I've been a writer and author of fiction and poetry since 1969. A poetry chapbook and a poetry broadsheet appeared in 1975, followed by a short story collection (Fernandez Tale and Other Stories) in 1999 and a poetry collection (Seeing: Collected Poems, 1973-2000) in 2000. This year saw the publication of two books, "The Old Man and the Monkey" and "Grandfather and the Raven", both by Night Publishing (UK) and both set in Japan. I'm currently working on a novel ("Seiji") about a Tokyo artist.

Originally from Seattle, WA (US), my wife and I moved to Japan in early 2008.

Website: http://www.geogepolleyauthor.com
Twitter: georgepolley

• georgepolley: An unforgettable page-turner of a crime novel http://t.co/F2JCEr5q
• georgepolley: A magical tale of intrigue, danger, magic and young love http://t.co/Ku1I01Ut
• georgepolley: Two from the capable pen of Kate Rigby http://t.co/Xzmx4TNh
• georgepolley: A valuable companion to take along on the adventure of life http://t.co/gd4eIvBL
• georgepolley: An engaging and unforgettable novel of love in a time of violence http://t.co/3aKy0Xxk

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• Simon's Choice on Aug. 09, 2010
  
  "If you love a good book, Charlotte Castle’s “Simon’s Choice” is one of the best" If you enjoy good stories, you will want to read Charlotte Castle’s Simon’s Choice. It is one of the best novels I have read. One of the most tragic things in life is to have a child diagnosed with a life-threatening illness like cancer. The dreams you’ve had as parents, the life you’ve built as a couple, even the meaning of life itself begin to slide off their foundation and crumble. You are horrified, angry and scared. Everything, it seems, is beyond your control. You begin to look for someone to blame. Frequently that is your spouse. Such is the story of Simon and Melissa, a British physician and his wife, their beloved seven year old daughter Sarah, their dog Porridge, and Sara’s grandparents. Sarah has a particularly aggressive form of leukemia. All her parents can do is love her, watch, wait and hope. Emotionally it is killing them. Having spent forty-plus years in the counseling profession, Simon and Melissa’s story is a familiar one. In the hands of a less skilled writer, this story could have easily become a maudlin tear-jerker. In Charlotte Castle’s capable hands, it is a masterpiece. As a reader, I was involved with this family from the moment I opened the book. By the end I knew and cared about each of them, including their dog. Simon’s Choice is, quite simply, one of the best novels I have read. It reminds me of Khaled Hosseini’s brilliant and moving Kite Runner, an international bestseller. What is Simon’s choice? Sorry, you’ll have to read the book to find out. And it is very well worth finding out. Put this one at the top of your “must read” list and go to amazon.com and pick up a copy, in either paperback or Kindle. George Polley Sapporo, Japan
  
• Knifing the Famous! on Aug. 10, 2010
  
  "Raconteur" is probably the best word to describe John Watson as he recounts his story to his daughter, Carolyn Allen. There are many fine, interesting tales here: experience in India, Burma and Malaysia during World War II, experiences as a physician, inventor and electrical "Mister Fixit", family man and, finally, famous plastic surgeon. Toward the end of the book there is also a mystery: Did he or didn't he perform plastic surgery on an infamous Peer who disappeared after being accused of murder. Some of the most interesting stories, at least for me, were about his experiences during World War II. My only disappointment is that Doctor Watson's career as a plastic surgeon comes so late in the book. From the title, I had expected it to come early on. For me that makes it appear a minor theme, instead of the major theme that the title suggests. George Polley Sapporo, Japan
  
• Saving Nathaniel on Oct. 16, 2010
  
  My attention was caught by the novel’s first sentences: “She was wet. She was cold. She was late.” With that opening, my attention was captivated. In my opinion, it is one of the most powerful, attention-grabbing openings I have ever read in fiction, and I read a lot of it. Saving Nathaniel is enchanting and powerful storytelling, with characters that are real people, not clichéd cut-outs. The personal struggles Nathaniel and Megan have are ones that most of us can identify with because most of us have had them at one time or another. I certainly have. But it’s the skill of the story telling that kept me engaged, as in one exchange with Nathaniel where Megan “gave him a look so cold it would have made a penguin reach for a muffler.” It’s the kind of laugh-out-loud remark that makes this story such a richly human one. The author tells the story of Meg and Nathaniel with compassion and skill that draws you in and keeps you there long after you’ve finished the last page. This is a wonderfully wise book. Hopefully it is the first of many by this fine writer. I can see Saving Nathaniel as a movie, with Helen Mirren in the role of Megan. It’s definitely one I’d watch more than once.
  
• No Light / Might Escape on July 03, 2011
  
  Joe Hakim is a poet, writer and performer from Hull, England. The title of this collection of stories and poems refers to a black hole into which all light vanishes and none escapes. Hull is like that, “a place without hope for so long - even for those working all hours against impossibly dangerous odds - that it has become somewhere which tolerates what would be considered as a failed life anywhere else” (Night Publishing). We see this in his poem “at withersea”: When I was a boy this place felt like the other side of the world. I would spend hours hurling pebbles at the tide and overturning rocks to find crabs hiding from the sun, and then I would run into the ea. The beaches would be packed with families, but now everything is empty. Shops and cafes are ancient ruins and the kids are all on heroin. Cracked plaster and peeling paint is everywhere, houses falling into disrepair and no one cares. Like cliffs slowly falling into the sea, something crumbles inside me as I watch the waves break sadly against the rocks. — a ghost of childhood laid to rest at last. Joe Hakim writes gritty poems about life as the poet wanders through his days and nights, everything swathed in shades of grey and dirty black, “wine-stained towels and / sweat shop t-shirts”, moving from place to place as his circumstances change, surviving as best he can a life that has been hard on him. Joe Hakim, like Paul Perry and Charles Bukowski, is a poet of the dark places, the disjointed life of alcohol and mind-altering drugs that advertise an “expanded reality” but leave one with a bleak sense of reality that caves in on itself just as a black hole does. “No Light / Might Escape” is an honest book in presenting what life lived in a black hole is like, where one’s lifestyle is surviving rather than living, and where one’s outlook on life is bleak. From my own personal experience, living in that black hole is no fun because it is so terribly limiting, futile and deadly. Leaving it thirty-two years ago broadened my horizons further than I ever thought I could see.
  
• Coming to a street near you on July 03, 2011
  
  I’ve read enough about Hull, England, to know that it has gone through some rough times, has some mean streets and probably more than a fair share of drugs and too much booze to lubricate and sooth the experience, and has experienced a creative renaissance since the arrival of poet Philip Larkin some years ago. As his publisher says, Mike Watts writes poetry that “looks like Hull, it sounds like Hull and it smells like Hull, a place we are all proud to come from, even if we don't always enjoy the experience of being there at the time.” I can think of any number of cities in the U.S. and elsewhere that fit this description. Though I’ve never lived in one, from reading Mike Watts’ fine book, I can imagine what it's like. There are some gritty poems in this book, like “Cider Barry”, “Two Things”, “Chaos Magnet” or “Me”. in Cider Barry, “My mate’s a boozer,/ Always smashed on cider,/ Always lost in space,/ Wind milling/ All over the place./ And it troubles me./ It’s horrible./ … He’s no different from me;/ Good home,/ Good family,/ No trauma,/ No tragedy.” Puts a fellow in an awful dilemma. “Come on just a fiver/ You know I’d do the same for you.”/ I know I shouldn’t,/ But tell me,/ What would you do?” In “Me”, “I’m afraid of change,/ I’m afraid to change,/ I can’t explain why./ Perhaps this life will do./ Perhaps this life will have to do.” “You want to see angry?” he asks in “Chaos Magnet”; “I’ll show you angry./ Try spending a day in the life of me,/ Try fighting chaos constantly.” Did I say “gritty”? Gritty and hopeless when faced with a life that looks dead-ended in a dead-end kind of place. But is life limited to that? No, but circumstances can make it seem as though it is, especially when booze and drugs are stirred into the mix. Mike Watts is one of the leaders of the ThisisUll stable of poets, writers and musicians in Hull, England. You can check them out at http://www.thisisull.com/
  
• Of All Things on July 10, 2011
  
  I like the kind of poetry that draws me in, engages me and keeps me coming back again and again. Michelle Young writes that kind of poetry: Surprising, passionate, tender and in a poem about postpartum depression, as bleak as a desert of ice. I've never in my life read a poem as effective as Post Natal, even from women I've known who have suffered from it. I am chilled, but feel compassion, which is what such a poem should bring out in a reader. Her poem The Relinquishment is the kind of poem that gets you thinking; "Dead Dogs and Dragons" is a wonderfully magical poem about childhood and memory; Let It Be a song about growing old and coming home to a recently empty house after a beloved spouse spouse has died; Blackpool Beach a moving poem about a young mother and her two sons, one of them severely handicapped.