Write Out Loud (Reviews and Writing)

Welcome to our first ever video podcast!

We’re just finding our feet with using software and editing processes, so this first episode is very much a trial run; nevertheless, we hope you enjoy this little review of E M Forster’s classic short story.

If you’ve not read The Machine Stops then click on the title and read it for free. The story is very different to Forster’s normal fiction and has become infamous for its predictions of the future. But is it really? Nick and I discuss some of what we find interesting about this story.

Apologies for the occasional glitch – we’re working on using better software for the next one! We hope to produce these reviews roughly once a month.

Some of the books mentioned in the review are:

• War of the Worlds, H G Wells
• The Time Machine, H G Wells
• Howard’s End, E M Forster
• Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
• The Quest for a Moral Compass, Kenan Malik
• Count Zero, William Gibson
• The Roman Mysteries series. Caroline Lawrence
• The Books of Jacob, Olga Tokarczuk

Nicholas Graham is the author of historical detective fiction ‘The Judas Case’ which won a Northern Writers Awards New Fiction Bursary, and is currently working on its sequel, ‘Solomon’s Vineyard’. He was a member of the Sidney Sussex College Cambridge team that won BBC2’s University Challenge – Reunited series. He lives with his partner in a remote coastal village close to a decommissioned nuclear power station, a location he regards as being at the heart of the realities of the age. Follow him on Twitter @ThatNickGraham and via www.thejudascase.com.

Social Entrepreneur, educationalist, bestselling author and journalist, D K Powell is the author of the bestselling collection of literary short stories “The Old Man on the Beach“. His first book, ‘Sonali’ is a photo-memoir journal of life in Bangladesh and has been highly praised by the Bangladeshi diaspora worldwide. Students learning the Bengali language have also valued the English/Bengali translations on every page. His third book is ‘Try not to Laugh’ and is a guide to memorising, revising and passing exams for students.

Both ‘The Old Man on the Beach’ and ‘Sonali’ are available on Amazon for kindle and paperback. Published by Shopno Sriti Media. The novel,’The Pukur’, was published by Histria Books in 2022.

D K Powell is available to speak at events (see his TEDx talk here) and can be contacted at dkpowell.contact@gmail.com. Alternatively, he is available for one-to-one mentoring and runs a course on the psychology of writing. Listen to his life story in interview with the BBC here.

Ken writes for a number of publications around the world. Past reviewer for Paste magazine, The Doughnut, E2D and United Airways and Lancashire Life magazine. Currently reviews for Northern Arts Review. His reviews have been read more than 7.9 million times.

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