Probus Club and the Teignmouth Reading Group.  She was active in all of these organizations until well into her nineties.