Tobias Hill
March 2014
February 2014
A life in ...Tobias Hill: 'During the last novel, it was so difficult that I just caved in because I was so hungry to write poetry'The books interview: The award-winning writer tells Christina Patterson why his latest novel is set in a bustling (London) market and how he's been trying not to write about the capital for years
May 2010
HaycastHaycast 01: Kazuo Ishiguro, Tobias Hill and Peter HitchensIn the first of our podcasts from Hay festival 2010, Kazuo Ishiguro discusses his new collection of short stories, Peter Hitchens talks about his conversion back to Christianity, and Tobias Hill reads from his most recent poetry collection
January 2009
April 2007
School stories
Earlier this year, novelist and poet Tobias Hill took up the position of writer-in-residence at Eton. In the first of three extracts from his diary, he describes how he - a comprehensively educated Londoner - felt on being plunged into the rarefied atmosphere of the country's best-known public school.
November 2006
August 2006
July 2006
January 2006
July 2005
- News blogBringing animals closer
Hornbills at London Zoo's new African Bird Safari walkthrough. The zoo plans to take more of its animals out of cages, starting with the gorillas. Photograph: Shu Di
When Tobias Hill was poet in residence at London Zoo in 1998 he suggested his work could make up for some of the shortcomings of the location.
December 2004
- Poetry workshop'A real Grand National of a poetry exercise' - Tobias Hill's response
This was a trickier task than the one I set in November, a real Grand National of a poetry exercise, full of ditches and hurdles. The toughest jumps turned out to be (a) the requirement for love, and (b) the need to combine poetry with characterisation. Some of the poems sent in portrayed people in original and worthwhile ways, but were less convincing in their execution of love. Others were excellent studies of both love and lovers (or loved ones), but in the process lost sight of the needs of poetry - became, in fact, short episodes in prose.
- Poetry workshopTobias Hill's workshop
Our poet-in-residence this month is one of the Poetry Book Society's 20 Next Generation Poets (see them all at the Bloomsbury Theatre on November 28). His first collection, Year of the Dog, won an Eric Gregory award; the second and third, Midnight in the City of Clocks and Zoo, both received PBS recommendations. Also an award-winning novelist, his third novel, The Cryptographer, led AS Byatt to observe that "Hill is one of the most original and interesting novelists working in Britain ... There is no other voice today quite like this." Tobias is hosting the workshop for two months.
November 2004
- Poetry workshop'It's worth remembering that poetry is an oral form at heart' - Tobias Hill's response
Thanks to everyone who sent poems in. I'll start with some general constructive criticism for those whose work hasn't been featured this month, and move on to looking at the very best poems that we received.