Undergrounding

For those of you who've wondered two things, let me fill you in.The first thing may be what's happening with Essays on Life. Well, here's the story. I'm on hiatus from writing at the moment. I blame CARIFESTA preparation and follow-up; but I also need to blame election fever. Essays on Life are not intended to be political in any way, but now that the Season is upon us it's difficult to write essays that aren't received as being political one way or another. (By "political" I mean, of course, party politics; all social comment is political in a wider sense.)In the meantime, I'm working on a couple of things. I'm seriously considering self-publishing Essays on Life, having investigated Lulu.com as a possibility. I'd hoped to get them out of the way in time for Christmas, and may still manage to do so (though time is running out). I've prepared the first volume — the first fifty, arranged chronologically but intended to be indexed alphabetically and by subject as well. I'm also sketching out a series of Essays of Life to be finished and polished outside of deadlines and resubmitted to the Guardian for their use. I hope to finish these by December so that they can begin to run again. It's time for a change of approach, and I'm hoping to tackle bigger subjects than the ones I've already covered.Two: where I've been. Well, this has been a travelling time. I recently attended a workshop in Barbados treating Caribbean cultural industries. I invite you to check out the website for yourselves, as a lengthy explanation of the whys and wherefores will take too long and will make me run out of Starbucks internet time, but let me just say that the workshop has led me to envision the action plan that needs to be encompassed in the draft Cultural Policy. Watch this space.