The Rivendale Review
Michael Graeme
Hello, I’m Michael Graeme. I write speculative, metaphysical, and romantic fiction – also poetry and the occasional essay. You’ll find most of it here at the Rivendale Review, where I’ve been blogging since 2008.
August 2026
September 2026
All posts (11)
Ditch the doomscroll, read a book. Ditch Microsoft Office or Libre Office or whatever and buy a typewriter. Buy a notebook, and a fancy fountain pen. Ditch digital, embrace the analogue virtues of the past – not forgetting of course the beautifully staged photographs, and the pithy note for your social media to...
I can’t say I was cock-a-hoop when the jury summons dropped through the letter box. But when you’re called you have to go, so I’m just back from a couple of weeks at the Crown Courts. Six years of retirement leads you into some bad habits, like winding down and lying abed until mid morning. But suddenly you’re up...
We sixteen, random chosen, silent now,enter this, the long waiting,of dark wood and tapestry. It is the language of another age,one of brass and gavels,and court barkers. And here, in our midst,a half finished jigsaw. Our predecessors,ghosts now, long gone,invite us in their absenceto contribute pieces to a...
It was the fox that broke the dream. I suppose I had been quiet, seated there by the hedge for so long, and my scent carried downwind of him, he came stepping boldly from the covert, unsuspecting. He was almost a caricature of a fox – shock-red coat, creamy bib and black stockings. Unusual to see them about in the...
I recall an immense stillness,And a velvet, sparkling night,And a full, perigee moon,Painting white wavelets,On the black lake,Lapping far below.Left and right,Pine forests pricked the sky,Dark on darker still,Enfolding us in hushed embrace.Small hours late we stood,Beneath that moon,Stealing minutes,From the...
Things get muddled, events overtake us. People make unexpected demands. The quiet life slides away into noise, and everything we look at seems like junk. The phone rings and it’s a robot trying to scam us. Our YouTube and Substack feeds have turned to bubble gum, and everywhere we go there’s someone trying to sell...
The road narrowsand leads to a disintegration.Deep fissures to be negotiated,amid an appalling senseof impermanence and retreat. Will the road still be here?Or is it already rolling upto an impassibility?Am I beyond a pointof no return? I mistake a gun-clubfor my destination. A manwith an elaborately decorated...
Just a quick update on this one. My current work in progress is no longer… well… a work in progress. It’s now live on Draft 2 Digital, here, also at the Internet Archive here. And I’ve added it to my list of titles in the margin of the blog, which, for the first time points directly to the Internet Archive copy. If...
It’s Wordsworth’s collected.Eighteen seventy, I think, or thereabouts.Still wrapped in brown paper. I’ve seen it but the once,felt the shape of it in my hands,flicked through the pages,admired the illustrations –each protected under a gauze of tissue. Then the woman at the counter,admiring too, turned and stroked...
Slender Threads, my latest novel in progress, is currently negotiating its conclusion, tiptoeing gently through the closing chapters, looking for a meaningful denouement. But distractions have clouded the usual thought processes. I’ve had a few medical wobbles since the summer, in the middle of which, I also find...
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