Collin Piprell

I’m in the business of generating alternative realities and then exploring them. This, I claim, is not schizophrenia. A Canadian writer and editor based in Bangkok, I've also lived in England, where I did graduate work at Oxford, and in Kuwait, where I learned to sail, waterski, and make a credible red wine in plastic garbage bins. At the end of 2008, I resigned as editorial director at Dragon Art Media (Bangkok, Phuket, Koh Samui, Bali) to devote myself to writing. My chief skills are words and tunnels. Before the Oxford and Kuwait years, my employment experience included, among other things, four jobs as a driller and stope leader in mines and tunnels in Ontario and Quebec. (One of my few regrets in this life is having had to refuse a development mining job in Greenland.) There’s been little call for tunneling these days, but since moving to Thailand I've produced many articles on a wide variety of topics, four novels, a collection of occasional pieces, a diving guide to Thailand, another book on diving, and a book on Thailand’s coral reefs. I've also co-authored a book on Thailand’s national parks. I've taught writing at a local university (Thammasat), and I conduct occasional writing workshops for publishing companies and community organizations. I'm currently at work on a fifth novel, the second of a futuristic trilogy that begins with *MOM,*, now available on amazon.com. Books by Collin Piprell (currently out of print, aside from MOM and Diving in Thailand): *MOM* (http://tinyurl.com/y9am7lq) *Yawn* (A Thriller) Bangkok: Asia Books, 2000 *Kicking Dogs* (Bangkok: Asia Books, 2001) *Bangkok Knights* (Bangkok: Asia Books, 2001) (The previous three titles need a new home.) *Bangkok Old Hand* (Bangkok: Post Books, 1993) *Diving in Thailand* (Singapore: Times Editions; U.S.A.: Hippocrene Books, 1994, 2000), photographs by Ashley J. Boyd. *Thailand’s Coral Reefs* (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1993), photographs by Ashley J. Boyd. * Thailand: The Kingdom Beneath the Sea* (Bangkok: Artasia Press, 1991), photographs by Ashley J. Boyd. * National Parks Thailand* (Bangkok: IFPC, 1993, 1995), with Denis Gray and Mark Graham Prospective agents and publishers are welcome to contact me at collin.piprell@gmail.com.

Something fishy at the basis of being

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Hey, and that’s just one island. The basis of the whole world is probably even weirder.

(There’s a PowerPoint selection of more surreal photos by Erik Johansson afloat in cyberspace, but I can’t seem to establish a link here. Ask me, and I’ll e-mail it to you.)… Read more

Sons of the Undead: Lives of the Pre-dead Zombies

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“The best break anybody ever gets is in bein’ alive in the first place. An’ you don’t unnerstan’ what a perfect deal it is until you realizes that you ain’t gone be stuck with it forever, either.”

–Porkypine (in Walt Kelly’s Pogo)

“You have to cut way down on your bread, Mr. Piprell,” said my doctor, a charming and entirely competent Thai woman whom I’ve been consulting for years. “You should also avoid rice, potatoes and pasta.” There was a … Read more

Blacksmiths & blockheads? “Payment and reserved copyright are at bottom the ruin of literature”

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“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”
  (reported by Boswell, in his Life of Johnson)

Attributed to Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the renowned author and lexicographer, that’s one of the most famous writerly aphorisms in the English language.

Others have seen things differently.

Arthur Schopenhauer, for one (1788-1860), had this to say about the matter:

“There are above all two kinds of writer: those who write for the sake of what they have to say and … Read more

Vanity, or Canny? Literary YouTube

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The issue du jour in publishing: What’s happening to traditional controls on the industry? Digital technology has plunged us into an era where not only can anyone be a writer, you can be a “published author.” What does this forebode? Check out this video on the Wall Street Journal site and, for any actual readers out there, the story.

The lemmingesque rush to write and publish could well herald further social and cultural change to come. Soon there’ll be … Read more

Unemployed Blacksmiths and Novelists Support Group

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It was all foretold in Finnegans Wake. It could have been, anyway.

There’s just no end to human ingenuity. Now you don’t even have to buy an e-book reader to suffer Internet interconnectivity. Ubimark has developed a way for readers to evoke Web connections from a print book by way of cellphone camera and browser. Have a look at the following item (short article & video), “Putting the Web inside the printed book.”

Ubimark, iPads and Vooks … Read more

Some dimensions are darker than others

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There are rogues, and there are rogues. There follow reports of close encounters with two very different species of actor in the current Thai political maelstrom:

Hobnobbing with the Ronin.

Squeakish-clean candidate for office.

Useful additions to the many perspectives on the troubles?  Colorful, anyway.… Read more

Beyond “Demo-Crazy”

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“Looking at Thailand, indeed looking at several other Asian countries, it would be easy to conclude that democracy has served us poorly. In Thailand, we now often refer to our own political system as ‘Demo-Crazy’ to reflect our apparent fondness for demonstrations… But in thinking about the future of Asia, one is reminded that political and social developments are just as important as economic development.” (Thai Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij)

In today’s Bangkok Post (“Bridging income gaps… Read more

Cry havoc

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Photos by the lovely Ms. Plug

Bangkok remains relatively calm. Misleadingly so, perhaps. Forget about lavish tides of good sense in the coming days, if not years—not that we had to wade through much of it in the past, here or anywhere, come to that. Dourness rools, OK!

The beast of unreason has been let slip, and it’s time for civil folk to look askance at strangers in the street, to avoid the shadows and to watch their asses. But … Read more

Mourning after

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It’s a glorious morning in Bangkok, one so far unmarred by columns of smoke or rattle of gunfire. The Bangkok Post has run A NATION MOURNS as its front-page headline. I’d be interested to know what it is people believe we should be mourning, at this point.

One candidate: the fact that—Thai or otherwise—we’re human, all too bloody human. It’s really sad to see how reliably, everywhere and throughout history, demogogues are able to lead crowds of nice people into … Read more