It is often said that moving house tops the list for the most stressful situations in life. I’ve recently experienced that truth; we were moving, to an interim home in the country, just as my husband came out of hospital.
We looked out to lush pastures, Alpacas, ponies, and Shetland cattle. A bucolic setting; good for my husband’s recovery, and mine. Until … my heart decided to change its rhythm; racing at intervals, making me swoon (lovely word) during my daily walks. Continue reading
The rooms at the art centre were somewhat austere, although the atmosphere created by the facilitator Tom Jenks, was anything but. He was, I learned soon enough, passionate about literature, and the nature of writing, but more of that to come.
As outlined in the programme, mornings began with two participants being critiqued. Extracts were read in turn. Next, would be the feedback from the group, as these were the works we had close-read previously. Tom would also encourage us to speak about certain aspects of the work and later, bring his ideas into the discussion, which sometimes became heated; especially I remember, when it came to my work. Continue reading
I just happened to see an advertisement in a literary magazine I subscribe to, Narrative, where one of the editors was calling for applications to his forth-coming writing workshops in New York and San Francisco. ‘How exciting’ I thought, and then squashed that frivolity with the prosaic ‘don’t be stupid’.
But I kept thinking about those workshops. I had travelled to many cities in many countries, but not San Francisco. I was restless, my future in limbo, and decided I had nothing to lose by submitting samples of my work: a requirement for selection. Only twelve participants would be chosen; it was highly unlikely I’d be one of them. I sent off two short stories anyway and tried to forget the whole thing. Continue reading
I have been working on a piece of writing (the same piece I have been struggling to finish for months), which I shall call a ‘fictionalised memoir’. It all came about following a conversation with my eldest daughter, who voiced that she would like me to tell her more of her grandfather (my father), as she had never known him, my dad having died before her birth. I started by jotting down things about his character; talents, hobbies etc., when I stopped writing and began chewing the end of my pen instead. My father was worth more than a few facts; he was a very kind, interesting, hard-working entrepreneurial type, with a cracking sense of humour and a passion for music and art. His friends loved him, as did I. He deserved a story. Continue reading
I began the year reading Peter Carey’s latest book A Long Way From Home. That it was advertised as a thrilling high-speed story appealed to me, and the fact it was written by a favourite Australian author. It’s set in the 1950’s: a time I remember as a young child; though of New Zealand, not Australia. I was still carrying around the affects of an earlier novel of Peter Carey’s, called His Illegal self, in which the main character is a boy called Che, whom Carey portrays with utter authenticity. As I opened A Long Way From Home, I wondered whether Carey would have created an equally fine character this time, and how affected I’d be by the story. Continue reading
ARTISTRY 