It's World Poetry Day today! Unfortunately, not many writers were available to contribute to this, and I'm personally not cultured enough (sorry!) but those of who could have decided to share some of our favourite poetry with you, so please enjoy.

To celebrate Pi day, and that's 3.14159265359 not actual pie, the IWG book team have come together  for a small project. We each chose a book and turned to page three, counted down to line fourteen, and are now going to show you lucky people what sentences we were graced with from such a variety of books and genres. 

by Cookie 'n' Screen

I never thought about it. I say before whipping into a self-indulgent rant about why, the book I am writing, has a centre homosexual relationship. Truth is, I never thought about it. Like most writers (I hope) my pivotal character came to me in a train station and started to whisper her story in my ear. And straight from the beginning, I was always aware that she would fall in love with a woman. That was it, a strong person shimmied over (when you read the book, you’ll get that) and twisted my head to an invisible woman, shuffling across the glossy floors and went “she is the one.”

So yes, I am writing a novel with a pivotal homosexual relationship. 

by Cookie N Screen

Sherlock has become a large figurehead in today’s popular culture. It’s not to say that deerstalker wearing man ever lost his position on the grip of the world, but now with many adaptations, television, films and books, he is predominantly in his eye. The super sleuth is back in our hearts, accumulating a very strong and sturdy fanbase that stretches further than anyone could ever see. 

And with any fanbase, especially now with the Tumblr masses and abundance of internet, Holmes’ sexuality has come into play. And boy do people have a lot to say over it. But whether or not you want Sherlock to hook up with John, or Irene Adler, reading back on the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories, you’ll find that he is, quite frankly, asexual.

by Cookie N Screen

“Fuck me,”

I said, loudly on a busy train on my way to London. No, this isn’t the start of some terrible porno; that is a genuine book I’d been reading. The ending, of which, had slapped me around the face like a big fat hairy whatsit. It had been a long time since a book had done that, absorbed me so and then blew me away in a big powder puff of cocaine. 

And with its recent translation into an independent film, starring James McAvoy and with John S Baird at the helm, it has become pretty much a tour de force of epic filthy proportions. 

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about Filth.

By Cookie n' Screen

Well, one of my favourites. I doubt anything I read could oust Red Dragon and it’s sequel The Silence of The Lambs. Nevertheless, John Dies At The End ranks highly in my world.

I want to start this review with a story. A couple of years a go I decide to go to Chicago, a place that I had always wanted to visit ever since I was a 17 year old girl, fangirling over Fall Out Boy. That’s beside the point, I made a status asking for books to read on the love plane journey and whilst I am there, travelling alone you see. A friend had kindly suggested this one and to my astonishment, went ahead and brought it for me. Taking it with me, I don’t know what I expected from it. Instead, I found a book that delighted, thrilled and scared me so much so that when I had finished, I flipped it over and began it again. That is something I have never done with a book before. Not even the infamous Hannibal Lecter series I spoke of before. My mind was and will always be utterly blown by this film (and then subsequent movie.)

by Cookie 'n' Screen

Film criticism has hit a crossroads of such. The face of movie journalism has changed dramatically, thanks to the wide usage of internet. Without making a broad statement, there are thousands of wannabe Mark Kermode’s popping up all over the place, ripping in to movies before they are even released. Scour the World Wide Web and people are voting in numbers on merely a poster, trailer or a cast list. And what’s worse, is that cynicism is rife; all trying to imitate a voice and mistaking that passion for pretension. That voice? Why, it is Mark Kermode.