Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “News”
I’ve got a new course starting here in Sofia this January, as a part of the Wind&Bones project that I co-direct. From January, alongside the nonfiction, memoir and life-writing course that we run with Sofia University’s AFEAS, we are also running a course on writing, …
Now that we have properly landed in Bulgaria, things are getting busy. As a part of the Wind&Bones project that I run with my collaborator Dr. Hannah Stevens, I am working with the Academic Foundation for English and American Studies at Sofia University to deliver …
Myanmar’s new capital city of Nay Pyi Taw is a strange, half-deserted place. A city of wide spaces occupied by few people, and of vast highways without any traffic. Look it up online, and you will see Nay Pyi Taw referred to as a ‘ghost …
Last week, I was in Plovdiv, Bulgaria for the EmpathEAST 2019 forum for empathy-driven social change. Run by the wonderful Bulgarian organisation Ideas Factory / Фабрика за Идеи, I was there with my Wind&Bones collaborator, Hannah Stevens, talking about storytelling and social change, and running …
I’m very happy to have a piece out in the Southeast Asia Globe on witchcraft, gentrification and problem with foreigners in Yangon, Maymar. The piece is about our sometimes troubled relationship with our neighbours whilst living in Bahan township, Yangon, and a very suspicious-looking bowl …
Next week, along with my Wind&Bones collaborator Dr. Hannah Stevens, I’ll be running a creative writing workshop in conjunction with the brilliant Refugee Trauma Initiative here in Thessaloniki. RTI work to address trauma, to offer psychological support, and to offer training to refugees, asylum seekers …
Can it be a decade since the publication of my philosophy book, Finding Our Sea-Legs: Ethics Experience and the Ocean of Stories? The book first came out in 2009 from Kingston University Press. Over the past decade, the book has continued to find its way out …
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 …
