G Lawrence

February 1542 A young woman awaits her execution in the Tower of London, sent to death on the orders of her husband, Henry VIII. Daughter of the nobility, cousin to a fallen Queen, Catherine Howard rose from the cluttered ranks of courtiers at the court of Henry VIII to become the King's fifth wife. But hers is a tale that starts long before the crown was placed on her head. A tale of tragedy and challenges, predators and prey; the story of a young...

July 1540 After eight months as a maid of court, Catherine Howard has become Queen. Separated from past friends and surrounded by people who resent her rise to the throne, the sole close companion she has left is Jane Boleyn, the infamous Lady Rochford. And this is not the only strain upon Catherine. People from her past come calling, the threat that the King may find out she is not the pure, innocent maiden he thinks she is puts her in peril. Catherine...

TWO GIRLS IN A CAFÉ London, England: The 60s. Two Girls in the Café is about an English and an American who were once close friends, meeting for old-time for a cup of tea, chatting and giggling to the delight of their hearts. By chance, the American sees a young man in the street walking she claims to know. The English girl is surprised since she also claims to know the young man, and the idea amazes the girls that they both know him. But there...

I wrote this essay as an assignment during my university days which was in the late 70s. Go Tell It On The Mountain was the first novel I read by James Baldwin and enjoyed it immensely. Religion was very much part of my life while growing up. My parents were practising Christians, which meant I had to attend church Sunday morning mass, Sunday school at midday, and occasionally participating evening service. In early adolescence, I became a choirboy....

The editors of The New Quarterly, when first reviewing my story submissions, concluded, rightly or wrongly, that my work fell into the category of 'Magic Realism'. 'Magic Realism', as one editor proceeded to define, was the seamless blending of the ineffable and the concrete . The 'ineffable' or 'other reality' part of this definition is at the core of many of the stories in this collection. The stories in Liquid Geography could be categorized as...

One of the biggest questions of the financial crisis has not been answered until now: What happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail, with aftershocks that rocked the global economy? In this news-making, often astonishing book, a former Lehman Brothers Vice President gives us the straight answers—right from the belly of the beast.
In A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, Larry McDonald, a Wall Street insider,...