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About this blog

This blog is a place for my non-fiction writing.

There will be posts promoting my writing, in all its areas. I will talk about my writing in general, the inspiration behind it, my writing process and several of the issues I’ve faced writing. It will also contain essays, reviews and other examples of my non-fiction writing. There won't be any politics here but there will be social commentary and personal stories.

(I have started a book reviewing project, I am attempting to review as many of the book I've read as possible, and I am going to post those book reviews here too)

Entries in this blog

Esaay

Another Man Called Drew

He was the first Englishman I met who was also called Drew. I had met several men called Drew when I visited America, but he was the first other English Drew I met. Growing up, I hated my first name, and the very common abbreviation of it, which people frequently called me by. I felt trapped by my first name and dreamed of when I could be old enough to change it, though I had no idea what to, my choice of name would change almost month from month. Then, in my middle teens, I read an America
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Esaay

2
Esaay

I Forgot My Mother’s Birthday

Last month I forgot my mother’s birthday. I was writing on my computer, glanced down at the bottom right corner of the screen, and saw the date. It was my mother’s birthday, or it would have been. My mother died twenty-three years ago. At first, after her death, I used the date of her birthday as a time to remember her. Using the date of her death for this was too much, too morbid and too negative. Her birthday was in January, in the cold winter after Christmas, and was always celebrat
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Esaay

2
Esaay

When Joan Met Tommy

My father married the girl next door. My parents met because they lived next door to each other, in post-war Barrow-in-Furness. But saying it like that makes their story sound so simplistic. My parents did not a make big deal of how they met. It certainly wasn’t a family story, brought out at every chance and worn as a badge of pride. I only found out how they met when I was fifteen. My parents had taken me back to Barrow-in-Furness, a car drive up from Liverpool with our pet dog. That trip
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Esaay

2
Esaay

Five Days and More Days on Top

I was twelve years old when my grandmother died. My father woke me up, early that morning, and told me, “Your Gran has gone to Heaven.” I was confused, no one had told me she was that ill, they certainly hadn’t told me she was dying. I thought that her decreasing health and physical ability was because of her great age, she had seemed so impossibly old to me back then. It was much later that I’d find out what had happened to her. She was the only grandparent I knew. My father’s parents
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Esaay

0
Esaay

Waiting for My Father

The room was quiet; the only sounds there were small and slight, ones that would not normally have been noticed except for the silence there. There was the mechanical noise of the little pump occasionally leaping into life as it delivered another dose of painkillers. There was the hiss of air escaping as the air mattress slowly inflated and deflated. There was also the sound of his breathing, slow and almost rasping as he drew in air through his parted lips, held that air in his lungs for w
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Esaay

6
Esaay

Those Pictures Mothers Carry around with Them

The first time I saw it she was visiting me and took out her purse to pay for a purchase. There it was, inside her purse, a picture of me. An old and unflattering picture of me. It was a passport photograph, taken years ago. My hair was in a style I’d not had for years, short and flat. I was staring fixedly into the camera, no smile on my face, the harsh light making my skin seem pale and unhealthy. I wondered why she had chosen that one, but I said nothing. It wasn’t an easy question to ask.
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Esaay

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