Paper planes and honest work

Last week, I encountered a former ‘professional garbage designer’. I’ll explain… I first came across the intricate paper art of Suhail Shaikh in autumn 2023, when I visited his exhibition at the Atkinson, Southport, UK. I was there again recently to hear him talk about the exhibits and also the work that got him where…

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After trauma: writing for truth and justice

Many times over the years, people have recommended I read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. (Or, to give it its full title, The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma.) The book lays out a modern understanding of trauma and describes therapeutic approaches that…

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Of good deeds and doughnuts

To die extremely rich is disgraceful. So said Andrew Carnegie. More precisely, he said, ‘…the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.’ Carnegie was a successful industrialist and later a philanthropist, and his philanthropic legacy includes thousands of public libraries, as well as vast investments in education and research. The very first library I loved was…

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