Andrew Blackman – A Writer's Life

New short story published

Belated news that I had a short story published earlier this year by a small Australian publisher, In Short Publishing. The story is called Boy, Dog, Accordion, and it’s published as a pocket-size book.

The end of TINA

Yesterday, I experienced something entirely new. I finally learnt what it felt like to celebrate an election result. To be honest, I’d given up hope of ever having this experience. I thought my politics were[…]

On the violence of borders

I recently visited Ceuta, a piece of the north African coast that belongs to Spain and is hence part of “Europe”. It was a very strange and disturbing experience to cross that border so easily just[…]

The Russian Window by Dragan Velikic: Review

When I was in Belgrade a while back, I bought four novels in a wonderful bookshop on the main street, Knez Mihailova. They were all literary novels by Serbian writers, translated into English. One thing they[…]

Travelling in the body, but not the mind

Remember when you used to go on holiday and completely lose track of what was happening back home? In the days before the internet and widespread satellite TV, the only way to get news from[…]

Alternative lives on different tracks

If you live in the U.S., you’ll find my article on living a nomadic life in today’s Wall Street Journal. Or everyone can read it online. To be honest, I was a bit surprised when they[…]

Happy International Women’s Day? Not in Morocco

I’d like to wish all of you a Happy International Women’s Day! Let’s all do what we can to #BeBoldForChange. I would really like it to be a happy day for women in Morocco, too, but[…]

Review of Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones

Did you know that there’s an Albanian tradition in which, if there are no male heirs, a woman can choose to become a man, as long as she swears herself to virginity for life? Neither did[…]

The “blue town” of Chefchaouen

Usually I try to tie my posts to a topic or theme, or expand my travel observations into an essay. This post isn’t like that. It’s just some photos of a town that’s blue. The[…]