Selected publications
Here are some of the things I've written and some of the other things I've done, or am going to do.
Some of the links work if you're that way inclined. Some don't. You can always drop me a line.
Current:
Multiple Joyce:
100 short essays about James Joyce’s cultural legacy
Published on 16 June 2022 by New York’s Sagging Meniscus Press
to mark the centenary of the publication of Ulysses.
Forthcoming
A Crumpled Swan: fifty essays about Abigail Parry's poem 'In the dream of the cold restaurant'
Published by Sagging Meniscus Press in June 2025.
A collection of 100 essays about Samuel Beckett, currently untitled. The sequel to Multiple Joyce. Coming in 2026
Selected writing 2009-2024
Cambridge University Press
The Documentary Moment in Auden in Context (edited by Anthony Sharpe) 2013
Political Collaborators: Benjamin Britten and Montagu Slater (Literary Britten conference paper)
CB editions
About a Girl: a reader's Guide to Eimear McBride's A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing (2016)
The first book about Eimear McBride's acclaimed debut novel A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing. Written in close co-operation with the author, this is an essential introduction to the most remarkable and talented writer of her generation. http://www.cbeditions.com/collard.html
Dostoyevsky Wannabee
Love Bites: Fiction inspired by Pete Shelley and Buzzcocks (September 2019)
I contribute to this anthology prompted by the death of Pete Shelley, founder of the seminal Manchester punk band.
https://www.dostoyevskywannabe.com/samplers/love_bites
gorse
Genuine pure filth
An essay on Samuel Beckett and auto-erotic strangulation for the 13th issue of Ireland’s leading literary journal, edited by Susan Tomaselli (forthcoming)
The Idler
Between 2017 and 2019 I wrote a regular feature about independent publishing for this bi-monthly magazine.
Press gang. On Tramp Press (July/August 2017)
Found in translation. On Pereine Press (Issue 55 September/October 2017)
Ridicule is nothing to be scared of. On Peter Owen Publishing (Issue 56 November/December 2017)
Pressing matters. On Little Island Press & gorse magazine (Issue 57 January/February 2018)
Stream of consciousness. On The Republic of Consciousness Prize 2018 (Issue 58 March/April 2018)
Mag men. On Little Magazines, past and present (Issue 59 May/June 2018)
We're all doomed. Not. On Will Self and the state of things (Issue 60 July/August 2018)
Fight the power. On Galley Beggar Press vs. W. H. Smith (Issue 61 September/October 2018)
Go Gentle. On Spitalfields Life & Henningham Family Press (Issue 62 November/December 2018)
To the end of the night. On Guillemot Press & Winter Papers (Issue 63 January/February 2019)
On the case. On bookshelves & Spring 2019 highlights (Issue 64 March/April 2019)
News from Norwich. On The Republic of Consciousness Prize 2019 & Boiler House Press (Issue 65 May/June 2019)
Lots of fun at Finneganight. On Finnegans Wake & The St Arbuc Encyclopaedia (Issue 66 July/August 2019)
Paper weight. On the costs of independent publishing (Issue 67 September/October 2019)
Literary Review
Spinach and Ice Cream
Exorcism by Eugene O'Neill (April 2012)
Auden and the Camera's Eye (Feature) (May 2012)
Lost Kids on the Concourse
Living Life the Essex Way by Sam Faiers (June 2012)
Possum Agonistes
T. S. Eliot Letters Volume 3 1926-1927 (July 2012)
A Coat, a Hat and a Gun
Raymond Chandler: A Mysterious Something in the Light by Tom Williams (August 2012)
Thoroughly Modern Milieu
Constellation of Genius (1922: Modernism Year One) by Kevin Jackson (October 2012)
Inner Visions
Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks (December 2012/January 2013)
The Philosopher's Philosopher
Frank Ramsey (1903-1930): A Sister's Memoir by Margaret Paul (March 2013)
A Fine Bromance
Distant Intimacy by Frederic Raphael and Joseph Epstein (April 2013)
Chekhov in the Rhondda
Rhys Davies - a writer's life by Meic Stephens (November 2013)
Bard of Subtopia
Ian Nairn: Words in Place edited by Gillian Darley, David McKie (February 2014)
Stores of memory
Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas by Patrick Modiano (December 2014)
Lengthening Shadows
Wrote for Luck by D J Taylor (February 2015)
A Waking Dreamer
Playthings by Alex Pheby (November 2015)
Keeping Calm & Carrying On
Darkness Falls from the Air by Nigel Balchin (December 2015)
Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Dodge Rose by Jack Cox (April 2016)
Ghost Writing
Solar Bones by Mike McCormack (May 2016)
The Meaning of Light
A Field Guide to Reality by Joanna Kavenna (July 2016)
Ridiculous perfect
The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride (September 2016)
Living Hells
Darker with the Lights On by David Hayden (September 2017)
Leopold the second
Dedalus by Chris McCabe (August 2018)
Joint favourites
Tamarisk Row and Border Districts by Gerald Murnane (June 2019)
Life sentence
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann (September 2019)
Tales from the New Bedlam
Endland by Tim Etchells (December 2019)
Germany calling
Radio Joan by Kevin Davey (February 2021)
Lose Your Delusions
Cold New Climate by Isobel Wohl and Insignificance by James Clammer (June 2021)
he let me go
let me tell you and let me go on by Paul Griffiths (forthcoming)
Oxford University Press
A Guest of Existence - the Life and Times of Thomas Good (1901-1972) Pembroke College Record 2011/12
Contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ongoing) with entries on Dai Vaughan, Stan Barstow, Clive James, Kevin Jackson, Laura Mulvey and others.
Parthian Press / Library of Wales
Afterword to the re-issue of Stan Barstow's A Kind of Loving for Parthian Press, an imprint of the Library of Wales (Autumn 2013)
A Personal Anthology
I'm an occasional contributor to Jonathan Gibb's website dedicated to short form fiction and have written about:
H. G. Wells ('The New Accelerator'), James Joyce ('An Encounter’), Dylan Thomas ('A Child's Christmas in Wales’),
Brian Aldiss (‘Supertoys Last All Summer Long’), Arthur Conan Doyle (‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’) and Georges Perec (The Winter Journey/Le Voyage d’hiver)
https://tinyletter.com/apersonalanthology/archive
Printmaking Today
'Bass Notes' - an interview with the artist/lithographer John White (Winter 2016)
Repeater Press
We'll Never Have Paris, edited by Andrew Gallix. (2019)
I contributed to a collection that 'brings together many of the most talented and adventurous writers from the UK, Ireland, USA, Australia and New Zealand […] to build up a captivating portrait of Paris as viewed by English speakers today - A Moveable Feast for the twenty-first century'.
https://repeaterbooks.com/product/well-never-have-paris/
review 31
Occasional contributions to this online literary journal edited by Houman Barekat
Another girl, another planet
On The Only Ones by Carola Dibbell
Desert island risks
My book of the year 2017
As a God Might Be by Neil Griffiths
My book of the year 2018
My book of the year 2019
We Are Made of Diamond Stuff by Isabel Waidner
My book of the year 2020
Spring Journal by Jonathan Gibbs
My book of the year 2021
Queer: A Collection of LGBTQ Writing from Ancient Times to Yesterday edited by Frank Wynne
My book of the year 2022
Appliance by J. O. Morgan
Maximum Truth; Minimum Honesty
Intellectual Property by Aea Varfis van-Warmelo
Sagging Meniscus Press
Multiple Joyce: 100 short essays about James Joyce’s cultural legacy
Published by New York’s Sagging Meniscus Press on 16th June 2022 to mark the centenary of the publication of Ulysses.
Extracts have appeared in
The Daily Telegraph
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/movies-james-joyce-crabs/
The RTE website
https://www.rte.ie/culture/2022/0121/1275125-how-james-joyce-entered-the-marvel-universe/
The Irish Post
Spirit of Soho
Introduction to the catalogue of this retrospective exhibition of prints, photographs and drawings by the artists Alyson Hunter, Michael Heath and John White. (September 2019)
Standpoint (October/November 2020)
‘A knife-fight in a phone booth’
On Ian Hamilton and the 1970s Poetry Wars
3:AM Magazine
Times Literary Supplement
I'm a regular contributor to the TLS, writing about fiction, poetry, photography, memoirs, biography, architecture, theatre, cinema and no end of other things.
Noriko Smiling by Adam Mars-Jones (3 Feb 2012)
The Projection of Britain: a History of the GPO Film Unit (10 Feb 2012)
More Worthy than Lark (Commentary 9 March 2012)
Music Wars by Patrick Bade (27 April 2012)
A Point of View by Clive James (25 May 2012)
The Literary North edited by Katherine Cockin (4 June 2012)
Lucky in Love (5 October 2012)
Journals - 1946-1995 by Stephen Spender
I'm a believer (20 November 2012)
London E1 by Robert Poole (1 March 2013)
In every dream home (8 March 2013)
Maynard L Parker: Modern Photography and the American Dream
Birth Control (5 April 2013)
Blokelore and Blokesongs poems by Robert Conquest (19 April 2013)
Gob impressive (14 June 2013)
A Girl is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
On Writing with Photography edited by Liliane Weissberg and Karen Beckman (28 June 2013)
Class Difference
The Likes of Us - Stories of Five Decades by Stan Barstow (Fiction lead 13 July 2013)
Twitter and Brimstone (Fiction lead 20 September 2013)
Night and the City, The Angel and the Cuckoo, Nightshade and Damnations and Fowlers End
by Gerald Kersh
Why Photography Matters by Jerry Thompson (11 October 2013)
When the Cat was away (3 Jan 2014)
The Animals - Letters between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy edited by Katherine Bucknell
Syndicated in the Italian literary periodical Il Foglio
Inconspicuous consumption (Fiction lead 21 February 2014)
Two Novellas: The Sanatorium and Facing the Sea; Viennese Romance and Married Life by David Vogel
Literary Criticism (14 March 2014)
Edward Upward and Left-Wing Literary Culture in Britain edited by Benjamin Kohlmann
The Gaffer of Greek Street - Ian Hamilton and The New Review (Commentary feature - 2 April 2014)
The Seventh Myth (Fiction lead 23 April 2014)
The Prince's Boy by Paul Bailey and A Room in Chelsea Square by Michael Nelson
He do the Police (Fiction lead 16 May 2014)
Vanishing by Gerard Woodward
Summer reading
Contributor to the annual census of summer books (11 June 2014)
Seeing the light (Fiction lead 18 June 2014)
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The calm confusion (Fiction lead 25 July 2014)
Munich Airport by Greg Baxter
Visible scars (1 August 2014)
The Great War Seen from the Air, 1914–1918 edited by Birger Stichelbaut
Love for the crushed (15 August 2014)
Flametti by Hugo Ball translated by Catherine Schelbert
Accompanied by a TLS podcast about Ball's Dada 'sound poetry' and this novel
David Hockney: A Pilgrim's Progress by Christopher Simon Sykes (22 October 2014)
Mathias Enard's grammar of estrangement (7 November 2014)
Zone and Street of Thieves by Mathias Énard
Exactly what they've missed (28 November 2014)
Things to Make and Break by May-Lan Tan
Film as Film: The Collected Writings of Gregory J. Markopoulos
Edited by Mark Webber. Foreword by P. Adams Sitney (21January 2015)
spill, simmer, falter, wither by Sarah Baume (3 March 2015)
Why Acting Matters by David Thomson and Great Shakespeare Actors by Stanley Wells (7 October 2015)
The book of the film
Vertigo by Boileau-Nacejac (9 December 2015)
I also presented a podcast considering the original novel and Hitchcock’s film version (see below)
Jumpin' Jack Flash: David Litvinoff and the rock’n’roll underworld by Keiron Pim (16 March 2016)
In Casting Off and Interference Pattern by J O Morgan (29 June 2016)
The Face on the Cutting-room Floor by Cameron McCabe (21 December 2016)
An Aesthetic of Obscenity by Jeff Nuttall (11 January, 2017)
Selected Poems by William Plomer (29 March 2017)
On the pleasures of re-reading (17 April 2017)
Let Go My Hand by Edward Docx (3 May 2017)
My Favourite London Devils by Iain Sinclair (24 May 2017)
In the Absence of Absalon by Simon Okotie (1 August 2017)
Playing Possum by Kevin Davey (20 October 2017)
Correspondence by Mark Girouard (5 December 2017)
The Fountain in the Forest by Tony White (9 January 2018)
Remembering Places: A Memoir by Joseph Rykwert (19 January 2018)
Felix Culpa by Jeremy Gavron (6 March 2018)
Getting Carter: Ted Lewis and the Birth of Brit Noir by Nick Triplow (20 March 2018)
Lucia by Alex Pheby (15 June 2018)
Jinx by Abigail Parry (11 September 2018)
Jott by Sam Thompson (19 October 2018)
Where to Find Me by Alba Arikha (19 March 2019)
Under Cover: A Poet's Life in Publishing by Jeremy Robson (28 June 2019)
Machine in the Head: selected short writing by Anna Kavan (9 August 2019)
Fallacy and the tickling stick
Happiness and Tears: The Ken Dodd Story by Louis Barfe (22 November 2019)
Pharricide by Vincent de Swarte, translated from the French by Nicholas Royle (19 December 2019)
Sleeping Letters by Marie-Elsa Roche Bragg (16 October 2020)
Down, but not out
should we fall behind by Sharon Duggal (22 Jan 2021)
It ought to have been happy
Poguemahone by Patrick McCabe (20 May 2022)
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/poguemahone-patrick-mccabe-book-review-david-collard/
Not a good normal
Ghost Signs by Stu Hennigan (22 July 2022)
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/ghost-signs-stu-hennigan-book-review-david-collard/
Seeking a shadow with a torch
Original Sins: a memoir by Matt Rowland Hill (9 Sept 2022)
Stick to routine
Brian by Jeremy Cooper (2 June 2023)
Verbal Outrage
Jabberwock by Dara Kavanagh (15 December 2023)
You are the product
Mortal leap by MacDonald Harris (3 May 2024)
I also blogged regularly for the Times Literary Supplement between 2014 and 2016
Word Aversion
'Apolitical ponce' - W. H. Auden in the OED
Epidermal doodles - some literary tattoos
Cellar door - and other euphonies
Knocking on heaven's door - Amis, McEwan and the Jehovah's Witnesses
Against unremembering - the Great War and Henningham Family Press
Love letters - alternative sexual allegiances
Al-Mutannabi Street Starts Here - a moving art project
Spiegelhalters, Norton Folgate and the Water Poet
Love and death: re-viewing Hitchcock's Vertigo
Man with a Movie Camera restored
Michaelangelo Antonioni's plot development
How money behaves - a performance piece
TLS podcasts
On Hugo Ball’’s novel Flametti and the Dada movement
On Hitchcock’s Vertigo NB I recorded this podcast while suffering from flu, which may explain my
confusing Los Angeles (where the movie isn't set) and San Fransisco (where it is)
Valancourt Press, USA.
Introduction to the American reissue of J. B. Priestley's Saturn Over the Water (2014)
Vanguard Editions
The Hinge of a Metaphor (2023) 'A unique collection of essays on the world of Cinema, its films, actors and directors, by a spectacular array of
poets, playwrights, essayists, interdisciplinary writers, novelists and academics. I contribute a piece on Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry.
The White Review
Interview with Eimear McBride (May 2014)
Miscellaneous
Radio 3 Sunday Feature: Crossing the Border – Poetry and Film (22 August 2017)
I discuss with presenter Matthew Sweet the influence of the Russian experimental film-maker Dziga Vertov on the 1930s GPO Film Unit.
Discussing rediscovered Auden verses
Nairn's London by Routemaster (November 30 2014)
I organised and hosted a one-day bus tour of the east End and City to mark the reissue of Nairn's London by Ian Nairn. Fifty Nairnians joined me on a guided tour to sites mentioned in the book, followed by a talk, panel discussion, readings and screenings. Sponsored by the Twentieth Century Society.
TLS London Literary Weekend 2015/2016
I took part in panel discussions on the representation of the capital in fiction (2015) and over-rated/under-rated writers (2016).
An evening with David Hayden (October 2017)
Hosted this event following publication of David Hayden's debut short story collection Darker with the Lights On at Waterstones, Islington.
The Republic of Consciousness Prize 2018
I was chair of the judging panel for the third annual Republic of Consciousness Prize, awarded to independent publishers in the UK and Ireland.
Finneganight - a celebration (May 2019)
I devised, organised and presented Finneganight, an event celebrating the 80th anniversary of the publication of James Joyce's last novel Finnegans Wake. This took place on Saturday May 4th 2019 (the day on which the Wake was first published in 1939). A cohort of writers, artists, poets, publishers, performers and musicians from London, Dublin, Paris and New York took part in a one-off cabaret. Among those taking part were Alba Arikha, Anna Aslanyan, June Caldwell, David Henningham, Jen Hodgson, Dan O'Brien, Melanie Pappenheim, Alex Pheby, Jessica St Clair, Susan Tomaselli, Tony White and Eley Williams.
A Night of Pure Moby-Dickery (July 2019)
Following the success of Finneganight the same team produced another one-off literary cabaret prompted by Herman Melville's Moby-Dick and celebrating the author’s bicentenary. There were grog-fuelled hymns and sea-shanties, performances, poetry, a settee salon and a staged reading of Orson Welles' two-act play Moby Dick - Rehearsed, last performed in London in 1965. The production was designed by Laura Hopkins.
A Leap in the Dark (Feb 29 2020)
A one-off night of Dadaist cabaret to mark the leap year with music, songs, performance, readings and uncertainty. Featuring Anna Aslanyan, Tim Etchells, David and Ping Henningham, Michael Hughes, Amy McCauley, Melanie Pappenheim, Paul Stanbridge, Aea Varfis-van Warmelo, Tony White and Natalia Zagorska-Thomas. When the pandemic lockdwon began the following month we moved the show online . . .
A Leap in the Dark (March - September 2020)
I organised and hosted this live online gathering twice a week for six months, ending with the fiftieth show on Saturday 19th September.
The Leaps featured an international cohort of writers, poets, performers, musicians, singers, film-makers, indie publishers and other creatives. Contributors from the US, Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, New Zealand, Ireland and all parts of the UK shares their latest work to an invited audience, with appearances by more than 150 creative practitioners including Chiara Ambrosio, Kevin Boniface, Marie-Elsa Bragg, Charles Boyle, Susanna Crossman, Susan Curtis, Will Eaves, Lucy Ellman, Wendy Erskine, Tim Etchells, Jonathan Gibbs, Neil Griffiths, M. John Harrison, David Hayden, Michael Hughes, Paulette Jonguitud, Amy McCauley, J O Morgan, Simon Okotie, Helen Ottaway, Aisha Orazbayeva, Anakana Schofield, Julian Stannard, Rhys Trimble, Aea Varfis-van Warmelo, Anna Vaught, Eley Williams, Frank Wynne and many, many others.
carthorse orchestra (October 2020 - October 2021)
A year-long series of weekly online gatherings every Saturday from 24th October 2020 featuring poetry, prose, performance, polemic, music, film-making, cooking and other creative activities. Guests include Owen Booth, Marina Benjamin, Edward Carey, Wendy Erskine, Tim Etchells, Rachel Genn, M. John Harrison, Rónán Hession, Paulette Jonguitud, Gary Lachman, Riva Lehrer, Linda Mannheim, Eimear McBride, Amy McCauley, Oscar Mardell, Adam Mars-Jones, Lisa Morton, Dan O’Brien, Nick Powell, Fiona Sampson, Isabel Waidner, Frank Wynne and many, many others.
The Glue Factory (January 2022 - December 2024)
A third series of online gatherings in aid of The Trussell Trust. Now monthly, on Sundays.
Salt Poetry night (November 2020)
I hosted online an evening of readings by four contemporary poets: Matthew Haigh, Rob A. Mackenzie, Louise Peterkin and Julian Stannard.
Saline Drip (March 2022)
I hosted a gathering of Salt authors to raise funds for the British Red Cross Ukraine Appeal, featuring Bibi Berki, Peter Daniels, Samuel Fisher, Daniel Hardisty, Nicholas Royle, Julian Stannard, DJ Taylor and Venetia Welby. In all we raised £10,400.
Work in progress
Untitled (as yet) 100 short essays about Samuel Beckett's cultural legacy (published in 2026 by Sagging Meniscus Press)
All Along the Watchtower
A memoir about the author's upbringing as a reluctant Jehovah's Witness.
