{"id":27,"date":"2009-02-27T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-27T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/?p=27"},"modified":"2009-02-27T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-27T00:01:00","slug":"in-a-hot-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/in-a-hot-place\/","title":{"rendered":"In A Hot Place"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I’m publishing a new story, In A Hot Place, on this website. You can download it here<\/a>. The story is also published in a new book<\/a> aimed at teenagers and in today’s Morning Star<\/a>. ‘In A Hot Place’ is just 1500 words long and its inspiration is obvious. That said, the piece is not specifically about a particular secret prison, or one country’s involvement in illegal rendition. The narrator’s gender is open. It is pertinent to many stories in the news this week. I hope that, very soon, it will feel like a period piece. <\/p>\n

I wrote In ‘A Hot Place’ in December of last year. I owed the editor, who was in a hurry, and I didn’t have an idea. I opened the paper, looking for a subject. There was the story of the fifteen year old tortured at Guantanamo Bay, the base that the USA illegally occupies in Cuba. I was about to visit this beautiful country for a second time and the article made me both angry and sad. I wrote the first draft within an hour. It includes one line taken verbatim from the news report, where a doctor was quoted. On the day that Barack Obama announced that he was going to close the base in Cuba, I read the story to an adult audience (see below) and realised that I wanted ‘In A Hot Place’ to reach as many people as possible. I’d like people to read it while it’s fresh, snatched from the headlines. I’d welcome its use in schools. So I told the publisher that I’d decided to make the story copyright free. I’ve asked them to donate my fee to Amnesty International.<\/p>\n

You are welcome to republish ‘In A Hot Place’. Please link to it, put it in your blog, make copies for use in schools or distribute it in any way you choose. I only ask that you cite my authorship, do not change my words and suggest that, if you are publishing it in any commercial way, you might wish to make a donation to Amnesty International.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I’m publishing a new story, In A Hot Place, on this website. You can download it here. The story is also published in a new book aimed at teenagers and in today’s Morning Star. ‘In A Hot Place’ is just 1500 words long and its inspiration is obvious. That said, the piece is not specifically about a particular secret prison, or one country’s involvement in illegal rendition. The narrator’s gender is open. It is pertinent to many stories in the news this week. I hope that, very soon, it will feel like a period piece. I wrote In ‘A Hot Place’ in December of last year. I owed the editor, who was in a hurry, and I didn’t have an idea. I opened the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}