The Silent Earth I’ve been told I write scifi as if it’s fantasy. Rightly so. I lack affinity with the genre. Although I’ve seen my fair amount of classical scifi in both movies and tv-shows, I rarely pick up a novel that could be classified as science fiction. I tend to prefer fantasy, magical realism,...
Birilliant Bestiaries: the power of crowdfunding
Summer simmers down to cool, clear autumn. Whether that will be a sun-dappled autumn, blessed with the trees’ crimson canopies, or a fall rain-addled and foul, has yet to be seen. At this turn of seasons, however, I would like to discuss two books illustrating the contrasting seasons – summer and fall – perfectly. Two...
Books as building blocks: seven stories that shaped me as a writer.
Books as building blocks Books as building blocks, not only to create a person, but a writer. Recently my fellow author Joost Uitdehaag invited me on facebook to participate in a challenge: to share, each day, for seven days, the cover of a book that is or has been important to me. No text, no...
The seven saga’s of Zevenaar
Legends from the Liemers: a seven-author-anthology Last Sunday, second of June 2019, finally saw the launch of a book long in the making: at the Buitenblik Festival in Zevenaar, near the water which drowned an entire village, under the most fabulously decorated tree to be found out of season, the seven authors of Nimisa presented...
Short story (Dutch): Voor het Ongeluk Geboren – 5e Harland Awards 2018
The short story “Voor het Ongeluk Geboren” earned TheWritingWouter a fifth place at the Harland Awards short story competition 2018. This is his sixth Harland Awards story, his fourth top 5 ranking, and his third story to come in at the fifth place. You can read this story here. To find out more about TheWritingWouter’s...
Where to find TheWritingWouter.
Festival season is at our doorstep. No, I’m not talking about Lowlands, Down the Rabbit Hole or Pinkpop. I’m talking about Elfia, Castlefest, Facts Gent, etc. For fantasy,- scifi-, steampunk- and other genre-enthusiasts these events and festivals provide the opportunity to live out their passion with like-minded fellows. For authors such as myself, they provide...
Blog – A cruel Carnival: Poe’s Prospero and the Seven Chambers on the Ice
Carnival has come. Here in Holland, over the next few days, hordes of dressed up party-goers will take to the streets and bars for beer, bad music and feverish festivities. I don’t particularly enjoy carnival, but I do enjoy the ideas behind the masked festival. There is some debate on the etymological roots of carnival:...
Review – Watership Down: of rabbits and classics and cannon.
People tend to ask me what my favourite book is. Quite often, they do so expecting to hear me say “The Lord of the Rings”. After all, Tolkien is father to the genre of modern fantasy, is he not? However, even though professor Tolkien created a masterpiece with his trilogy, there is a book I...
Blog – 2018 by the Books – What a Writer Reads.
If you want to write, you have to read. Garth Marenghi may be very proud to be the only author ‘who’s written more books than he’s read’, but the rest of us writers, in order to write a lot, have to read even more. Usually, this isn’t an issue: most authors become infected with a...
Blog – The Day of the Fantastic Book 2018: split enthusiasm…
If you’ve been keeping tabs on my writing career, you’ll know that I’m relatively new to the Dutch writing scene. Up until two years ago I had no idea of the enthusiastic community of writers within the contours of our very small and cold country. A community that pours out stories like it’s nobody’s business:...