Lockdown and the temporary closure of City Central Library in Hanley due to Covid-19 has been a pain, but an absolutely necessary one. City Voices send love to anyone suffering a loss or extreme stress in lockdown. Paul Williamson (pictured) has been self-isolating but is in amazingly good spirits and has the outlook and beliefs usually associated with some-one much, much younger. He also has the wisdom and compassionate understanding that comes with someone who has seen all the good and bad things this world has to offer. It was a joy to talk to him yesterday. Paul founded City Voices in 2006 and says ‘Good writing can bring people closer together through love, beauty and understanding’ And 'There really is something so wonderfully special about good novels. You can learn so much about people and the world, and this helps to keep you close to what it is to be human and drives you onwards to better things. So, what advice would you give someone starting out in creative writing? Join a Library. Read lots of Good Books - Novels, Poetry, Biography, Plays. Join a Writers Group.  Try to find your own True voice. Cultivate your Muse!

Here are some novels that Paul recommends for lock-down reading.
  ‘War and Peace’ and ‘Anna Karenina’- Leo Tolstoy ‘Crime and Punishment’ Fyodor Dostoevsky. ‘Wuthering Heights’ Emily Brontë. ‘North and South’ Elizabeth Gaskell. ‘The Mill on the Floss’ George Eliot.’ ’Moby Dick’ Herman Melville. ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles.’Thomas Hardy. ‘The Rainbow’ D.H. Lawrence. ‘The Grapes of Wrath.’John Steinbeck. ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’. Harper Lee. ‘The God of small things’ Arundhati Roy’. ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. ‘Things Fall Apart’. Chinua Achebe. ‘Brick Lane’ Monica Ali. ‘Beloved’ Toni Morrison. ‘Red Dust Road’ Jackie Kay.