Introduction
Richard Beard’s six novels include Lazarus is Dead, Dry Bones and Damascus, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. In the UK he has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award and longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. His novel Acts of the Assassins was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, for books that ‘extend the possibilities of the novel form’. He is also the author of five works of narrative non-fiction, including his rugby memoir Muddied Oafs. The Day That Went Missing was shortlisted for the Folio Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and won the 2018 PEN Ackerley Award for literary autobiography. In the US the book was a National Book Critics Circle finalist. His latest memoir/polemic is Sad Little Men, about private schools in Britain, which was a book of the year in the Times Literary Supplement and the Observer. His new project is the memoir platform The Universal Turing Machine.

News
UTM in Scotland
Everyone has memories. And according to the old saying, we all have a book in [...]
Read more...UTM on the radio
Chine McDonald discovers The Universal Turing Machine on BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day. [...]
Read more...UTM Expansion Explained
Richard Beard, award-winning author of The Day That Went Missing and Sad Little Men, thought [...]
Read more...How the UTM will grow
My version of the Universal Turing Machine is only the beginning. The idea is that [...]
Read more...How To Read The Universal Turing Machine
Click here for a brief How-To preview. Then here to get started for yourself. So much [...]
Read more...Universal Turing Machine in The Times
Full piece here and of course a live link to universalturingmachine.co.uk
Read more...Interview with Georges Perec
Georges, Georges Perec, is that you? No. Come on, Georges, this is the first time [...]
Read more...Universal Turing Machine Q & A
The first phase of the Universal Turing Machine is now available to read free online. [...]
Read more...Universal Turing Machine in TLS
All the Right Moves While people in the world of books, as in so many [...]
Read more...Universal Turing Machine
‘Utterly humane and utterly brilliant, outwitting computer technology by remaining one step ahead, always, in [...]
Read more...Inspired Minds interview
In the latest episode of Rathbones Inspired Minds, Daniel Norcross speaks to author Richard Beard. [...]
Read more...BBC Open Book – memoirs
Novelists Richard Beard and Bella Pollen discuss turning from fiction to non fiction by writing [...]
Read more...BBC Open Book – how social media has helped deformat fiction
Richard Beard looks at the ways writers have played with visual media on the page. [...]
Read more...BBC Open Book – the look of a book
Richard Beard explores how writers display things on the page that change how we read. [...]
Read more...BBC Open Book – exploring the power of punctuation
Richard Beard explores how writers have used punctuation to diversify fiction. Click image to listen to [...]
Read more...BBC Open Book – the second person ‘you’ in fiction writing
Richard Beard examines how writers address ‘you’, the reader, in fiction. Click image to listen to [...]
Read more...BBC Open Book – why is most writing written in the third person?
Richard Beard explores how and why most fiction is written in the third person. Click [...]
Read more...BBC Open Book – the ‘I’ viewpoint of the first person
Richard Beard guides us on the unexpected uses of the first person in fiction. Click [...]
Read more...BBC Open Book – fictional journeys in the future tense
Richard Beard explains how time is used across fiction and the use of the future [...]
Read more...BBC Open Book – the power of the present tense
Richard Beard explains how time is used across fiction and the use of the present [...]
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