Just discovered an amazing writer after reading an article in The Guardian about Flash Fiction Day this Wednesday, 16th May. The piece is by David Gaffney and it’s brilliant. But not as brilliant as his website which is fucking amazingly brilliant. I’m utterly smitten.
And SO inspired.
Please check him out and READ THE STORIES. They’re crazy, weird, sad, disturbing, surreal… and some are cry out loud in hysterics funny.
I’m off to buy his anthologies fron Salt Publishing right bloody now this minute.
I really enjoyed this, but for those of you who read my post claiming the extract she delighted us with during the previously reported evening was from this book- it wasn’t. I’m still investigating that one…
What I loved about this novel is the author’s brazen pursuit of honesty and because of that she manages to create a world peopled by extremely empathetic characters. They are flawed, thus the writers judgement is absent- a great skill in my opinion, given the subject matter. Ms Dawson has a strong handle on her subject at all times and this shines through. I really felt the pain of the characters and their joy when it did, occasionally, surface. But that having been said, this is not a dreary, depressing book- far from it; raw, emotional, at times hard hitting, but always hopeful.
It’s set in Okanogan, the mid-forest-wilderness between Seattle and Vancouver and the sense of place is never anything but vivid in its depiction, as is the dreary left-behind-Dalston, the run down London of disillusionment and unrealised dreams. The heroine, Rita, is as real as any woman I’ve ever known and I felt for her every step of the way, yet I also had great sympathy for Mick, yes- the villain of the piece, but in life, nothing is ever black and white and so it is in this story of a completely disfunctional relationship. I think this is a brave book and I do urge you to read it.
Next up… Smut by Alan Bennett
Even the physical manifestation of the book itself is delightful…Don’t buy this one on Kindle… A hard back, the dust cover adorned with a gorgeously embossed and metallic keyhole, about three quarters the height of a normal book- it feels special and somehow intimate.
I loved these two long short stories. I loved everything about them. They are laugh out loud, rib-ticklingly funny, subversive, yet also generously gentle and understanding. Alan at his best.
I particularly loved the second tale, The Shielding of Mrs Forbes. It was one of those stories that introduced new shocks without introduction, with merely a new paragraph as forewarning and I found myself gasping and re-reading on several occasions. Not because the writing wasn’t clear, just because the shift was so delightfully surprising I needed to let it sink in with a second reading and enjoy it’s full power.
Read, please. Wonderful stuff- and both stories are delightfully rude in that oh so english way that Mr Bennett is surely the master of. The title bills it, just like a tin of Ronseal, enjoy.
Spent a delightful evening in the company of fellow writers, at the Leicester Writers Club annual dinner. Pondering over the collective noun for such a get-together…
I love this new album from the Bombay Bicycle Club- A Different Kind of Fix. A lovely live track- Fracture. Quality not amazing but the song more than makes up for it.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness… Keats of course. And look at this beauty. Can you believe the wonderfulness of a world wherein something as stangely beautiful as this can just grow unaided from the earth?
And be edible!
Isaac has christened it broliflower.
I’m cooking sunday lunch for the old folks. Two sets of parents today so double trouble and double pleasure.
Plus Isaac is home. Lovely. Fergus is away in Portugal so not quite a full house but near enough. Feel blessed.
Had a good day yesterday choc-full of poetry. In the morning I attended an hour and a half of a workshop at the Rutland Museum in Oakham organised by The Lyric Lounge. The session was led by Andrew Mulletproof Graves http://www.mulletproofpoet.co.uk a talented performance poet and writer from Nottingham. I really enjoyed it and the first exercise was inspiring. A poem will emerge from it when I have some time later to spend on it. I had to leave early to pick up the boys… Half term holiday.
My afternoon was spent in Market Harborough at the South Leicester Stanza meeting. It was a really enjoyable session this week and we discussed a John Burnside poem from his winning Forward Collection. I loved the sound of his words and his imagery is stunning but it was very dense and flew a little over my head, as it did for many of us. I probably need to read more of his work.
We read and heard read aloud others work and workshopped it whilst drinking tea and eating biscuits. A lovely way to spend an afternoon.
We are to attempt a Pantoum for next month. Being very ignorant I had never heard of such a thing and so undertook a little research. They are an interesting form and have a free rhyme and rhythm but a strict pattern of line repetition. I discovered an excellent web site… http://www.poets.org
There are some really interesting Pantoums posted. Here is my favourite which I took along to the meeting and read aloud. It was well received. It’s incredibly powerful and I think the form really adds to its potency. It moved me to tears the first time I read it.
Stillbirth
By Laure Anne Bosselaar
On a platform, I heard someone call out your name:
No, Laetitia, no.
It wasn’t my train—the doors were closing,
but I rushed in, searching for your face.
But no Laetitia. No.
No one in that car could have been you,
but I rushed in, searching for your face:
no longer an infant. A woman now, blond, thirty-two.
No one in that car could have been you.
Laetitia-Marie was the name I had chosen.
No longer an infant. A woman now, blond, thirty-two:
I sometimes go months without remembering you.
Laetitia-Marie was the name I had chosen:
I was told not to look. Not to get attached—
I sometimes go months without remembering you.
Some griefs bless us that way, not asking much space.
I was told not to look. Not to get attached.
It wasn’t my train—the doors were closing.
Some griefs bless us that way, not asking much space.
On a platform, I heard someone calling your name.
So good. What do you think?
Off to crack on with lunch. The poached nectarines will be falling apart and the lamb needs a prod. I hope the alien caulifower tastes as amazing as it looks!
Oh… before I go. Watch this… it’s amazing. I want to make one.
And if you want a laugh…
There are hundreds of words to choose from. Some of them are pronounced correctly and really normally, and others… well. see for yourself.
Isaac and I spent far too long laughing at this in the early hours of this morning. Click through them all. The more you view the funnier it is
We set off around 5pm on Friday and chose the scenic route which took us past Warwick and Stratford. The sky was incredible. Jacob took pictures while I drove.
Jacob was teaching a two day course on Narrative Craft and The festival had booked us into The Montpelier Chapterhttp://www.themontpellierchapterhotel.com/
It’s a lovely hotel right in the centre of town.
The staff were charming and it is one of the friendliest hotels I have ever had the pleasure to be a guest of. Nothing was too much trouble.
We enjoyed a delicious dinner in the restaurant on the first evening. I had pear and gorgonzola salad with walnuts and a honey vinaigrette to start, Jacob enjoyed home made carrot soup. I then chose butterflied leg of lamb with spinach and a salsa verde, Jacob, slow roasted loin of pork with red cabbage. Delicious.
On the second evening we ate in the bar and both chose the chicken curry. Jacob managed to find enough room for a small dish of home made ices, vanilla and mango sorbet. I sampled both and can vouch for their tastiness.
Jacob’s course was held in another lovely hotel 5 minutes stroll away,
I attended both days of the course and thoroughly enjoyed it. Quite a lot had been covered on the TLC course in Spain but it was really good for it all to be reinforced and after writing for a further six months much of it made a lot more sense. I wrote a short short story in class which I shall post at the end of this and I began a couple of others which I hope to work on over the next week or so. Inspiring as always. You may think I have no need for Jacob’s teaching for I surely receive it gratis on a daily basis, but it is quite different being in an environment with other writers, reading and discussing texts together. Something new always crops up. Besides, when else can one sit and give ones partner undivided attention for six hours solid and not make him feel a tad uncomfortable or imagine you have stalkerish tendencies? (Which I do, of course!)
We were in the Sinners Enclosure but you’ll be glad to know we were all very well behaved.
I am sure everyone enjoyed the weekend as much as I did and it was gratifying to hear everyone read on the Sunday. Confidences had grown markedly. I hope they will all feel encouraged to write much more.
Yesterday an unassuming brown envelope had dropped through the letterbox. She opened it absent-mindedly and was surprised to find a sheaf of photocopied documents. She looked for a covering letter but there was none. The documents were stapled together in three sections. The first contained his previous six months credit card statements, the second, itemised phone bills for his business mobile and the third, details of his account with a local travel agent. She wondered which of his colleagues had felt charitable enough to turn informer…
So, he was still seeing her. He had promised that it was over, had been over for months. She knew he lied even though he repeatedly denied it. Lately he had become quite blatant, seemed unconcerned whether she believed him or not, his only desire being to shut her up.
She was meant to be at work, but had called in sick that morning having woken with the overwhelming urge to confront him. She drove to his office and parked outside in clear view of the entrance. No one would be able to enter or leave the building without being seen. At 12.30 he appeared, and sure enough, the girl was with him. They held hands and she looked up at him while he spoke, smiling all the while. Her hair shone, full of it’s own golden light, even though on this dull November day the sky was gray. Her long legs, shown to their best advantage in black opaque tights, were sickeningly slim and shapely and she walked with an easy swing in her stride. He looked so annoyingly self satisfied and smug she thought of a strutting farmyard cockerel. She would have driven home and confronted him later had the pair of them not stopped at the pavements edge. She would have contained her anger until he returned home that evening had he not turned to the girl, brushed a lock of hair from her smooth brow and kissed her in full view of the world.
As it was, a fury flooded through her and she slammed her foot on the accelerator with a sudden violence. They looked up when they heard the shriek of rubber on tarmac. She saw realisation flicker across their faces and in that second her husband locked eyes with her. His mouth opened, a red hole filling his face, the smugness wiped clean away. She heard him cry ‘NO!’
After that she was aware only of the noise of a ton of metal meeting flesh and bone at forty miles an hour; a grinding thud as they came into contact with the bumper; a loud crack as they bounced off the windscreen, flying in different directions. She didn’t slow down and she didn’t look back. She caught sight of her own reflection in the rear view mirror as she bumped off the kerb and back on to the road. Her eyes were dark, shining brightly, brilliant with hatred.
A fashion designer for years, now a writer –
of short stories and poems, some of which get aired here
and seriously aiming to write a novel this year...
Would one day like to own a lady parrot.
