nothing in the rulebook

A collective of creatives bound by a single motto: There's nothing in the rulebook that says a giraffe can't play football!

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Category: Arts & Writing

Short stories, photography, art, videos

  • Do poets dream of electric literature?

    In 2011, one of the longest-running student-run literary journals in the USA – Archive at Duke University – ran its annual call for poetry submissions for its Fall Issue. The editors, shifting through the reams of poetry, stumbled upon a short poem called “For the Bristlecone Snag”. It was environmentally themed. It struck a slightly…

  • We’re breaking up: how technology is dampening our creativity

    Reading the wonderful exchange of letters between Pulitzer Prize winning author, Willa Cather, and her friend and fellow writer, Sarah Jewett, one is struck immediately by how rare such thoughtful examples of communication have now become. Where once it was common to place such great thought and care into penned – or pencilled – correspondence,…

  • Storm

    A storm is brewing. See how the clear sky dims before the advance, A new wind blows, unheard in a lifetime of years, One to make the shutters dance; A storm that plays to people’s fears.   A storm is brewing: One of our own making, One to shake windows to frost, Splinter the eaves,…

  • The tricks of the essayist; a sympathetic summary

    In his magnificent 1866 guide to the art of conversation – Martine’s Handbook of Etiquette, and a Guide to True Politeness –  Arthur Martine provided the following advice for those who find themselves in “disputes upon moral or scientific points”: “Let your aim be to come at truth, not conquer your opponent. So you shall…

  • How not to write about music

    Firstly, gratitude: Extensive thanks to Dan McGurty for his help with this piece. Musical epiphanies Musical epiphanies are fun. I mean specifically like when you just get a song where you never did before, which I often find happens when listening to the song in question out of its usual context – say you always listen…

  • Is there such a thing as the ‘perfect daily routine’ for writing?

    During her acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Pearl S. Buck thrilled a captive audience with her description of the shimmering aliveness from which a creative work is born: “The creative instinct is, in its final analysis and in its simplest terms, an enormous extra vitality, a super-energy, born inexplicably to an individual,…

  • The role of the creative and our place in culture

    Creatives of all forms remain in a constant, symbiotic tango with human nature and culture. All of human thought remains distinctly entwined with that strange, living thing we call culture. Literature, art, music, photography – these strands of culture both reflect who we are, in our values, our hopes, fears, ideals, and shapes who we…

  • Love, Simply

    A spring-time, fresh-faced joy. One of life’s wonders has appeared and is Here to stay. It comes in teardrops, or in smiles. In a gale of laughter, or a quiet giggle. In a hug, a sigh or nervous chatter. Or an argument so furious your heart aches. Some don’t believe in fairies but We know…

  • The Starling

    I paused. There was a noise above my head, in the attic. It was intermittent. I wasn’t sure if I’d heard anything at all it was so indistinct, so gentle. The child which remained somewhere within me played with the idea of ghosts and spirits but I wasn’t intrigued enough to venture into the cold…

  • Not the Booker Prize: An alternative literary reading list

    Mired in controversy since it began, the Man Booker Prize has long held the attention of the literary world. In its time, the Prize has witnessed what is as close to an authorial punch up as can be – when William Golding squared off against Anthony Burgess. It was once described by Richard Gott as…