Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “News”
I love train journeys. I love them for the opportunity they give for life to establish a different rhythm. Over the last few days, I’ve been taking slow trains from Thessaloniki to Sofia, and onwards to Vidin on the Danube. In Vidin, I’ve been checking …
For the last few months, I’ve been based in Thessaloniki, where I’ve been working on my book for Granta, Hello Stranger: stories of connection in a divided world. It’s been a fruitful few months of writing, connecting and research. I’m just about to head to …
My new course on the philosophy of happiness has just been published on Highbrow. I really like Highbrow and their ethos. They deliver daily bite-sized lessons to email inboxes around the world. And they have some really interesting content. The happiness course explores happiness from …
The lovely people at Icon Books have just been in touch to say that my book A Practical Guide to Happiness: Think Deeply and Flourish is coming out in Chinese translation. It will be published some time in 2020 (I think) by the Beijing World …
Almost fifteen years ago now, I started up my first blog. At the time, I was grappling with questions of Buddhist thought and practice, and so I set up a blog called thinkBuddha. I saw the blog as a way of thinking out loud about …
When I came back to Myanmar seven months ago, I decided to dedicate myself to improving my language skills. When friends asked me why I wanted to improve my Burmese, I told them that the main reason — other than the important matter of being able to …
Starting next month, I’m going to be trying an experiment: I’m launching a newsletter. This is part of my current rethink about how I spend time writing online. Over the past few years, I’ve blogged less and less, and I’ve found that social media channels …
Here in Myanmar, the rains have begun, and in a few weeks’ time, the rainy season will be in full swing. Some time in June, I’ll be heading off to Greece to escape the worst of the rainy season and to do some research work …
Whilst in Taiwan later in April, I’ll be at National Dong Hwa University (國立東華大學) in Hualien, where Hannah Stevens and I will be giving a talk about writing, activism and social justice, and discussing our Wind&Bones project. For both of us, it will be our …
This evening I fly to Singapore and then to Taiwan. I’m looking forward to brushing off my rusty Chinese. But after the Thingyan festival in Myanmar is over, I’m going to be back in Yangon to continue my writing residency at the Parami Institute of …
The last few weeks have been busy with the Wind&Bones project that I co-run. We’re coming to the end of our current course as writers in residence at the Parami Institute in Yangon (the title is ‘Writing, Myth and Tradition’), and we’re also planning our …
As a job, it has been long overdue…. For years now, I have run multiple websites, a small online empire that over the years has mushroomed until it has reached unmanageable proportions. So after some server problems last week, I decided it was time to …
Here in Yangon, our creative writing classes are in full swing, and it’s a lot of fun; but I’m also aware that back in the UK things are gearing up for the London Book Fair, and I’m also disappointed that I can’t be in two …
One of the biggest delights of being in Bali at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in 2018 was talking to Rudolf Gilmore Perez from Manusia Magazine. It was an enormously stimulating interview, and it’s great to see it now online. The interview ranges pretty …
