A recent Guardian article looked at the top tips for writing fiction by a slew of famous wordsmiths. Among the wry, self-congratulatory nuggets of wisdom, the use of adverbs and metaphors got a Read more...

In Willy Vlautin’s first novel, The Motel Life, the narrator comments that “bad luck…falls on people every day… is one of the only certain truths… is always waiting.” Accordingly, bad luck is Read more...

How many of us know someone who has been involved in a car accident? Most? All? Our friend or relation isn’t always at fault; or sometimes they are, and if they’ve survived we’ll tut tut at their Read more...

The Science Gallery’s reputation for exhibitions that fuse visitor interaction with some genuinely interesting science and art has grown steadily since its 2008 opening. Read more...

Each blue New Year you’ll find that self-help books begin to appear in shop windows. Browsing, the eye will be drawn to pink, blue or purple covers with stark messages: Believe in the Power of Now! Dream Your Way to Success! Read more...

In recent years, Japanese literature has become an increasingly 'cool' currency. British writer David Mitchell spent time teaching in the land of the Rising Sun and when his excellent Tokyo novel Number9Dream was shortlisted for the Booker Prize he was quick to note the influence of Haruki Murakami. Read more...

The idea of travelling from the rugged West to the Big Smoke always unleashed a sporadic burst Read more...

For reasons of objectivity, OMG's book critic Danny Denton spread his forum out to well-read friends and colleagues, and tried to take into account the books everybody got for Christmas. The results (which, as you can see, couldn’t be whittled down to ten) weren’t too surprising, and yet were refreshingly Irish in flavour. It may also be noted that given the wide variety of genre this is a “best eleven” and not a “top eleven.” There are no league tables in art.... Read more...

Just so you know, Nottingham hosted the world premiere of Reservoir Dogs. Just so you know, Read more...

Oil companies and record companies have something in common in the advancing 21st century: the threat of extinction becomes more genuine and more real by the year. As Jenny Huston’s new Read more...

Part of the focus of this new exhibition (curated by Barbara Dawson and Martin Harrison) is the excavation of Francis Bacon the visual manipulator, his chaotic and contradictory relationship with process and technique. Read more...

As suggested in the title of Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me by Frank McGuinness the ambiguous action of watching is one of the central ideas in this hypnotically Read more...

As a Luton teenager, Sean O’ Hagan of legendary Cork group Microdisney returned to Ireland with his family; he describes his impressions of his new home town of Cork thus: “It had a whole Read more...