Sue Guiney: Writing Life

New York City

2012-01-30T07:30:00.000Z

The New York part of this trip has been great. I have managed to get to the NY Public Library to start reading through the new novel. What a strange process that is. I'm finding some small changes I want to make. Nothing major. But the hard part is trying to decide if the pacing feels right. Is it starting out too slow? Is it moving too fast? I just can't tell. I suppose I'm too close to it. So I will keep with my plan to just read it through, then make the changes that I can see need changing, and then hand it over to my editor and see what she thinks. But in the meantime, New York.

I have found a hotel right across the street from my parents' apartment building. It's suiting me just fine. I'm on the twentieth floor. Here are some views from my windows:

My view of the Hudson River

City streets from 20 floors up

in-between buildings

This trip has been mostly about reunions. I've seen lots of family members who I rarely get to see. And now, I'm off to meet up with a group of people I went all through school with, most of whom I haven't seen in over thirty years. Now there's a scary thought.

Writing Rituals

2012-01-27T08:00:00.000Z

I have always believed in the importance of rituals. I don't necessarily mean the religious kind, though they have their function as well, of course. I mean rituals that we ourselves create to mark our own, specific lives. I've found the how's and when's of writing to be especially ripe for such creations.

For example, when I start to work on a new novel I always go buy myself a new Black n Red lined notebook. I wrote about them once before here. I do the same for a new play. And although I can't have a new notebook for each new poem, I do have a special poetry notebook where I work out new poems, even if they started out life on the back of a napkin. I also always choose a special pencil to begin each novel. I know that by the end of 80,000 words or so, that pencil will have been worked down to its nub and replaced, but I like to start with something new. Special. I also bring "special" pencils to the kids in my Anjali House Writing Workshop in Cambodia. Last year I found pencils with Union Jacks on them. I'm about to start hunting around for something fun for this year's group.

The idea of all this is to set the activity aside as something special (that word again) and outside of daily life. But when I say "special" I don't mean important in a sombre, weighty way. It's the opposite of that. By creating a ritual around the act of writing, I want to make the writing into a treat, something wonderful that we do for ourselves, that taps into a self-indulgent sense of fun. A new notebook, a new pencil, whatever the ritual is it should be a signal that this is now something different. This is why we do all the other "non-special" tasks in our lives. We do those in order to make room for this.

My last post I wrote about finishing the first draft of novel three. I have written this novel in a different way than the other two. The other two I wrote with the help of either a teacher or a writing group and those people were with me throughout. That worked wonderfully well for me then, but I realised early on (actually I was told by a very trustworthy friend) that now I had to do it on my own. After writing and publishing two novels, it was time to trust myself and do it without relying on the approval or disapproval of others. And that's what I've done. I loved writing this way. Although scarier, for sure, it was also very liberating. But it has created a new phase in the novel writing process which I hadn't had to do in the same way before, namely, the first big read through. In some ways this is petrifying and I know I could easily become paralysed by it. But I also know that if I create a ritual around it, I will look forward to doing it rather than shy away from it. So what's the new ritual?

It's always a good idea to read something you've written in a very different place from where you wrote it. I decided reading it in some corner of The British Library would be just the thing -- you don't get much more special than that. It's a place I've never been (shame on me). I would be excited to go there. It would be a treat. What a great idea. But timing is everything, as they say, and I will be ready to do the read through just when I have to be back in the States for a series of family events, first New York, then Boston. Well, I may not be able to go to the British Library this time, but hopefully I'll be able to go to another couple of very special places -- the New York City Library and Harvard's Widener Library (if I can get someone to give me a pass. Ooh, maybe I can use my SOAS connection. Now there's a thought).

New York Public Library

Harvard's Widener Library
photo courtesy of The Harvard Crimson

I'm now really excited. I can picture myself walking in with my manuscript under my arm and sitting in the hushed august-ness that these places exude. Actually, now I can't wait.

Diana McCaulay and "Dog-Heart"

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000Z

One of the great pleasures of this writing life of mine has been meeting writers from all over the world who I would never have met before. Often, this happens via the blog. But recently, I met a very talented actor in London, Jonathan Chambers, and he told me about his mother, Diana McCaulay. Diana is from Jamaica and she has written a novel, Dog-Heart, which portrays the realities of life on the streets of Kingston and the seemingly uncrossable gulf between the classes. This is a novel with grit, humour, heart and pathos. It is both heart-breaking and uplifting at the same time, and beautifully written. But this is not for the faint of heart. To be honest, the cover made me think this was a story for the Young Adult category. Although adolescents would gain a lot from reading it, this is very much an adult tale.

Diana has had an interesting and varied career and is very well-known in Jamaica for her activism. I was thrilled that she was happy to come here for a chat, and when you read her answers you'll see that we have been grappling with the same questions in our writing and our lives:

I see from your bio that you have held many jobs, from race/track steward to insurance executive. How did you come to writing?

Actually, I came to writing first – I declared I wanted to be a writer very early, certainly before I was seven, when I had my first stories published by a local newspaper. I have written all my life, but mostly in secret. My father encouraged my reading and writing when I was a child – he gave me books to read and talked to me seriously about them, read my early efforts at prose. But as I edged into my teens, he told me that I should give up on this as the only suitable subject for great literature was war – and women could not go to war. I believed him. I kept writing, but never for publication. Then in 1994, I sent out a short story and it won a local short story prize and I decided to try and write on deadline – so I applied to be a newspaper columnist. I wrote a weekly opinion column until 2002 and when the newspaper discontinued my column, I decided it was long past time to forget what my father had told me and to finally do what I had always wanted to do – write novels.

Dog-Heart portrays what I suppose is the worst of Jamaican society in a very real way. Was there one particular incident you experienced that spurred you on to write the book, or was it a lifetime of observations?

Yes, in fact for a period of about seven years I was involved with a family of boys, and as portrayed in the novel, I thought the answer was a good education and paid for their schooling. This experience led me to really think about a timeless question – what is our responsibility to help others? What form should that help take? Can we do more harm than good? Can we ever reach across gaps of race, class and life experiences to truly understand each other? As I was thinking about this, I attended a writers’ workshop where we were asked to write a piece from the point of view of someone who was a different sex, age, race, class and economic background to ourselves. That piece eventually became the first chapter of Dog-Heart.

I am very much interested in the way the arts, and writing in particular, can be used to help bring about social change. You are also a noted environmental activist. Do you see an interplay between your art and your activism, or do you tend to keep them separate?

I too am interested in the way arts can bring about social change, but Jamaica does not have a strong literary culture. We are much more drawn to music and the performing and visual arts. I wanted to write a novel that was relevant for Jamaicans, that was about their lives, their obstacles, their hopes. I hope I did that, and I hope Dog-Heart will influence more people to read. (I know, I know – I dream in colour!) I do try to keep my writing life and my environmental activism separate – they are certainly separate in time, because I write very early in the morning and then I go to work – but I also do quite a bit of environmental writing. My next book is another novel – it’s due out in July this year – but after that I want to write about my environmental journey – what it means to speak for natural resources in a developing country, where so many people do not have enough, not one day of their lives.

Thanks again, Diana. And all the best to you! I can't wait to read your next book. Do remember, please, to let us know when it's out and available.

All the best to you as well, Sue. I really enjoyed A Clash of Innocents… (of course, I had to leave in that plug. SG)

Writing the Last Word

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000Z

As my handy-dandy Word Count Meter on the right shows, I have now written the last word of the first draft of the new novel. I posted as much on Facebook and I received all sorts of lovely messages of congratulations. But how did it really feel?

Not as expected. When I wrote the last word of my first novel, Tangled Roots, I cried. Yes, really. It was an overwhelming feeling of accomplishment, joy, fear and even loss. But mostly I think I was proud and amazed at having finished something I never thought I could even start. Those were tears of joy, mostly.

When I wrote the final words of my second novel, A Clash of Innocents, I didn't cry. Instead, I punched the air with my fist and shouted -- out loud, I think -- YES! I was thrilled to see I could actually do the deed again. I knew that my final scene was perfect to the extent that it almost felt like a gift from the gods. You know how gymnasts throw their hands up after they land? That's what it felt like.

So now this week, here I was knowing I was about to write the end of Book Three. But everything was different this time. The scene was outlined. I knew exactly what would happen and how. I had had my eureka moment about a week earlier when it became suddenly clear to me that what I thought would be the final scene wasn't right and that something else needed to be there instead. That was exciting. But now here I was, needing to write the last 1,500 words and...I just wasn't doing it. For a couple of days I came up with all sorts of excuses -- it was the weekend, my son is home from uni and he might need me, I have to call my parents, etc etc. Then on Tuesday I had a quiet day to myself at home and I knew this was it. This was the time to get it done. But first I had to sharpen my pencil. Then I had to unload the dishwasher. Then I even had to check Facebook one more time. That's when I knew I was in trouble. So I got out my old bag of tricks and tricked myself into sitting down. Deciding I wouldn't write, I would just reread the last thing I had written. That was enough to get me there. And then, two hours later, I was done. Did I cry? No. Did I punch my fist into the air and shout Yes! ? No. Did I run around the flat doing a happy dance? Not even that. I did...nothing. I felt...shamefully blasé. My first reaction was "Okay, good. That's done. Now I need to do......." but then when I realised that was what I was feeling, I started to worry. What does this mean that I'm not crying and excited? Is it rubbish? Is it boring? Will I have to trash the whole thing and start again? And if I do, what then? What about all the plans I've made, people I've told? Oy. What a headcase I can be.

But now, twenty-four hours later (yes, I'm posting this a few days after I've written it), I realise how this all makes a sort of sense. It's the curse of knowing more, I suppose. The curse of experience. I am now happier about finishing than I had been, but I also know that I'm not really finished. Not by a long shot. In some ways, the hard part is just beginning. I liken first drafts to sight reading music. When you sight read, there are no expectations. You can make whatever mistakes you want and it doesn't matter. The point is to get to the end and see how it went. But then, the practice begins. Hours of exercises, fingerings, bowings, repeating phrases until they land automatically in your fingers. It's very hard work, and in many ways, more tedious. All that is ahead of me, not to mention the possibility that I might end up being the only person who likes the damn thing when it's all done. So I suppose that's all the stuff that has gotten in the way of my happy dance.

That's normal though, I suppose, and the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. My measured response to my accomplishment has even started to look like a sort of progress, in the macro sense. Look how far I've come. I've written three novels. I've run this particular marathon three times and I'm still standing and looking forward to tomorrow's run. I guess I'm a writer, after all. Having that thought did make my feet start tapping. So I put some old Rolling Stones on the box (so to speak), poured myself a glass of wine, and, for a short time, let 'er rip.

So now I can also reveal the new title. I think we'll call this one Perfection and Ruin. How I came up with that title is a subject for another post. But for now, I'll allow myself a little Yippee. Care to dance?

Dancing Across Borders

2012-01-16T08:00:00.000Z

Of personal and, increasingly, professional interest to me is the way the arts can be used to promote change, both on an individual and societal basis. One of the wonderful aspects of my involvement with Cambodia is that is seems to attract artists and people interested in the arts, and I am finding more and more organisations doing extraordinary work with Cambodians through art.

I have recently learned about a young Khmer dancer, Sy Sar, who was "discovered" by a Western filmmaker with a keen interest and involvement with ballet, director Anne Bass. She made a film about the way she was able to interest Western classical ballet dancers in his unique talent, and how a group of people joined together to get him the training and then the exposure he needs. He is now a coveted ballet dancer in the States and yet he has kept close ties with his roots back in Cambodia and works bringing dance and, thereby, a better life to the children there. This is an amazing story. The film is called Dancing Across Borders, and I urge you to go read about the film and the story behind it here. And in the meantime, check this out:

Writer-in-Residence: Term 2

2012-01-13T11:32:00.003Z

I am sitting in my office at SOAS for the first time since the start of the second term. Careful readers will remember that in October I started this new position at the University of London's School for Oriental and African Studies (for you non-Brits who might not have heard of this place before). I wrote about it here. The first term was fascinating in ways I expected and in ways I didn't. During that term I met with a steady stream of students one-on-one, ranging from first year undergrads to third year doctoral candidates. There was even a professor or two thrown in. I chaired a reading by the Malaysian short story writer, Shivani Sivagurunathan, and I led a guerrilla poetry workshop (i.e. the students didn't know in advance that they would be writing or even discussing poetry -- ha!).

This term the plan is to see more students, lead an expository writing workshop for first years, and give a seminar at the Centre for SE Asian Studies. Am I making myself indispensable? I hope so.

These sorts of residencies are weird ducks. Every writer I know wants one. More and more writers are getting them. It might seem like a bit of a scam to some -- i.e. what does it mean? what is it for? -- but after one term of having my own, I'm here to report that I do think they are very worthwhile. Non-writers still hold writers in a certain amount of awe, silly as that might seem. Facing the blank page is terrifying for most people, and many then seem to forget that all that we are trying to do, really, is communicate our ideas as well as we can. It may sound silly, but I do believe that the greatest service we can do is to remind people of just that. Writing is a tool. We have ideas. We want to communicate them. Writing is one way to accomplish that. How could that be forgotten by so many? I don't know, but it seems to be the case. So, demystifying the process has been my first task. The fact that I needed to do this was not surprising, though the level of fear was.

But once I can get them from hyperventilating at the thought, I can then go on to my next task which is the language itself. Now, perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised at this, but I was. Most people really struggle with stringing a sentence together. My experience at SOAS is a bit unusual in that most of the people I work with are not native English speakers. But nonetheless, they are here, orally fluent, and have taken on the goal of writing academic papers in English. The amount of help many have needed with basic grammar has surprised me. And to be honest, this has been true of some of the native English speakers themselves. Please don't think I am complaining specifically about this particular institution. I know that this is a general problem. There is a lot of blame to go around for this, starting at the secondary school system, progressing to the grading of language admission exams. But the biggest problem, I fear, is that there is a belief that the more complicated the sentence structure, the more sophisticated. People seem to think that if you write sentences with many clauses and lots of indecipherable abstract nouns, then you'll sound smart. The example I always use comes from my own graduate school days when I came upon a sentence in an "important" published text that referred to a plethora of bogus Roscii. Huh? Actually, the author wanted to talk about the large group of people who had been pretending to be part of the Roscius family, even though they were not. Now really....so my second task is to show that there is elegance in simplicity and that the really knowledgable person is the one who can clearly explain what they mean. I do believe this a very noble cause. We are privileged to have a beautifully expressive language. Let's not f' it up, guys.

I love being here, surrounded by brilliant ideas and fascinating people. And I love having the opportunity to remind them of the difference between adverbs and adjectives. I've now come to believe that if being here helps me find a Cambodian poet to translate, or formulate my ideas on using literature for social change, then so much the better. But if not, it's still a privilege to be a cheerleader for the language. I'm telling you -- I can't wait to start standing in front of a blackboard and diagramming sentences.

courtesy of grossmont.edu

Poetry Fraud Revisited and The Question of Ambition

2012-01-09T09:00:00.000Z

My last post certainly struck a chord. I had loads of comments both here and on Facebook. I know it's always hard to listen to what seems to be a good ole whinge, and people flocked to buck me up and show me the lighter side -- for all of which, I thank you.

I thought I'd now make a quick list of some of the comments made:
* Glyn Pope reminded me that if you don't have times when you feel useless, then you get complacent and your work suffers.
* Adele Ward reminded me that in today's poetry world in order to get known it's just as important to physically show up and read at events and open mics as it is to win competitions and get published. Maybe more.
* Emma Lee said that what all poets (all artists, actually) need is a circle of trusted readers, a group of people who you know appreciate your work. That is the most important thing to help you feel "legit" and valued. Emily Dickinson is the prime example.
*Lauri and Shauna Gilligan noted that everyone has moments of insecurity like this and it's part and parcel of being a writer
* Tim Love left me the fantastic TS Eliot quote: No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: he may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.
* Mike Horwood agrees with Adele, but goes on to stipulate "if that's what we want."

"If that's what we want"...this brings up the interesting and important question of ambition. I struggle with this quite a bit. I must admit that I am rather ambitious, and yet my ambition embarrasses me. On the one hand, ambition is what keeps us progressing, improving and challenging ourselves. That is definitely a good and important thing. But ambition also seems like just so much ego getting in the way. Fiona Robyns has an excellent posting about the importance of "enough" here. And, like always, it reminds me that the ancient Greeks were and still are right when they said Mayden agan, meaning everything in moderation, or more literally, nothing to excess. Ann Alexander told me she thinks it's important not to be too worldly when it comes to poetry. She said, I would still write poetry even if I had never had anything published anywhere...that infinity of lovely, beautiful words to play around with; and the elusive nature of poetry - worth a lifetime's struggle.

How could I possibly forget that?

And so, thanks to all my friends, I have been nudged back into place. I also think, after reading the excellent discussion of the same issues here by Tania Hershman, that perhaps this also has to do with where I am in my career. I'm at the five year mark: five years since I moved from being a wishful writer to a publishing writer. Five years since I've learned about the dark side of being published, come up against the demon of professional envy, gone from the euphoria of the bound book to the fear of what next. The question is what to do now, and what to do the inevitable next time I get out of kilter. The answer, of course, is to write. To get back to the work. Sure, I must continue to live in the real world, know it's there and step out into it. But, as Tania mentions, I can stop focussing on the quantitative -- i.e. how many followers, how many sold, how much money, how many acceptances, how many rejections -- and focus on the qualitative -- i.e. how beautiful is that phrase, how correct is that word choice, how true is that portrayal. I must always come back to that quiet place of me, my pencil and my notebook -- whether I'm writing poems, novels, plays or even blog postings. If I can do that, then my writing and I will both be okay. I believe the same will be true for all of you, no matter what your work is. Ever onward...

Poetry Fraud

2012-01-06T12:07:00.000Z

I wasn't at all sure I should write this post. A part of me thinks that it's "unprofessional" to publicly announce your insecurities and weaknesses. But then again, this blog has become more than just a public professional face. This blog is my ongoing dialogue with myself and my friends, so here it goes..

When it comes to poetry, I have been feeling like a fraud. This has happened to me before, but the feeling was overwhelming over the last month or so, and I have to tell you, it's not a good feeling at all. I suppose it started when I realised that I had been totally ignored by the two competitions I had recently gathered my courage to enter. Of course, I didn't win -- I never win competitions of any sort. But once again I didn't make the short list or the long list or get a commendation or anything. Zip. And then there were the Year-End Lists where I wasn't mentioned even once by anyone. Then I started to think about how my poetry books rarely get reviewed or noticed. No one in the poetry world gives a nod in my direction or asks me my opinion or anything. Thinking about such things, I went into a good old spiral of gloom, as we writers can so easily do. No one knows me. No one cares. You know the kind of thing.

I then thought, "Oh well -- this is what you get for daring to write prose as well." REAL poets don't write novels and plays. REAL poets only read poetry, not fiction. And not only that, but REAL poets have hundreds of poems memorised. They can reel off the rules of a form, from sestinas to villanelles, at the drop of a hat and tell you all about their histories and cite important examples. They've read everything by Keats, not to mention Yeats, and they can comment knowledgeably on the differences between every school of contemporary poetic thought there is. And I can't. Ergo....

Now I know that anyone who isn't a REAL poet would raise their eyes at me in annoyance about all this. After all, I have been publishing poetry for nearly 10 years (I just looked and realised that the first poem I ever had accepted for publication in a literary journal was published in October 2002). My poems have appeared in some of the most important journals in Britain. Plus, I have -- not one -- but two books of poetry published by real life publishers. So how can I say that I'm not a poet? Well, my arguments are (1) 10 years is a long time and still no one in the poetry "establishment" knows about me, (2) I've never been published in The New Yorker, or The Poetry Review, or Ploughshares or any of the national newspapers (3) my books are ignored by reviewers and my publisher, although marvellous in every way, is not Bloodaxe or Carcanet. You see how crazy I can get?

After wallowing for a bit, though, I got tired of feeling like a poetry fraud and I got angry -- at myself. For me, the best remedy for this sort of literary malady is to write. "Answer me this, Sue," I asked myself. "Do you want to be a poet?" "Yes, please," I answered. "Why?" "Because I love poetry and even if I don't want to write it, I can't seem to stop myself from doing it." "Well then, you little fool. Shut up and start writing." "Yes, Ma'am."

And so, over this holiday I started each morning with a quiet few minutes reading poetry. All sorts: contemporary, old, American, British, long, short. And then a funny thing happened...I started to write. Over ten days I wrote four poems (that's a lot for me) and also came up with an idea for a new collection. The poetry part of my brain became not only re-engaged, but re-ignited. And although I still feel frustrated and annoyed, I don't feel like a fraud. The remedy is always the same. Just shut up and write.

I usually don't print my poems on the blog, and certainly not new, probably-not-really-finished poems, but it seems only right to post one now. Here you go:

Misplaced

By mistake I left my toothbrush in thedownstairs bathroom

standing at attention, awaiting my return.

All day long I remembered to retrieve it

and bring it back to its home in the cupupstairs.

I remembered when I brought the driedtowels from the laundry

and put them on the shelf across the room.

I remembered once again when I loaded thedishwasher

and gathered up the petals fallen from theroses.

All day long I remembered my poor toothbrush,only to have it

slip time and again back into that world oflost thoughts --

until just now when I stopped what I wasdoing

and marched into that bathroom, laughing tothink

of my long-suffering toothbrush chucklingat me, having waited

so patiently, erect and out of place.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I found itnot there,

the space beside the toothpaste tubevacant,

vacant like me as I rushed up the stairs tofind it

in its proper place returned sometime,somehow.

Condescending in its rectitude, it glaredat me

in wonder at all I had forgotten. Ishuddered. It bristled.

Resolved

2012-01-01T16:09:00.000Z

Like everyone else this New Year's morning, I've been drinking coffee and thinking about life. 2011 was one hell of a year. You don't need me to tell you about the global upheaval it brought, month after month, from politics to economics to the environment. No corner of the globe was immune. But my little nook of the world saw a huge amount of change as well and, luckily for me, most of it was good. 2011 was the year when I had two books to publicise, when I ramped up the promotional side of this writing career of mine, when I started a new chapter in my life through my connection with Cambodia and all that has led to -- travel throughout SE Asia, teaching at SOAS (Univ of London), developing my program of literature for social change. This year I realised that the time had come to hand my theatre company over to some one else and step away from actively producing theatrical works. And then, on top of it all, we moved house after twenty years, heading down the river to a different part of London, a completely different lifestyle.

To be sure, 2011 was, for me, a year of change, and change is good. I'd like to think that change helps keep you young (that's my story, at least, and I'm sticking to it). But sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. So, what do I wish for for 2012? For 2012, I wish for continuity. Let this year be one where I build on what I started. Let me consolidate my thoughts and focus on improving the projects I've already begun. Let me make progress, rather than make change.

Wishing everyone health, happiness and perhaps some clarity of thought this new year. And do me a favour, folks....if you see me running off again all excited over some new big thing I've cooked up, please do what the cowardly lion begged his friends to do for him: talk me out of it.

Happy Holidays

2011-12-19T08:00:00.000Z

I know not everyone is celebrating a holiday over the next few days but we at Chez Guiney are celebrating two. This is one of those years when Chanukah and Christmas coincide and we celebrate both. I've always felt that on such years, rather than dilute the festivities, the overlap enhances them. Maybe that's why I'm in a more festive mood this year than most. But regardless, in a couple of days I fly off to the States with Number 1 Son where we meet Number 2 Son at the airport and then travel together by car then ferry to our island house. The Big D joins the following day.

Islands are, of course, wonderful in hot weather. But I especially love ours in winter. I love bundling up for our annual Christmas morning beach walk. I love trudging down our dirt road in the snow, and even if there isn't snow, I love the sound of the crackling dirt beneath our boots.

But of course, best of all, is having the four of us under one roof for an extended amount of time, eating too much, drinking too much. I love watching old movies together. I love the sudden serious conversations. I even love when we hide out from each other behind temporarily closed doors.

So, yes, I am a holiday mush ball in anticipation. And before I nauseate you all even more, I'll sign off for the time being with this year's holiday video - in honour of the re-emergence on the scene of The Muppets.

Lots of love and many thanks for listening to me ramble on over the past year. See you in -- gulp -- 2012.

Attention: A Workshop with Sarah Salway

2011-12-16T08:00:00.000Z

Workshops with Sarah Salway are always a treat. She is now offering a new one which sounds so fascinating, I knew I wanted to pass the information along. She is taking bookings for this now, so do think about it and act quick!

For three days in February (22-24th inc), Sarah will be running a workshop in Norfolk along with Alison Piasecka. This one is different from her usual workshops. Here, she and Alison will be looking at using writing as a tool for finding out more about yourself, rather than developing writing skills.

The course is run through the consultancy and training company, Moving Through Transitions that Alison Piasecka set up last year with Jean Woollard. Between them they have over 50 years of working as organisational developers, but set up independently because they wanted to work deeper with people who were either looking for, or undergoing, some kind of personal change.

As you will see from their website, they are offering a number of different courses next year. The one Sarah will be working on, Postcards To Yourself, is really about writing at your own pace, discovering new insights, learning new tools for future journal writing, and, above all, relearning how good it can feel to play on the page and stretch your imagination. You can find out more on this website. The three days will take place in the rather magical sounding Othona, in East Anglia, right next to the oldest church (645AD) in Britain.

This sounds like a fabulous way to spend a few days in February, doesn't it?

Holiday Book List!

2011-12-12T08:00:00.000Z

I've never done this before, but I thought it would be fun. Like all "great" ideas, it's turned out to be more difficult than I ever expected, but nonetheless, here it is: my suggestions for great gift ideas for the readers in your lives. Some of these books I've blogged about before, in which case I've linked to that post so you can read more about the selection than I can put here. Not all of these have been published this year. Some are older, those books that have been hanging around on the bookshelf for a while feeling lonely. I also decided not to include links to publishers or on-line sites. We all know where we like to buy our books, but if I may, while I'm suggesting things, may I suggest that you buy from your favourite local independent bookshop? These places need our support, they are the places which are more likely to stock a wide range of work, and anyway, they're fun. So, from all of us who write to all of us who read, happy shopping:

The Coward's Tale First and foremost, at the top of the list. Just recently published, this magical novel is the debut of the much feted short story writer, Vanessa Gebbie.

Getting the Picture by Sarah Salway, which I wrote about here.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, which I wrote about here.

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal, which I also wrote about here.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre. Ridiculous that I hadn't read any of his books before. My, what I've been missing.

The Wasteland, The App by T S Eliot and Faber. To my mind, the best example of what all this technology can do for literature. I wrote about it here.

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa, another wonderful writer who I never got around to reading until recently.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery which I wrote about here. This is a novel with characters you long remember, even after you've forgotten where they came from.

Home by Marilynne Robinson. Some say this isn't as good as her previous novels, especially Gilead. But if this is only her second best...

Seeing Stars by Simon Armitage. Don't worry about whether it's poetry or prose. Just enjoy it.

Where the Air is Rarified by Susan Richardson. Poetry about the environment, beautifully illustrated by Pat Gregory.

While I'm on the subject of poetry, several wonderful poets have brought out books recently (using that term loosely - I've lost track of time). But regardless, I'd love to point you to the work of Billy Collins, Carrie Etter, Katy Evans-Bush, Ruth O'Callaghan, Carolyn Oulton, Sue Rose, John Siddique, Kelley Swain, Todd Swift.

I purposefully didn't include above any writers published by my own publisher, Ward Wood Publishing because they are all new publications and all my friends. But if I do say so myself, you can't go wrong with any of them.

Branded: PR and Me

2011-12-09T08:00:00.000Z

It is true that you have to change with the times. It's also true that you have to change with yourself. Lots has changed in my life over the past several years, but the professional changes have been the most confusing. So I recently asked a pr firm to help me navigate my way through the choppy waters of today's book selling industry. Notice I have said "book selling industry" and not "publishing industry." I am very lucky to have been picked up by the publisher, Ward Wood, who is happy to publish both my fiction and poetry. They also, despite their relative youth and small size, do more promotion than most. Nonetheless, selling the books you do get published is a very hard nut to crack and, let's face it, selling and reaching readers is what publishing is all about. I think sometimes writers forget that and think that signing the publishing deal is the goal. No, alas, it's not. It's just the beginning.

There is a terrible word out there now that we all have to embrace as long as we aim to sell our books or anything else: branding. Any honest writer will tell you that in order to develop their readership, they have to endure the process, one way or another, of becoming a brand. That is really what I had wanted help with. What does that mean? How do you do it? And, my God, how much social media can one planet accommodate?
Creating a brand for yourself is creating a persona. It is who you want the world to see. There are writers who reject this and say they won't take part. But that in itself is a way of creating a brand. As long as we write for others, we become visible to the public and open to their perceptions of who we are. Actually, whether we write or not, we all do that. The thought of it can be rather distasteful, but I've used the necessity of it to look at who I am now as a writer, where I am now in my career, and what I want my readers to see of me. That has led to changing some things and keeping others the same.
Will I change the denim jacket I wear in my head shots to a Chanel suit? No. Will I neglect to change my photos for years with the outcome being I haven't aged in a while? Well, yes -- but some of that is about money and laziness as well as a need to remain youthful, if not actually young. Will I change the tone and substance of my blog? I'm not aware of having done that too much over these past four years, but I may have and not been aware of it.
But the tone and substance of my writing has changed, to be sure. My subject matter has broadened and absorbed me into it. And it's time for me to reflect that in my brand. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I unveil to you today my new website. The url is the same, but the look is different, the tone is different, the purpose is different. Take a look, please. What do you think? (Ps: In case you think there are mistakes or something missing, there are some changes still to be made, but I got tired of waiting to tell you about it.)
The PR company called Authoright helped me create this. And they also showed me how the purpose of the website had needed to change. In today's market an author's site should be fairly static and showcase their collection of work. The website is very important. It is your primary on-line presence, your business card, of sorts. But get this: when it comes to interacting, updating and propagating new information, it's more effective to do so through the Facebook Page. Facebook has become the most efficient way to "meet" your readers and encourage them to stay connected with you as an author, and thereby, remember you when a new book gets launched. And so, I am dutifully directing people to my Facebook author page -- which is different from my personal page -- and trying hard to keep it updated as regularly as possible.

Whether all this actually leads to an increase in sales, I don't know. Actually, my appearance on Radio 4's Excess Baggage the other week only seemed to produce a sale of one book, so far. But I suppose this is all a sort of investment in the future. The more I write, the more people will remember my name and be interested in what I write. But of course, that means I have to keep finding the time to write, which is, indeed, another story. Don't get me started on that one....

Times are indeed changing, my friends. Whether we like it or not. Tweet Tweet.

Christmas is Cancelled

2011-12-05T08:00:00.000Z

Don't worry, this post has nothing to do with the economy or any of the other cataclysmic horrors we all seem to see looming ahead. No, this is about a new song and a mother taking the time to boast shamelessly about her son.

Number 2 son is at university, and in addition to doing all the things all uni students do (which, happily, does also seem to be quite a bit of studying), he play bass guitar in a fantastic Motown/Funk band called "The Nostalgics." (Yes, he's the serious, soulful one in the back). They've become the dance band on campus, and this past weekend they played before over a thousand people at a venue hired out by a group of their college's residential houses to hold their year-end party. Yes, that's right -- over a 1,000! The mind boggles.

But they have also written and recorded a brand new Christmas carol which I now invite you to listen to. Be forewarned -- get your dancing shoes out:

<a href="http://nostalgics.bandcamp.com/track/christmas-is-cancelled">Christmas Is Cancelled by The Nostalgics</a>

Buying and Selling

2011-12-02T08:00:00.000Z

On Sunday, 4 December at 7.30 pm, I'll be a featured poet at the Torriano Poetry Series, held at the Torriano Meeting House, 99 Torriano Avenue , London NW5. My fellow Ward Wood poet, Peter Phillips, will be joining me and reading from his wonderfully poignant and often humorous collection, No School Tie. I'm quite excited about this reading. The Torriano Series is one I have heard about for years and years. It's run by Hearing Eye, an independent poetry press that's been publishing since 1987. Many of my favourite British poets have read there, and I'm thrilled to now be added to their list. If Kentish Town is local to where you are likely to be hanging out on Sunday evening, do come by. There will be an open mic as well and lots of opportunity to do some Christmas shopping for those poetry lovers in your life.

And speaking of Christmas shopping, I'm in the process of compiling my own list of suggested books for this year, something I haven't done before. Surprising how difficult it is to pick and choose. But while I'm still noodling over this, let me point you in the direction of the great deal Ward Wood have just started. Poetry, novels, novellas of all sorts and stripes, all by some of the most talented and creative writers around (if I do say so myself). And to make it even better, Ward Wood is contributing a portion of each sale to charity. What could be better?

SPECIALFESTIVE BOOK OFFERS

FROMWARD WOOD PUBLISHING

Foreach purchase we donate £3 to charity

It’s the seasonfor remembering friends and family with gifts, and if you’re giving the gift ofbooks we have some tempting discounts.

£3 will be donated to two London Cold WeatherShelters for the homeless with each purchase.

You can choose asingle poetry collection or a novel by any of our authors, together with theprizewinning short poetry collection by Caroline Squire which won the firstLumen/Camden Poetry Competition in aid of the homeless – An Apple Tree Spouts Philosophy.

The brand newBedford Square 5 anthology of fiction and poetry from the MA in creativewriting led by Andrew Motion and Jo Shapcott is also part of this offer.

Both books will cost just £8.99 (poetry) or£9.99 (fiction/anthology) in the UK (£10.49 for poetry or £11.99 for fiction toother countries) and we’ll pass £3 to the Cold Weather Shelters. The pricesinclude postage.

The brand new BedfordSquare 5 anthology of fiction and poetry from the MA in creativewriting led by Andrew Motion and Jo Shapcott is also part of this offer.

If you’d ratherhave three books, then you can choose any two from our list and we’ll add inthe prizewinning book from Caroline Squire and donate £3 to charity. This offeris £15.99 in the UK £17.99 to other countries.

We think it’s anoffer that’s hard to beat, with prices as tempting as we can make them to helpyou with your gift shopping list.

Theinternational Camden/Lumen Poetry Competition judged by Carol Ann Duffy withpublication of a 20-page short collection as the prize is now open again. Yourshort collection could be part of our seasonal offers at this time next year,and all entry fees (£2.50 per poem or £10 for 6) will go to the Cold WeatherShelters charity at a time of year when they need support. Details of theoffers and the competition are on our website www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk

Writing about the Russian Mafia

2011-11-28T08:00:00.000Z

What do I have in common with the Russian mafia? Not much, thankfully, except my friend, Joe Stein, has written a brilliant new detective novel which shows that he knows enough about them for both of us. I first wrote about That Twisted Thing Called Truth here, but since then I've had the chance to ask Joe some pointed questions about writing this sort of book, which is a genre I love but can't imagine being able to write, and about his own experiences that have given him the scary inside info that allowed him to write about such scary people:

Youwrite in a genre very different from my own and you excel in plot development.How do you plot out your books? How do you think of the twists and turns?

Very kind of you to say excel! Butalthough the plot is obviously important, I often think of it as a device toshow the characters’ development. Events happen which allow the reader to havea new way of looking at a character and how he/she reacts to that event. I usually have a starting pointand end in mind for the plot, and sometimes, some set scenes that I want toinclude, but I think of my plotlines as fairly simple and I don’t want toovercomplicate them, because most events in life, even the extreme ones are reasonablysimple and follow patterns. Credibility is really important to me and I hope thatany ‘twists and turns’ appear to be natural developments of events or thecharacters’ reactions to events.

You’vewritten a trilogy using one particular character as the main character in each.As a reader, I never tired of him and wouldn’t mind a 4^th chance towatch his life. But as a writer, are you tired of him? Does he still intrigueyou?

No, I’m not yet tired of Garron.I think (I hope) that he has changed and evolved since the first book. Here’s aguy who grew up in a tough, but not criminal, world with little education, andthought he’d got out through boxing. When that didn’t work, he found he had noother skills. His decisions are driven by his circumstances and in some casesby self-deception about his own motives. He’s an introspective character and infact the first book was really written not as a thriller, but as a characterstudy, though set in a world with thugs and guns in it. He’s been described as a ‘toughguy’ character, but I don’t really think of him like that. A lot of thriller leadcharacters are called tough guys, but he’s not a 6 foot 4 ex-special services marine,with three black belts in martial arts, who can make a flame thrower out of anempty washing up liquid bottle and some sticky-back plastic. It takes more tobe tough when you’re not sure what’s going to happen, or whether you can dealwith it, or if in fact whether you should try dealing with it at all.

One thing I have found in thesebooks though, is that telling a story in the first person does limit you interms of the language. I find sometimes that I can’t use certainwords or phrases because the character telling the story just wouldn’t usethem. And that can be a little constricting at times. I have to try to workaround that by having other characters say what he wouldn’t!

Ilove the way you write a car chase. It’s breathtaking, in that it really takesyour breath away. Did the style of writing for that scene just happenorganically or did you make a conscious decision to write it the way you did?

That’s a very interestingquestion. It’s back to the credibility thing. I wanted to see if I could writea car chase in a realistic and believable way. We all like car chases, fromBullitt to the Bourne films and most of us drive, but I wanted to see if Icould describe what it would really feel like to be in that. To be right on theknife edge of controlling that vehicle. I tried to write it as I would havedriven it, if that makes sense. So yes, it was a conscious decision to write itthat way, hopefully taking the reader along with the characters, but at thesame time, that’s the way it came out. It’s then a question of whether it readsright to me, whether the gut reaction which I’m looking for in the reader isthere in me as well. In that respect, it was a little like the unlicensed boxingscene in my second book, where I wanted to write a fight more or less in realtime and as it would happen and feel. Then you’re into the re-writingstages, but trying to keep the natural flow of what is going on, which if you’renot careful you can lose when you’re on the second or third draft. If it works, it’s good, if itmisses, it misses by a mile!

AndI must ask…your ability to write about Russian mafia, the life of a body guard,the violence of the people in that world – where did that come from? Should Ibe worried about your wellbeing?

No, Sue, thank you but you don’tneed to worry about me. I’m out of that world and I have a day job and afamily. That’s enough hard work, I don’t need thugs and Russians and bulletproofvests anymore! But I worked in an industry wherethese people existed. If I hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t be able to writecredibly about them. Obviously, the books are a fictional exaggeration of thejobs and the people I worked with (and if they weren’t fictionalised, I’d stillsay that they were!) but those types, mindsets, even some of the lesser events(though not all) are based in reality. And that should give the books thecredibility they need as a background to what the characters do and how theyact. Because, to get back to your first point, I’m more interested in whysomething happens and how people react to that, than the event itself. (Have I dodged that question wellenough?)

And thank you for the questions, Sue,I don’t often get the opportunity to talk about writing and this has been apleasure.

Thank you, Joe. And to all you crime novel lovers out there, do go check out Joe's books. You can buy them in all the usual places.

Literature for Social Change

2011-11-25T08:00:00.000Z

While I was having a wonderful time in Ireland pounding out the first draft of Novel 3, the kids of Anjali House were holding their third Writing Workshop. In between writing episodes about fictional lives in Siem Reap, real lives in Siem Reap were being poured into poetry and short stories which were then forwarded my way via the magic of the internet. Talk about feeling connected! Their work is as mesmerising as ever, and it was interesting to me to see how the work of the new kids differed from those who had worked through the process before. Not better or worse. Just different.

In the past I have sent them photographs or ideas to use as prompts for their writing. But this time we did something different. The end of the workshop coincided with the annual Angkor Photo Festival. This festival was started years ago by an international group of photojournalists who then also began to put cameras into the hands of local street kids. Those kids became the first group to attend the shelter which has now become Anjali House, and now with its Writing Workshop, we decided it was time to combine the two arts projects together. So this time the kids used their own photographs as prompts and I think the results are quite beautiful. As they say, "Imagination is the Best Power." I am so proud to be a part of it, and I can't wait to be back with them leading their next workshop in March.

I wish I could show you all 28 pages of this issue, but I can't. Instead, here's an example:

Meet Poet, Carolyn Oulton

2011-11-21T08:24:00.001Z

Over the past years, I have had the good fortunate to get to know Carolyn and her poetry. I think all poetry lovers should know about her latest collection.

Carolyn is a Reader in Victorian English at Canterbury Christ Church University. Her collection, A Child, a Death and the Making of the Fairytale Woman registers Carolyn's interest in Victorian and modern mythmaking as well as the landscape of East Kent. In this beautiful book, she has created a life with all its humour and tragedy, dreams and fears, out of a language mixed with beauty and simplicity. Both quiet and powerful, this is poetry that carries you along in waves, like the sea that crashes through it. It stays with you, reverberating in your ear and your heart.

Here is an excerpt, the poem from which the title of the book is taken. After reading it, you might well want to order it from the publisher, BeWrite Books, here, as well as the usual other sources.

A Child, a Death and the Making of the Fairy Tale Woman

These shreds of gauze are carelessly cut out
before being fingered to bits; a small pair of fists
might be almost enough to keep them back.
On subsequent days,
treading ice - a parent will tell
of holding the child in air
like a juggling ball -
collision and tumble,
steep then flat, the snow
implodes. And there is waiting
again - pouring fast over ridges of air,
scrambling over the height of the garden,
cars are sludge and grime on the dual carriageway -
there is waiting for a phone
to ring. A single robin
flaps against a window. You see they die.
You can paste the figures back onto
an appropriate landscape. Who knows why
in some versions, the hair is cut off
or the cinders grind? All the time
remember, there is blood in a sister's shoe.
It doesn't matter. What you can't get back
always, is an outline, quite the right shape,
to edge onto the backdrop,
and the snow
falls angrily in rags, fades to water
where it bumps against bare skin.

Retreat!

2011-11-18T17:11:00.001Z

Random thoughts:

1. Look at the 1st Draft Progress meter to the right. Yep, that's 73% done and a crazy 13,000 words written since I've been here.

2. I haven't left the house in two days which is partly due to the above, partly due to the rain, and partly due to being too lazy to change out of my sweatpants and put on my shoes.

3. I finished reading a fantastic crime novel by Joe Stein called That Twisted Thing Called Truth. Yes, I know Joe and yes, he is published by my publisher, but I wouldn't rave about this if I didn't mean it. I wouldn't mention it at all. So...go buy it. It's a real page-turner, and his descriptions of car chases and shoot outs are wild! (I'll be writing more about him and his book later. I might even get him to answer some questions about how he could possibly know the stuff he's written about. Hmmm.)

4. I wrote about the difficulty I was having coming up with a title for novel 3 here. Well, I think I've come up with one, at least one I can use as a working title. I had been playing around with two specific words which felt like they needed to be a part of it and this morning, who knows how or why, the way to put them together in a catchy, intriguing way, popped into my head. I wasn't even in the shower -- which is how I tell my students to do it. I won't tell you what it is now, just in case.....

5. I was part of a fascinating reading here the other night. The Irish Writing Centre, where I read in September and talked about here, has sent around three memoirists to read at various venues around Ireland. It really was very nice of them to include me in the reading, considering I don't write memoirs and I'm not Irish. But it gave me a chance to read an excerpt from A Clash of Innocents that I don't normally read, and to think about an aspect of my writing which I don't normally think about, i.e. my use of memory and my slightly wacky impulse to want to turn reality into fiction.

6. People have asked why I can get so much writing done when I'm here, and I think I've realised why it is. Obviously, it's the quiet and the fact that by being here in the first place I've made a commitment to put my normal life aside. But I do blog (obviously). I do answer emails and check out Facebook. So what's the difference? One, I don't make plans to see people or get my hair cut or run errands or grab a drink (I mean tea) with friends in the afternoon. Even if those things don't take up much time, knowing I have to do them means I have to put on real clothes, break my momentum, plan my day etc. When I'm here, there are lots of things I do, but nothing I have to do, and that's a big difference. And two, I don't have to think about my meals. I don't have to plan them, organise them, order (I mean cook) them. All I do is notice the time, amble out to the kitchen and eat. Another big difference. So it's not so much about real time. It's about mental time.

And speaking of mental time, I've run out of it. I need a nap and a shower and then an amble over to dinner. Enjoy your weekend.

Deadlines Made Easier to Bear

2011-11-14T08:30:00.000Z

For the first time in my writing career, I feel like I have a serious deadline. I feel like, finally, there are people out there in the world waiting for something, expecting me to produce. I have always been the type of person who responds well to the pressure of deadlines. I have always made them for myself even if they didn't really exist and I may have done it again. You see, I have told everyone from here to Cambodia and back again that I will be bringing my next novel back to SE Asia in the spring of 2013. That sounds like a long time away, but the fact of the matter is that for that to happen, the finished manuscript -- yes, the one that has already been written and revised and edited and revised again -- needs to be in the hands of my publisher by October 2012. Eleven months from now. Dear Ward Wood, please avert your eyes now because I have to admit that I've fallen behind. Yes, the word count meter off to the right of this page is creeping up word by word, but not fast enough. My plan was to finish the first draft by Christmas and as of today, I am just a bit over halfway done. Okay. I have had some good reasons for falling behind. Namely the facts that I moved house while also traveling a lot to promote A Clash of Innocents. But nonetheless.....

So I'm taking myself to Ireland, the retreat called Anam Cara that I have mentioned here so often, the place where I always get the most writing done. I can't wait. And although I don't see how I can write half a novel in a week, I know that being there will bring me much closer to my target. And this time, to get myself in the mood, I've been able to watch a tv show which just aired featuring the Beara Peninsula, Anam Cara, and the visionary Sue Booth-Forbes who founded the retreat. "Wild Camping - Ireland" was aired on Thursday, November 10th, 2011 at 8pm (Sky 251) and the first episode focused on Beara as inspiration to writers with writer-in-residence Bernard O'Donoghue and Beara poet John O'Leary. Sue was there, too, talking about the retreat, making tea for her tv host guest, and ushering everyone to their best work. I believe you can still see the show on the Travel Channel website. If you're interested in seeing why so many of us writers love to go there, do take a look. Or, you could read an article about the place recently printed in The Irish Times.

So, in the spirit of work to be done, you may not see me again this week...or, if things are going swimmingly, you just may....

Coming to Radio 4!

2011-11-11T08:00:00.000Z

Big news! I will be interviewed on the popular Radio 4 show Excess Baggage by the fascinating

John McCarthy tomorrow....yes, that's tomorrow, Saturday 12 November at 10.00 am UK time. Very exciting and a bit scary, to be sure. I hope you can listen to it if you're home with the radio on. And if the timing doesn't work for you, you'll be able to listen to it on their Iplayer here. I'll be putting it up on some sort of podcast site too and I'll let you know how to access that, as soon as I know. And for you non-UK listeners out there, don't worry. You'll be able to access the Radio 4 site and listen to it from there at your convenience. I do think it will be a fascinating discussion about Cambodia, "ethical tourism," and of course, why I've become so intrigued and committed to the place. Do listen, if you can.

From a pr standpoint, this is pretty huge for me. National coverage is very difficult to get. And I've been told that I will now be able to put on my press releases, bios etc "as heard on BBC's Radio 4".

Excuse the boasting, but......

Wish me luck!

Blog Change

2011-11-06T12:25:00.000Z

There's lots of changes chez Guiney of late. As many know, we've moved house after seventeen years and with that came a new neighbourhood and a very new and, actually, exciting lifestyle. There's also my new connection with SOAS as Writer-in-Residence in its Department of SE Asian Studies. Out of that has come the move from back burner to front of my interest in using art for social change, and this has necessitated moving my work in the theatre towards the back of the hob (stove top for you Americans out there). There will also be a newly updated website which should be ready to unveil any day/week now.

So everything feels ripe for change and that includes my blog. As careful readers will remember, I thought about stopping my blog all together which led to my musing here about why we blog in the first place. Of course, after nearly four years, I've become addicted to this place and so will not be stopping any time soon. But I have decided to make a subtle change which probably no one but me will notice. For years I have been regularly blogging on Thursdays and Sundays -- did you notice? Well, starting later this week I'll be blogging on Fridays and Mondays. I don't expect it to make much of a difference to be honest, but it will suit my new schedule better. I know many bloggers write their posts in advance and schedule them for the appropriate times. I have done that sometimes as well. But my ideas are often more spontaneous than that. So my timing will be different from now on. But I have to ask, do you think it matters? Is it just important that there needs to be some sort of regularity in order to maintain your readership or do readers really expect to turn on their computers on a specific day and find a specific set of blogs waiting to be read?

In any event, I'll next see you here on Friday instead of Thursday, and I'll have some exciting news about me on Radio 4! And in the meantime, in the spirit of change, here's a little music for a Sunday afternoon (ps - I have also used this song as a way to trick teenagers into writing poetry....)

Where to Launch?

2011-11-03T10:04:00.000Z

I'm a great believer in celebrating success - especially in a job as rife with rejection as writing is. So whenever I or anyone I know is able to have a book published, I want to party! But like all good parties, book launches need planning, and the first question is where should the launch be?

There are several ways of looking at this, I think. The first is the traditional idea of launching at a bookstore. I've been to launches in outposts of large chains like Waterstones (I actually had one of mine there) and Borders (ahh..remember them?). And I've been to launches in small indie bookshops like The Big Green Bookshop and The Calder Bookshop. Both settings are great. You certainly can't beat the feeling of launching a book surrounded by other books which have paved the way for you. Plus, these venues are run by knowledgable readers who know how to run a launch, how to get people in the door, and how to handle book sales. This type of venue also has the benefit of attracting the public, those unsuspecting book lovers who may just happen to be in the store at the time and so may just happen to buy your book, a book they never even knew existed. And that's a huge plus.

Then there are the private, more personal venues, places that are important to the writer or to the specific book they have just written. For example, my first novel, "Tangled Roots," being about a physics professor among other things, was launched in the wonderful Victorian library of London's Science Museum. "A Clash of Innocents" which is set in Cambodia, was launched at Asia House. I see this sort of venue as the midway point between the three types of three launch sites. These places are usually proper venues with their own caterers and organisers, often also with their own membership or newsletter. Although they may be just as used to staging weddings as book launches (and so are sometimes more expensive, but not always), they know what they are doing and can take much of the burden off the shoulders of an already nervous writer. Such places can also open the event up to a semi-regulated public, i.e. people you may not know but who already share a common interest. That in itself is a great way to build a readership. These are the sorts of places where I have held my own launches and, to be honest, they've been great. They've felt like big parties and let's face it -- after years of writing the damn things alone in my room and my head, I know I've wanted to be in a big wine-filled room full of people unreservedly singing my praises. But hey -- that's just me.

The third type of venue is like the one I went to Tuesday night. I was thrilled to make my way into East London to The Commercial Tavern to celebrate the launch of Joe Stein's latest crime novel, That Twisted Thing Called Truth. I loved Joe's first two novels and have been eagerly awaiting this one. He has created a character and a world which really stays with you and makes you feel like "but for the grace of God go I..." But more on his new novel at a later date. First, the launch. The Commercial Tavern is a great old pub that has been around for many years and has gone through many iterations. It's packed full of local characters. It has lots of local character. The upstairs room where we were even had a wall full of unrelated jigsaw puzzles. East London and this pub in particular is clearly special both to Joe's life, work and writing and Tuesday night became an intimate -- though not small --party. Alas, poor Joe had recently hurt himself and was on a crutch and full of prescribed meds that the underworld characters he creates probably know too much about. But that didn't stop him from making a lovely welcoming speech, despite the pub din all around us, selling and signing lots of books, and being a great host. And so this felt especially personal and we who were there felt privileged to have been asked. A very special type of launch, indeed.

Now there may be other types of launches, but these are the three that I know of, and each one does the trick but in its own way. I'm sure for the publishers, these are marketing events. But for the writers, they are much more than that. They are a celebration of their life's work, and a statement of belief in their future. So which type would you choose? It's fun to think about, to be sure.

The Wit and Wisdom of Margaret Atwood

2011-10-30T10:58:00.000Z

The best thing I can do for today's blog is to point you in the direction of yesterday's mini-interview of Margaret Atwood in The Guardian. Every Saturday, they run a Q&A where they ask the same 25 questions. Her answers are the best I've ever seen. My favourites are to the questions: What is your favourite word? and What is the most important lesson life has taught you? Although the joke at the end is pretty great, too. Enjoy!

Fiction, Poetry, Science, Wine and Brownies

2011-10-27T18:27:00.000+01:00

If that doesn't make for the perfect 24 hours, then I don't know what does. Wednesday evening I sat on a panel for Cambridge's Festival of Ideas discussing such questions as what gives a writer or scientist credibility? Do facts exist? What is the responsibility of a creative writer to the science he/she is responding to? Is plausibility enough? The poet Kelley Swain, who is also the Writer-in-Residence of Cambridge University's Whipple Museum, moderated while I duked it out in front of a vocal and appreciative audience with Richard Barnett, Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Fellow; Marek Kukula, the Royal Observatory Public Astronomer and Laura Dietz, novelist, science writer and lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University. Quite a stellar panel to be a part of. And if that wasn't enough, Kelley even made up bookmarks with each of our names, photos and affiliations on it. I'm a bookmark! I had really been looking forward to this event and it didn't disappoint -- nor did the group dinner afterwards, where we continued the discussion with the help of a couple bottles of wine and, yes, brownies for dessert.

Then today, I spent the morning playing tourist in Cambridge, ambling in and out of the colleges. I even went punting on the Cam. It was a lovely way to spend a few hours and prepare myself for helping to lead a writing workshop with Kelley and Laura on finding the stories in science. This was held in the Whipple Museum which is a quirky and wonderful place dedicated to the history of science. Surrounded by old telescopes, models of body parts, wooden models of the solar system, we spoke with new writers about turning science into fiction, finding inspiration in objects, tweaking out the story behind a concept.

All in all, a great trip to Cambridge, and I even sold a copy of Tangled Roots.

Cambridge Festival of !deas

2011-10-23T08:30:00.000+01:00

Now this is an event I'm really thrilled to be a part of.

The Cambridge Festival of !deas is in the midst of it's third year as the only free arts, humanities and social sciences festival in the UK. Last year it attracted over 9,000 visitors to over 180 events, and this year is well on it's way to topping that.

I have been asked by the poet and Cambridge's Whipple Museum Writer-in-Residence, Kelley Swain, to sit on a panel she is moderating called "INcredible Stories in Science." Along with my fellow panelists Dr. Marek Kukula, Public Astronomer from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich; novelist and science writer Laura Dietz from Anglia Ruskin University; and Dr. Richard Barnett, Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Fellow, we will be discussing the idea of reputation and credibility in science and art inspired by science. I'm thrilled to be thinking and talking about the connection between science and art once again. Although my last novel was more politically and geographically inspired, my first one, Tangled Roots, portrayed the life and mind of a theoretical physicist and required a year's-worth of reading about cosmology. The novel I am writing now is combining my two interests in SE Asia and science by portraying the lives of Western doctors who come to Cambodia to set up a Women's Health Clinic. While I'm writing this book I've also been thinking a lot about the connection between medicine and music. The interface between science and art is fascinating, and I know this discussion will bring up all sorts of new ideas for all of us.

If you can, do come by. It's free and bound to be something special.

Wednesday 26 October, 6:00PM - 7:00PM

Anglia Ruskin University

East Road

Cambridge

A Connecticut Yankee

2011-10-21T17:08:00.000+01:00

I lived in Connecticut over thirty years ago. I have lots of good associations with the State, but it actually has seemed very far away over the past years. I associate Connecticut with leafy suburbs and sensible lifestyles - a far cry from the ultra-urban life I've been living. But it was wonderful spending two days there, looking at the autumn foliage along the highway (when I wasn't driving through incredible rains), and catching up with friends, new and old.

A Clash of Innocents in the window
of Bank Square Books

My first stop was a marvellous independent bookstore in Mystic called Bank Square Books. This is a large, well-stocked bookstore, just like the good old days. The fact that it isn't squeezed between buildings in a big city means it has space for shelves full of interesting and unusual finds, and parking. They are known for their author series and I was thrilled to be given the opportunity to appear there. But alas, the weather gods were against me. My talk came in the middle of flooding rains and ominous skies so no one was in the shop at all, except the staff. As I drove up from New York, I had imagined that this would be the case. But despite that, actually, it was still great. I talked and read to the staff who loved the work -- even the poetry collection. And they then went on to buy six copies of A Clash of Innocents and set it up as one of their Staff Picks. They also bought two copies of Her Life Collected, and these were all really purchased, not just taken on consignment. This is a bookshop that promotes independent publishers and I know they are interested in all the authors published by Ward Wood, so despite my lack of audience, I still have to believe that this was an event worth doing.

That evening I stayed overnight with an old friend from college days. His wife is the journalist and writer Abby Sullivan Moore, who writes non-fiction about parenting issues, and specifically the role of technology in the lives of University students and their parents. Fascinating stuff, not only because of the content of her work and interests, but also because although our work is very different, our experiences as jobbing writers are very similar -- setting up gigs, self-promoting, pounding the pavement .... it's all the same these days no matter what you write or who publishes you. It was a real treat getting to spend some time with them.

And then in the morning I addressed a class of teenagers at a private school which has a separate arts certificate that the kids can earn alongside their usual college prep diploma. These kids are creating their own art, whether it's in writing or painting or music or dance, and they're thinking about the role of art in their society. The school also has an annual service trip to Cambodia and so my own work fit it very well with their interests. I ran a "Master Class" for them where I read from the novel and also talked about the life of a writer as I am finding it. Plus I spoke a bit about the topic which is becoming more and more important to me and my work, namely using art for social change. I do love talking to kids so this was a real treat for me.

And now the working part of this trip is over. I'm in the airport waiting for my flight to Washington DC where I'll be going to a wedding. Then it's back to London on Monday, back to writing and of course more events. Look out for Sunday's blog all about the first one of these -- me at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas.

Different Sorts of Book Signings

2011-10-16T14:55:00.000+01:00

It's been a busy couple of days.
Two book signings. Two books to be signed. Two very different venues and very different audiences.

At the Grolier Poetry Bookshop

Friday afternoon at The Grolier Poetry Bookshop in Harvard Square. This is a wonderful, old-style bookshop. Shelves full of books. That's it. No coffee. No computers. No comfy chairs. Just walls full of bookshelves and three people who own and run the place, poets and poetry lovers all. I was set up in a corner by the door, with copies of my poetry book, Her Life Collected, on display and a black music stand. By the cash register was a shelf full of cookies, plastic cups, a jug of cider and a bottle of wine. The idea was that when people happened to come in, I would talk to them and read a poem or two, "as the spirit moved." A little free form for an A-type compulsive like me. But it was fabulous. There was a lot going on in Harvard Square that afternoon between the University's 375 Anniversary celebrations, parents weekend and alumni events. And a place like the Grolier doesn't necessarily get a lot of foot traffic. But over the course of a couple of hours I was able to meet plenty of poetry lovers and read about a dozen poems. Here's how it worked. Someone would happen to find themselves in the shop, either because they knew about the event or, more likely, because they knew the shop or were intrigued by the window. I then introduced myself to them and chatted. If they were amenable, and most of the time they were, I would ask them a bit about themselves and then choose a poem from the book to read to them, for them. Now really -- how often does a real, live poet stand there and read a poem to you, chosen especially for you? Not very often. And what a terrific connection it created with the listener who then, more often than not (I'm happy to say) became a buyer. It's a great model for a reading, I think. I believe everyone who passed through those doors that afternoon had a positive experience. I met loads of readers/poetry lovers I wouldn't have met otherwise, I sold lots of books, the bookstore was happy. Thank you, Grolier, for having me. I can't wait to come back!

At the Boston Book Festival

And then onto Saturday and the Boston Book Festival. A completely different, though equally rewarding kettle of fish. All day long at various venues around Boston's Copley Square were workshops, lectures and book readings, mostly by very famous writers, mostly of non-fiction -- one of the truths about publishing today, but that's another discussion for another time. And then ringing the area were dozens of booths run by everything from bookshops to pr firms to non-profit writing groups to arts programs and schools. I was stationed in the booth of the book promotion company, Authoright, who has been helping me make some inroads into the US market. I was their "Example A" and I was thrilled to be. It gave me the opportunity to meet and talk to literally hundreds of people who came out on a sunny Boston afternoon to wander around and discover whatever they could about books and their writers. I sat there behind a table full of my books from 9 am to 5 pm and I talked...and talked...and talked. And I sold books and connected with readers. Most people were interested in talking to a "real live writer" and ask how do you do it, is it hard to get published, when do you write, how long have you been writing. And although most were interested in my novel, A Clash of Innocents, there were poetry lovers there, too. It was exhausting but fascinating and it gave me yet a different way to connect with readers and even create some new fans. The other interesting point was to see how many people said they couldn't afford to buy books right now. The economy in the States is as bad as anywhere and many people are un- or underemployed. Alas, book buying is a luxury for them. It was worse on the streets than I had realised. But nonetheless, I sold lots of copies of both books and gave away about a hundred postcards showing the novel's cover and purchasing information. Yes, by the end of the day I was exhausted and cold. But I was happy and, to be honest, rather moved by the reception I received.

And now it's Sunday, a day to rest up before I head out to New York City to see family for a couple of days before my two events in Connecticut. I'll let you know how they go. Wish me luck -- and hope I don't get lost on the backroads and interstates.

Your Itinerant Writer, signing off for now.

Breaking into the States, Again

2011-10-13T12:00:00.000+01:00

Here I am, back in Boston. I'm here to see my beloved Number 2 Son and hang around with The Big D while he goes to some meetings. Then next weekend, I'm off to Washington D.C. to go to the wedding of my friend's daughter. So given that schedule, I have done what an self-respecting self-promoting writer will do -- I've set up events. Over the coming week, I'll be presenting my work at four different venues in Boston and Connecticut, each one very different, each one exciting. To all my Bostonian and Connecticuter (?) friends out there, please do come along if you can, say hi and lend some support.

Boston

Friday, 14 October: I will be giving an informal reading and book signing of my new poetry collection, Her Life Collected, at The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, 6 Plympton Street Harvard Square from 1-3 pm. Drop in at any time. If you don't know the bookstore, it's a gem — crammed to overflowing with books stacked on tables and shelves, delightfully quirky people who work there. It's worth checking out whether I'm there or not.

Saturday, 15 October: I will be hanging around, chatting about my novel, A Clash of Innocents, all day at the Boston Book Fest, Copley Plaza. From 10 am to 5 pm or so, I'll be found standing at the table of the pr firm called Authoright. This has turned into a huge annual event for book lovers of all sorts. Again, you might want to go in any case.

Connecticut

Wednesday, 19 October: I'll be giving a formal sit-down presentation of my novel, A Clash of Innocents, including a talk about present day Cambodia and how I am using the novel to help effect social change there now. This will be at The Bank Square Bookstore, 53 West Main Street, Mystic, from 5-7. I hear this is a wonderful, very independent bookstore with a great speaker series. I'm thrilled to be able to be included in it.

I'll also be talking to the students at the Watkinson School in Hartford the following day, but that of course is closed to the public.

Last summer, I held several events on Martha's Vineyard, but these events now are really a way of testing the waters beyond the Cape Cod Canal. Sure, I grew up in America, but my adult life and my writing career has been spent in the UK. Will the States be interested in the work of one of its wandering daughters? Fingers crossed.

Teaching Writing

2011-10-09T12:21:00.002+01:00

When people generally think about how writing is taught they tend to think of workshops, small rooms filled with large handfuls of students sitting around tables doing exercises suggested by a tutor. I often teach that way as well. But the teaching I'm now beginning to do in my capacity as Writer-in-Residence at SOAS is going to be different, I think. Yes, there will be the occasional workshop where I'm going to surprise a group of unsuspecting undergraduates into writing poetry. But mostly the teaching I'll be doing will fall under the heading of mentoring, and that's something very different.

Friday was my first day. I am lucky to be able to use the office of one of the faculty members who will be on sabbatical all year. I put a sign on the door and although it simply says my name, my title and a hand-written "Just Knock and Enter," what it really means is "The Doctor is In," because as a mentor I am only part writer. Mostly, I am psychologist, trusted listener, even mechanic. My students at SOAS will be anyone stuck, undergraduates, post-grads, faculty. People about to start writing, people mystified at where their essays have gone wrong, people who find themselves staring at a title for three hours and not being able to write a word. Basically, I ask questions and let them talk.

So, what are you writing about? How well can they explain their topic to me? Are they energised when they're discussing it or are they already bored to tears? Do they say they are writing about one thing when actually they start talking about another topic entirely?

What is getting you stuck? Is it the structure? Overwhelmed by too much research? Nothing makes sense when you write it down? Or are you already worried about the dissertation defence two years away and paralysed because you don't really believe you can do it in the first place?

I have already had two discussions of this type with my first two students. The talks last an hour -- once they start talking, they can't stop. And clearly I become a sort of Mother Confessor. And I'm thrilled because this is exactly what they need. They need someone not embroiled in academic writing to be able to step back, look at what they are doing and listen to what they are saying. Yes, I then also give all sorts of handy tips I've picked up along the way, like my index card method which I wrote about here. I talk about setting an egg timer to an hour to force them to get away from their desk, make a cup of tea or comb their hair whether their brain is in mid-flow or not. I talk about engaging one side of your brain by doing something with your hands so that the other side of your brain can be quietly left alone to come up with writing solutions. I write about all the little psychological tricks you can play on yourself to make your writing time seem special, even self-indulgent.

But basically, I'm playing shrink and I think that's fine. Because let's face it, most writers are fairly neurotic, overly introspective people. It's part of the personality type, alas. The more we write, the more we have had to figure out how to write. And most people actually find that very comforting to hear because it gives them permission to be as crazy and obsessive and self-flagellating as I am myself. And it shows them that they, too, can get past it and actually get those words down on paper. And it does something wonderful to me, too. Talking to them, I am talking to myself, reminding myself of all the lessons I have learned from other writers over the years and am always in danger of forgetting myself. It's so true -- misery does love company. Or as Firesign Theatre once said, "We're all bozos on this bus."

What's So Great About Being a Writer?

2011-10-06T08:00:00.000+01:00

This week I had my first official event as Writer-in -Residence at SOAS. I hosted a public reading by the Malaysian fiction writer and poet, Shivani Sivagurunathan. Shivani read from her recently published short story collection, Wildlife on Coal Island. I loved this collection. While Shivani claimed she never had any intention of writing in the style of the South American magical realists, for me the stories were full of extra-natural happenings. People talk to animals, trees have curative powers, magic is everywhere. While I knew nothing about Malay culture, her stories landed me right in the middle of their beliefs, their dreams, with humour and heart. I can highly recommend this collection.

In my new role at the University, I was also able to chat with her before the reading, and a bit after at dinner. My trip to SE Asia in the Spring will take me through Kuala Lumpur, and so I hope to be able to see her there and give a reading of my own at the University Putra Malaysia where she is a Senior Lecturer of Comparative Literature. It really is rather amazing to be in this position now of being able to connect we Western writers with our Eastern colleagues. Who knew that there was such a group of Malaysian writers writing in English? Well, now we do. I wonder if this connection will change our writing in some ways, will influence our own perspectives and use of language. Certainly our worlds will be expanded, and that in itself is an important thing, don't you think? Plus, I have a new friend. Fantastic.
---------------------

And this just in. The next installment of the round table discussion about writing on Lauri Kubuitsile's column on The Voice is here. The question is what's the best and the worst thing about being a writer. I think my post above helps add to my answer.....

What's on the Radio?

2011-10-02T09:00:00.000+01:00

I have lived in the UK for over twenty years now, and still I'm occasionally caught out by subtle differences between my adopted country and the country of my birth -- or even more to the point here, my adolescence -- the US. Growing up in the States and specifically in NY when I did, radio was very closely linked to youth culture. It was all about listening to rock n roll either with the transistor hidden under your pillow on a school night or the car radio blaring out through open windows. Sure, sometimes adults listened to classical music or the news, but I don't remember being particularly aware of what is now called, I think, talk radio.

But in the UK, everyone listens to the radio and always has. Radio is not the less beautiful, often ignored younger sister of television. It is an important and unique part of the entertainment industry. The British listen to all sorts of radio programs and most interestingly to me, all sorts of spoken word programs: short stories, radio plays and -- oh my God, can it be true? -- poetry.

Friday evening I had the pleasure of being the invited guest of the poet, Susan Richardson, at a live taping of BBC Radio 4 Extra's special program in honour of Thursday's National Poetry Day called Saturday Live Poetry Pop-Up. I have been a big fan of Susan's work for several years now, ever since I stumbled upon her blog and her first collection, Creatures of the Intertidal Zone. We first met at the Polyverse Poetry Festival held in Loughborough a few years back. So I was thrilled to bop along over to Broadcasting House to watch her strut her stuff up on stage alongside...and now here really is the point...seven other poets who have clearly become BBC radio's go-to poets (Salena Godden, Mr. G, Luke Wright, Elvis McGonagall, Aoife Mannix,Kate Fox and Murray Lachlan Young). These are poets who regularly are asked onto the shows to perform their work. The key word here is "perform," because that is what this was, an hour of performance poetry. Don't get me wrong. I love performance poetry. I love the musicality and humour of it. I love the way it is the precursor to rap, the way it wriggles its subversive ways into your consciousness. Susan's work is not really performance poetry in this way. Hers, like Aoife's, is a sort of crossroads between two camps of poetry, i.e. the kind that you sit with while you read it slowly in a book, and the poetry that pulses along up on stage. I am aware that I am choosing my words very carefully here. I expect to get bombarded by comments of people saying that these poetic approaches are not mutually exclusive (of course they aren't), nor is one necessarily more crafted than the other (of course not, again). But I will say that the taping session gave me a look into a part of the poetry world that I know little of, about the poets who make their living performing their work in pubs and coffee houses and theatres around the country. These are the poets on "the circuit," touring the way stand-up comedians tour. I might be wrong, but you will most likely not see them teaching in Arvon courses or reviewing new collections for Poetry Review. But...and now for the Real Point (thanks for hanging in there with me)...this is the poetry that the nation listens to on the BBC. And since this is a nation of radio lovers and BBC 4 is the King, then performance poetry is the poetry of record for the nation. And that I found to be amazing, not shocking, but unexpected.

Flip back the calendar pages to the incredible hoopla over the past months at The Poetry Society. Now think about an audience of a hundred people, most of whom were not themselves poets (unlike the audiences of ten or twenty that you find at most poetry readings). Imagine them hooping and hollering, applauding loudly, giggling and sighing through an hour of verse and you'll realise that poetry is a very vital part of this culture. We may not buy many poetry books. We may not be able to name more than one or two poets writing today. But there are enough of us willing to turn on the radio and listen to words spoken in verse, often but not only in rhyme, sometimes with musical accompaniment sometimes not, that the BBC willingly devotes airtime and money to the art form. Watching it all, I felt like Alice through the looking glass. I was watching and listening to something I always knew was there, but I was seeing and hearing it in a different way. I think we non-performance poets need to be more aware of the performance poets and their work. And I dare say, they probably need to be more aware of the rest of us.

(okay, comment writers. Have a go at me and tell me about my mistaken assumptions...)

Why Blog?

2011-09-29T08:00:00.000+01:00

credit to blog_corporate.gif

Today I had lunch with one of the first friends I ever made in the blogosphere, Jennie from Tea Stains. The fact that she was an expat, a Brit and living in Thailand, a part of the world I was already falling in love with, immediately drew me to her. And then I met her for coffee during one of her annual trips home, and my first real blogging friendship developed. Jennie was also the person instrumental in setting up all those events I did last spring while on my SE Asian tour with A Clash of Innocents. And to top it off, she seemed to have brought the tropical weather with her, summer had finally found London. We decided to eat al fresco and then take a long walk along the river.

So what did we talk about? The usual woman stuff -- kids, losing friends, moving, husband's jobs. The usual expat stuff -- kids, losing friends, moving, husband's jobs. The usual writer stuff -- am I doing it right, am I doing enough, the difference between envy and jealousy, self-belief and the lack thereof. But we talked about something else as well -- blogging. Why do we continue to do it? Jennie's blog has been around for five years, mine for nearly four. Has the nature of blogging changed? Am I doing it right? Am I doing enough?

I think we came to the conclusion that as we enter different phases of our writing careers, we feel all sorts of pressures from the market, whether that market is real or perceived. "People" tell us we should blog every day to build up a readership. Some say to cast your net wider you should mainly blog about professional issues (i.e. how to get published, get an agent, get a better agent, a bigger publisher). Others say you need to bare your soul, tell all sorts of personal details about your tawdry life to gain a sense of intimacy. It was interesting that we were both feeling the same pressures, even though they came from different sources and we are doing different things with our writing. My God, we thought, if you can't even have your blog be a place where you can just do it as you wish, for whomever happens to find it funny or enlightening or whatever, then what do we have left? Yes, of course blogging is a marketing tool. And I know that I certainly have and will use it as such. But does it have to be? Is that all it needs to be? We had no answers for each other, just frustrations.

But as I gave Jennie a hug, saying goodbye on the Hungerford Bridge, I realised that we did have the answers for each other. We were the embodiment of our answers to the question Why Blog? Jennie and I are two women of slightly different age, who grew up on different continents, are living our adult lives thousands of miles away from each other, with nothing to connect us but our blogs. We never would have known each other in any other way, and the same is true of other bloggers around the world who I now have the honour and pleasure to call my friends. Friends don't write letters anymore. Sad, but true. But some of us do write blogs. And for me, at least, I know that's enough.

Signing off. Happy New Year to all my Jewish friends. And I wish the same to all the rest of you, too -- a sweet life, full of forgiveness for each other's mistakes and shortcomings, a life full of sincere connections, no matter how they come to you.

Free Verse at Exmouth Market

2011-09-25T11:42:00.003+01:00

Poets are wonderful creatures. There's a marvellous subversive element to our collective consciousness, and when we feel threatened or taken for granted, as we so often do, we rise up and make our voices heard. Yesterday's new poetry festival held in London's Exmouth Market was a fantastic example of such a poetic uprising. This was the brainchild of Charles Boyle of CB Editions, and was conceived as a response to the funding cuts last March. Charles said it best in the festival's program:
Writing is not being cut -- and the job of making the most interesting, innovative, inspiring writing available to readers is still largely that of the smaller presses. They are flexible; their overheads are minimal; they are run, most of them, by people who are mad -- which is in fact their strength, because their madness is a form of obsession not with money but with the use of language, which is where it all starts. This book fair celebrates the variety and vitality of contemporary poetry by bringing together...twenty-two independent presses.

In a large church hall, these 22 presses set up tables offering their wares -- books, pamphlets, competition information, and hours worth of literary chatting and hobnobbing. Two flights up, 30-minute readings were presented every hour or so, and Ward Wood, the newest kid on the block I think, was given the first slot. I was thrilled to be able to read from my collection alongside Peter Phillips who read from his newly published collection, No School Tie.

Michael Horovitz

After our reading, the fair was officially opened by the visionary, inimitable Michael Horovitz, who sang, read, harangued and kazooed his way through a mesmerising thirty minute slot. I was thrilled to have noticed him sitting in the audience and smiling during my reading, and then when he mentioned "Sue from Ward Wood" in his talk, I was completely gobsmacked. It gave me the courage to go up and chat with him, and we exchanged poetry books. A personal high of the day's events. But I know lots of people had lots of similar exchanges all day long, re-meeting old friends, coming face to face with people we had only known (though intimately) on Facebook, shaking hands and chatting with people whose books we have loved, whose work we have admired from afar, whose vision we have shared. Other than Michael, I was also thrilled to meet for the first time Tom Chivers of Penned in the Margins, Chris Hamilton-Emery of Salt, and Tim Love from HappenStance. It was also great to meet up again and chat with Katy Evans-Bush, published by Rack Press (though also by Salt and Penned in the Margins and probably others I'm forgetting to mention). And now as I'm reading other bloggers' reports on the event, I'm kicking myself over other people whom I would have loved to say hi to, but didn't get the chance.

Thanks to Adele Ward for asking me along and being her usual inexhaustible self. Let's hope this becomes an annual event. Free Verse really did show that, in case anyone was wondering, contemporary poetry is still very much alive and well on these shores, not only among poets themselves, but among readers as well.

Plot or Character or Setting or What?

2011-09-22T08:00:00.000+01:00

I will be very brief here because I'd love for you to go there, to a column organised by the fiction writer Lauri Kubitsile called The Writer's Room. Lauri has asked several writers including Jenny Robson, Cheryl Ntumy,Wame Molefhe, Beatrice Lamwaka, Gothataone Moeng, Tania Hershman, Fiona Snyckers and me, a series of questions about writing, the craft, its challenges and delights. The variety of answers is fascinating. If you're interested in writing -- and of course you are, otherwise you wouldn't be here in the first place -- pop on over to read some great stuff and join the conversation by leaving a comment. Thanks, Lauri, for starting the discussion.

PS And here from Lauri is the link to Part I.

Authors, All

2011-09-18T17:38:00.000+01:00

I love giving readings, but there's something about Dublin that makes it even more special. The city oozes literature. There are statues of James Joyce and Oscar Wilde to stumble upon on both sides of the river. The Abbey and the Gate theatres sit on their streets very matter-factly, not needing to call attention to the fact that in the world of the theatre, they are giants. Hell, there's even a department store named after me (only kidding). But it is true that literature and the love of language still holds primacy in the Irish culture, and that made a wonderful weekend even better.

We four Ward Wood'ers -- Mike Horwood, Shauna Gilligan, Noel Duffy and me -- started off with a reading at The Irish Writer's Centre in Parnell Square. This was a rather formal affair, with a podium facing rows of chairs, a microphone and an adjoining room for pouring wine and signing books. Each of us spoke about our work and read for about fifteen minutes to an audience of about thirty people -- friends, family, fellow writers, and even a couple of people who came in off the street. It felt like an event; it was an event, and we were each thrilled and excited by it and so, of course, retired to the pub afterwards -- aptly called The Shakespeare, not so aptly serving Korean food. Loved those pancakes!

Then Saturday afternoon we met at our second venue, The Twisted Pepper, for our reading which was sponsored by Seven Towers Agency. The Twisted Pepper is a great place, part coffee shop, part arts centre, and Seven Towers runs a sort of pop up bookshop and reading series in the cavernous basement twice a week. This was a more informal affair, with people sitting around on benches with cushions and us perched on our stools, reading by lamplight. Lots of interesting literary chatting afterwards, and I thank the proprietors for inviting us, and for their passionate support of all things indie.The evening was spent over a terrific meal and a couple of bottles of wine, with the four of us talking shop, telling stories, and making plans to take our "Ward Wood Show" on the road. Next stop Helsinki? Frankfurt for the book fair? We'll see.

Noel Duffy,Mike Horwood, Shauna Gilligan

For me, this was a very special weekend. It was a weekend that reminded me of what my dream of being a writer was always all about. It's not just about how many books I sell and how successful my marketing is. Sure, that is important, but I do sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that that is really all that is important. But a weekend like this one reminded me that being a writer is about expressing yourself, finding like- minded friends, sharing your passion for words and your belief in the importance of the imagination. Thank you Noel and Shauna for organising it all. Thank you Ward Wood for bringing us all together. Thank you Mike, Shauna and Noel for joining me in the land of Joyce and for so generously sharing your work and your dreams. Ever onward!

Dubliners

2011-09-15T08:00:00.001+01:00

Nearly a year ago to the day, Ward Wood Publishing launched its first book, a captivating new novel by an extraordinarily talented writer (ahem) otherwise known as A Clash of Innocents by Sue Guiney. Since then they have published a mix of poetry and fiction, with a new book coming out most every month of the year. It really is an honour and a pleasure to be a part of it all. And this weekend, four of us are coming together for the first time to do two joint readings of our work in Dublin. I am really incredibly excited about reading alongside these other wonderful writers -- Mike Horwood, Noel Duffy and Shauna Gilligan. If you happen to live in or nearby Dublin, I hope you'll come along and say hi.

Friday 16th September:

This will be a combined prose and poetry event with Mike Horwood reading from his novel, A Finn's Tale, and his poetry collection, Midas Touch; Shauna Gilligan reading from her forthcoming short story collection, Red Girl; and Noel Duffy reading from his novellas, The Return Journey & Our Friends Electric, and his poetry collection, In The Library of Lost Objects. I´ll be reading from A Clash of Innocents, and from my poetry collection, Her Life Collected.

The venue is the Irish Writers´ Centre, Parnell Square, Dublin. The reading begins at 18.30. but we´ll be there half an hour before to meet the audience and there will be a question time after the readings. Refreshments will be served and books will be on sale. Entry is free.

Saturday 17th September:

All four of us will be reading and chatting in a more informal setting at The Twisted Pepper Cafe which, I hear, serves the best coffee in Dublin. The address is 54, Middle Abbey Street and this will be an afternoon event, starting at 15.00.

Clearly, Ward Wood is not only publishing fine works of literature (if I do say so myself), but is also creating a community of writers which, after nearly a decade in this business, I have come to realise is incredibly important for my own work, not to mention my psyche.

Hope to see some of you there.

Places to Write

2011-09-11T12:01:00.001+01:00

Someone recently asked me to name five places I like to go to write, places that lure me outside of my office but still get the job done. I'm finding it harder to think of than I thought, because where I go so much depends on where I am at the time and what I'm working on. I believe the kind inquisitor had an answer like "my corner Starbucks" in mind, but I really don't have any place like that that I get away to on a daily basis. So I thought I'd use this space now to get my thoughts is order. The first few ideas are obvious to me:


Anam Cara View

1. Anam Cara, the writers' and artists' retreat that I try to go to at least once a year. I always gain a tremendous amount of inspiration from that place and inevitably get a huge amount of writing done. My next scheduled trip is mid-November, and boy will I need it!
2. My writer's shack on Martha's Vineyard, which I most recently wrote about here.
3. I find I always come away with ideas and I'm constantly jotting them down in some notebook, whenever I take myself out to dinner on my own. I think the combination of a little wine, some solitude and a tinge of paranoia makes me fell enough of an outsider and observer to get the words flowing. I also wrote more about that recently here.

And now this is where I get stuck. My next two places are imagined. A few months ago I would have said they were fantasies, but happily, these two fantasies are becoming reality although they are not quite there yet. But still:
4. My office at SOAS. This year I will be the Writer-in-Residence in the SE Asia Department of the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. At first, I assumed I'd be a bit of a wandering minstrel, meeting with people and doing my schtick wherever I could. But it now seems I will be able to use the office of a professor on sabbatical and so, for the first term at least, I am imagining myself going to "my office" at the university for a full day each week, meeting students and holding small workshops, and then, when I'm not needed, closing my door and doing my own writing. It sounds like bliss and I can't wait!
5. And lastly, those dedicated followers of all things Guiney will know that we have just moved from our house of seventeen years to a smaller flat in a way cooler part of town. The front of the building juts out like a series of pie pieces and each flat has its own which is used as a sort of indoor-outdoor space. My fantasy has been to place a good chair and footstool, plus a small table in there, and use that as a get-away within my own home, a place where I can sit and dream and gaze out at my new view. Although the furniture isn't here yet, the view is, and so this can definitely be added to the list.

So there they are, my 5 places to write outside my office. What about yours?

A Summer's Worth of Reading

2011-09-04T12:21:00.000+01:00

I'm not ready to stop thinking about the summer, I suppose, because I'm not yet home or whatever it is my new home will turn out to be. But as I head into the autumn this week, I'll take one last loving look on the summer, and specifically, some of the excellent books I read:

A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jenifer Egan:Interlocking stories that span decades, characters lives intertwine against the backdrop of the evolution of 80's punk music and the business that nearly destroyed it. I liked this book, although others have loved it. It is very clever and indeed somewhat of a tour de force, but perhaps for me its cleverness made it feel a bit distant and cold. I think I am in the minority on this, though. Most everyone I know who read it loved it, and I believe it won the Pulitzer Prize.

The Hare with Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal: The subtitle is "A Hidden Inheritance" and de Waal uses a small family treasure to trace the dramatic, globe-spanning history of his family. He is a noted ceramic artist, but his prose is absolutely beautiful, touching and vivid. To be able to master two such different art forms seems unfair, but this book brings together his passions to create a fascinating and moving memoir of a family caught within the insanity of 20th Century Europe and beyond.

State of Wonder, Ann Patchett: My absolute favourite read of the summer, hands down. This is the book I would have loved to have written -- fascinating ideas, real characters who stay with you, an intriguing and beguiling plot. And of course, so beautifully written that you glide along the tops of her words with your eyes and ears continually delighted and captured. A pharmaceutical company sends a scientist into the Amazon jungle to develop a potential fertility drug. Years go by without enough feedback and so two other scientists are sent to investigate. Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" echoes in the background, but this is much more than a modern reworking of that classic. I have been impatiently waiting for this book since Patchett's "Bel Canto," and it was more than worth the wait. This is a book to savour and to learn from.

And now I am in the middle of reading Evelina, Or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Frances (Fanny) Burney. Written in 1778, it is a wonderful example of the epistolary novel where characters and events are revealed through the heroine's letters. It is a delightful look at 18th Century London, English class differences and the lives of women. It's a great way to bring myself back to "the old world" and my own life within its shores.

I'd love to know what others read this summer. Do leave a comment if you have a chance.

My Summer of the Apocalypse

2011-08-29T14:45:00.000+01:00

Well, maybe not really, but at times it certainly seemed like it. The summer of 2011 was:
* an earthquake
* England on fire
* a hurricane
* Poetry Society hysteria
* everything that could go wrong with a house sale that's possible
* aborted work attempts

But it was also:
* no personal injuries or damage from the hurricane or earthquake or London fires
* a house sale and a flat purchase eventually accomplished
* the wedding of a dear friend's daughter
* a chapter of novel 3 completed, plus some additional bits and pieces
* my actor son and his girlfriend being in the hit play of the London summer season, "Blue Surge"
* lots of time on the beach with family and friends
* 2 book signings for "A Clash of Innocents" and 1 for "Her Life Collected"


reading at the Kara Taylor Gallery, Vineyard Haven, MA

So not the apocalypse after all. And now I'm sitting in a hotel room in Cambridge, Massachusetts where we are doing the college drop off of Number 2 Son the day after Hurricane Irene and I'm trying to ease my way back into work mode. September will be busy with workshops, more readings, the start of my residency in the SE Asian Department of SOAS and more work on the new novel, plus a poem or two and blogging again with more regularity.

Don't say I didn't warn you.....

Hope everyone had a safe and happy summer. I'll see you in earnest when I'm back in London in my new flat next week.

Signing Off, for Now

2011-07-28T08:30:00.002+01:00

It's the end of July. I've spent a few weeks here in my quasi-summer, doing a lot of work, seeing some family and friends, eating seafood, making occasional trips to the beach, all the while continuing to worry about London real estate woes and future events. In a couple of days I'm heading back to London for a week to move out of our family home, the place we have lived for nearly seventeen years, the place where we raised our kids. The sale has been months-worth of nightmares, but we believe enough that this present deal will happen that we are making our move. Everything will go temporarily into storage and then, after returning to the States for our August holiday, we will -- please God -- come back to London and our newer, smaller, funkier flat by the river. It's all very exciting and, as you can imagine, exhausting.

August will be its usual time of family-feeding (in all senses of the made-up word). Augusts are always very busy chez Guinee, and this one will be no exception. I know I will also be trying to continue to make headway on novel 3, but I think I better not promise any more blog posts until September.

But here's what I'll be thinking about, and what we can look forward to during the next year of my writing life:
* a completed first draft of Novel 3...not to mention a title!
* a Playwriting Workshop at the Ham and High Literary Festival in September
    * two September readings in Dublin with other Ward Wood writers - details to follow
    * the beginning of my position as Writer-in-Residence at The University of London's SE Asian Department of SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies)
    * a short book tour of the East Coast of the States in October
* participating in a panel discussion at Cambridge University's Festival of Ideas - details to follow
    * another stay at my beloved writing retreat, Anam Cara, in West Cork, in November
    * a reading with Peter Phillips at the Toriano Poetry Reading Series in December -- again, details to come
* then looking ahead: a month in Cambodia working with the kids of Anjali House, starting mid-March, while (hopefully) doing edits on novel 3

Phew! I 'm exhausted just thinking about it, but happy to think that after all these years of "wishing and hoping and dreaming and praying" so much of the writer's life, good and bad, is mine.

Wishing everyone lots of fun, sun and relaxation in August. See you on the flip side.

Love,
Sue

The Intersection of Painting and Writing

2011-07-24T09:00:00.001+01:00

I love it when writers respond to other art forms. Over the past few years I've seen exhibits and books which show the interplay between painting and poetry, stories and photography, plays and music. Any art form can be used successfully as inspiration and it shows me that the creative impulse is the same, no matter what you do with it.

I have done this with my own work. There is a poem I wrote specifically for my latest collection, Her Life Collected, in which I took myself on a field trip to the National Gallery in search of some painting I had never seen before by a painter I had never heard of. The result is a poem called "Arresting Colours" which responds to a painting by Pierre Mignard, 1691(you can read it below).

But what I want to talk about today is how I have created a new ritual around my novel writing. While I was writing my first novel, Tangled Roots, I came across a painting by a young Martha's Vineyard artist, Kara Taylor. The painting was a collage of sorts of rural landscapes embedded with physics equations, of all things. It seemed to have been painted for my book, so I bought it. It hangs in my writing shed now. And it hangs above a second Kara Taylor painting which I found just as I was in the midst of writing A Clash of Innocents. I couldn't believe then that there, yet again, was another Kara Taylor image which so clearly evoked the ideas that were percolating in my head, waiting to become words. Two novels, two paintings. So when I set down to work in my shack on novel 3, I knew something was missing. I needed a new painting and I hoped I would find another one by Kara. And of course, there it was -- charming blue skies above a gnarled and troubled depth. Perfect! So now I have three novels and three paintings and a tradition of finding art that somehow represents my work and which I can sit beneath and respond to as I write. For me, that's an entirely new intersection between art forms, more of an interplay than a response. I love the whole idea of it, and I love the paintings. Here they are (sorry the photos don't really do them justice):

for "A Clash of Innocents"

for "Tangled Roots" above, for novel 3 below

And here's the poem for Mignard:

Arresting Colours

After “The Marquise de Seignelay and Her Two Sons”

by Pierre Mignard, 1691

Why does she look sad?
Her skin is so white, her cheeks red,
her brown hair inviting.
The youngest looks up at her with pleading adoration,
naked in his yearning, with silver wings.
The older stares beyond to a charcoal sky,
pinches of disdain wrinkling his lips.

Pierre Mignard: who is he
that he captures these colours so --

that unearthly white of one boy’s hand on electric blue,
violent red slipping off the baby’s flesh?

How dare he cross generations to arrest me here
in this pass-thru gallery with its paintings of no interest,
Christ again dripping on that cross?
How dare he capture my unsuspecting heart with his
deafening browns, cold golds, sheltering mauves,
deceitful greens?

I meant to pass by on my way to the café

but these colours drag me into his painting
and now all I can see is eyes: one child’s full of love,
the other’s of impatience, the mother’s
drowning in resignation. They stop me on my way,
make me sit on this polished bench,
swallowing the black of a sigh.

Punching the Time Clock on the Beach

2011-07-21T08:00:00.002+01:00

I'm thinking about time, as I always do when I'm on this island. I've spent as much of my summers here as possible over the past 30 years, and in all that time, some things have changed but much hasn't. Every now and again a favourite shop or bakery closes or a new one opens up. Some summers see more or less sugar snap peas, earlier or later tomatoes. But I think what changes the most from year to year is me.

Staying here for the summer means I'm not really on vacation, but rather I've just moved my life from one continent to another. There were many summers when my days were organized around trips to camp instead of trips to school, and late afternoon visits to the beach instead of music lessons. Sure, very different, very summery -- but still, the life of a stay-at-home mom, with me squeezing in stolen moments to write whenever I could.

But now my life is all about work rather than childrearing (not that that isn't work!), and with that comes its own time constraints. My mornings are struggles between writing and email correspondence, my afternoons full of decisions about which chores I really have to do, and which I can put off. But hey, I'm sitting here typing this in my bathing suit, and I'm thinking, after my 3.00 conference call I just may well make it to the beach.

One rediscovery of this working summer, though, is the joys of my writing shack. I had it built -- or rather divided out of the garden shed -- several years ago, and for a while I was in there all the time. But for the past few years, now that I don't have a houseful of kids hanging around, I've neglected it, choosing to write in the quiet air conditioning of my house instead. But this summer, real estate craziness back home plus trying to set up two new book tours for next year has made my otherwise peaceful home a horror of ringing telephones and dinging computer in-boxes. So I've been going back into my shack -- and I'm loving it.

In past years my shack was solely an escape. This year, though, as I'm writing the first draft of novel three, it's a sort of transporter. It gives me a place where I am able to transport myself from the relative affluence of the American east coast, to the troubled poverty of last year's Cambodia. I walk into the shack, stare into space for a few minutes and then -- poof -- I'm there. And then the next thing I know, two hours have gone by. How lucky am I to have it! And I wonder, do other writers need specific places to go to in order to be transported, or can some of us do it simply in our own heads? I'd love to hear from you...

Titles

2011-07-17T08:30:00.007+01:00

Titles are hard. Very. They have to do so many things at once. They have to give an idea of what the book is about, without giving too much of an idea. They have to show what genre the book falls into. Have you ever noticed how different genres have different sorts of titles? They also have to keep up with the latest fashions, or consciously decide not to. Remember when the wonderful novel was published called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time? For a year or so after, a book had to have a long, multi-claused title to make it to the shelves, or so it seemed.

I actually like coming up with titles. It's a bit like playing scrabble with your eyes closed. You come up with words that go together but you try not to be too editorial about it. And very often one possibility interlocks with another. Although I've talked in more detail about how the title "A Clash of Innocents" came into being here, here's a little list of some of my titles' evolutions:
my first novel: An Unlikely Guru + A Variable Constant became Tangled Roots
my play: Table for One became The Bistro Down the Road
my second novel: An Everywhere of Innocents became A Clash of Innocents
my play: Touch became Touch Me There became Touching Joy
my poetry collection: Tripartite became A Woman's Life became Her Life Collected

I'm thinking about all this now because I am about a third of the way through the first draft of my wip and usually by this time I am amassing a list of possible titles. Or at least I'm getting some ideas of sound, structure and emphasis. But so far, I've got nothing. Nothing. I keep telling myself not to worry, the title will just pop into my head when I least expect it. One day I'll be staring out the window, like I was when writing A Clash of Innocents, and BOOM - there it will be, the titular lightening bolt. I'm actually staring out the window right now and....wait a minute....how about......

Summer Reading

2011-07-14T09:00:00.015+01:00

I love the way summer makes me think of books as much as beach. The whole idea of summer reading reminds me of childhood exploration and the realization that an entire new world could exist within a collected sheaf of papers. I remember my first really great summer reading experience. I think I was about 8 or 9. I used to watch my older sister and my good friend lying on chaise lounges with books instead of running around or swimming and I used to wonder -- what's the point of that? My God, how boring!! But then, my mother took me to the library and said, "Go ahead, pick out whatever you want and it will be your summer book." I don't remember the title, alas, but I remember the story. There was an adorable little alien creature who had an adorable little spaceship and he traveled around making adorable little friends. A classic! But even more, I remember the feeling of lying on my own chaise lounge, just like my sister, and reading and reading and reading in the shade, in my bathing suit, with a glass of lemonade on the ground beside me and my mother coming by every now and again to smooth out my hair and give me a kiss. Reading was calm, quiet, safe. I found happiness in books that summer, and I guess the rest, as they say, is history.

I was also reminiscing with a friend the other day about reading to your kids aloud during the summer. I always read to my kids when they were little. But Number 2 Son and I got into the rhythm, over 4 summers, of taking a longer amount of time, mostly in bed at night but sometimes in scattered times throughout a lazy summer's day, to read together. I remembered that these were long adult books that I read to him. Not the kids' picture books you think of when you imagine reading to your kids in bed. But aging brains being what they are, I couldn't remember what books they were. It was over a decade ago, after all. So I emailed my now grown-up busy son hundreds of miles away and asked him what we had read over all those summers. Now, Number 2 Son has many wonderful qualities, but timely email answering is not usually one of them. But on this occasion the response was in my in-box in less than ten minutes. It said: "the entire Tolkien Trilogy. Plus The Hobbit." In the immortal words of Maurice Chevalier, "Oh yes. I remember it well." But even better, clearly so did he.

And this year, summer reading has taken on yet another meaning for me. This week I did the first of a group of events around my books at a local public library here on Martha's Vineyard. I read excerpts from A Clash of Innocents, showed the slide presentation of photographs by the kids from Anjali House that goes with it, led a fascinating discussion about Cambodia, and even sold a bunch of books. Here are some pictures:

A member of the audience brought along this amazing quilt she created from photographs she took during her own trip to Cambodia ten years ago. I wish you could see it in person. It's beautiful and haunting!

Summer reading. What does it mean to you?

I'm on Bookersatz

2011-07-09T08:00:00.003+01:00

A quickie today.....the lovely and uber-energetic writer, Helen Hunt, has asked me to write a little something for the book review site Bookersatz. Her wish was my command. Please do go check it out here. Without giving it away, I'll just say it's about a book that came out a few years ago and is a must read for anyone interested in novels or writing in general. 'Nuff said.

Drinking to Write

2011-07-07T09:00:00.003+01:00

I'm not sure what sort of a post this will turn out to be. I'm jet-lagged to beat the band, and the trip eastward coming on the heels of lots of stressful nights due to our real estate wars has made me feel...well...pretty discombobulated. You know how sometimes you get so tired that you just can't sleep? So tired that although your eyes hurt they just won't stay closed? Well, it feels like that. I know that the change of scene will eventually calm me down and I'll start feeling normal again, but for now, the world seems two giant steps off to the left, somehow. I feel, as the Americans would say, disoriented (rather than disorientated -- when in Rome.....). But there is one good thing that comes from this feeling. I've noticed that I become awfully creative when I feel this way. It also happens when I find myself eating in a restaurant alone, having had a wee glass of wine. Feeling out-of-it, slightly paranoid, like an observer rather than a participant in life helps me to write. Maybe that's not such great news, but it's true.

Over the past week or so I've been stuck in my writing. I had written a scene in novel 3, and although I knew exactly where I wanted to be with the next scene, I couldn't for the life of me get myself there. Five characters were having dinner in a restaurant. Two of them got up to leave. Another two needed to move onto a bar where the next scene, an important one, would take place. But that last character wouldn't get lost. She kept wanting to tag along and neither I, nor my other characters, could figure out a way to ditch her. It was infuriating. No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't find an elegant way to do it. I had sat down to write that transition a few days ago but I had to abandon the attempt. I had to get up and walk away from it, and that rarely happens to me. But after a sleepless night followed by a six hour flight crossing five time zones and then dropping onto the back seat of a car for a two-hour drive to the ferry, I was sufficiently out of it to have something click. I was staring out the window like a zombie and then suddenly the solution came. I figured out how to ditch the unwanted character and approach the transition between the two scenes. Plus, despite my proclivity to car sickness, I took out a piece of paper and wrote it, right there in the car. Presto. And it's a good thing, too, because I absolutely must get work done on the novel over the next three weeks. I've put myself on a tight schedule and although the pressure is coming only from me, I do believe it's good for me at this stage in my writing career to feel that pressure and learn how to deal with it. And I already know that, from a writing point of view, August will be a wash out.

Now, I'm not urging people towards insomnia or drunkenness in order to write. But that sense of being out of kilter, hazy, unsteady in the world does make you see things differently. There is an unlocking which takes place and that really can make a huge difference. I'm just saying....

A Whirlwind of Poets

2011-07-03T09:00:00.001+01:00

I've been thinking all week about whether I wanted to write a post or not about the latest upheaval among the members of the UK's Poetry Society. I purposely try to steer clear of things political on my blog because my readers are from all over the globe, they span lots of genres if they're writers at all, and yes -- because I tend to be rather non-confrontational. I'm not a great believer in facts, to be honest, and so I'm always afraid to voice an opinion too stridently just in case there is some other element I'm not aware of.

But it's hard to be too timid on this one. Basically, the leadership of the Poetry Society has resigned quite suddenly and in a bit of a huff. But although there are all sorts of rumours out there about the whys and wherefores, the Society itself has said nothing to its membership and was seemingly intending to just go about its business (whatever that is), hiring new staff, adding new Trustees, without a word or comment to those of us who have paid our dues year in, year out. Over ten percent of the membership has now signed a petition asking for an Extraordinary Meeting (legally speaking), not to complain or put forward an agenda, but just to ask "what the hell is going on?" I signed the petition, too.

Many poet bloggers have written about this, but I'd like to point you in the direction of this excellent post by Jackie Wills. She seems to be speaking my mind for me. And if you want to sign the petition yourself or otherwise get involved, you can email Kate Clanchy at gmail dot com, who is spearheading the whole thing. Ahh, poets. You can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em.

PS I know the image of the Poetry Society logo has come out a bit fuzzy up above, but somehow that feels appropriate....

Leon Russell Brings Me Home

2011-06-30T08:30:00.001+01:00

"...oh, when I'm home again in England and I'm thinking of you..."

Tuesday night I went to a lifesaver of a concert. It's been a bit stressful chez Guiney lately and Tuesday was particularly bad. But the day ended, the evening began and I found myself in the audience watching Leon Russell come onstage to the opening bars of Delta Lady and that lyric above which has haunted me since my college days, even before I had ever been here. Leon Russell was one of my first big rock n roll addictions. While everyone else was listening to the Grateful Dead, I was listening to Leon. Even now, when I head over to Martha's Vineyard for the summer, which I'm doing next week, one of the first things I do is put Leon Russell on the stereo (or the 21st Century equivalent) and sing at the top of my lungs -- don't worry, I get it out of my system before the rest of the family arrives. But I tell you, there has always been for me something about the gravel in his voice, the amazingly unique honky tonk of his keyboards, his lyrics that say so much more than they seem to.......

I first saw him in 1973. He looked ancient then, but probably because then, as now, his face was hidden beneath a cowboy hat, long white hair and a long beard. Last night he still looked the same, like Methuselah, only now he walked slowly and with the aid of a cane. But once he sat down at the keyboard... He sang lots of old favourites like "Hummingbird," "Prince of Peace" and "Song for You." But he also played songs from Dylan, Rolling Stones, the Beatles and of course, Joe Cocker.

So why am I going on like this? Well, it's a bit spiritual, innit. On a day when nothing much made sense, one aging rocker from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who happened to have lived in England once upon a time ago, who happened to have written some of the songs I have loved the most my whole life long, sat a few meters away from me, just when I needed him, and as if ushering me into the summer, brought me home to myself. The universe does provide.

In the Papers Again

2011-06-26T10:00:00.003+01:00

A quickie today, but I suppose one jpeg says it all. Hope you can read it. If not, you'll find the article here. And then, if your curiosity is piqued and you missed the previous post, you can read some of the kids' latest work here.

How To REALLY Sell Books

2011-06-23T08:30:00.001+01:00

On-line sites - sure.
Blogging friends - thank God.
Bookstores - don't hold your breath.
Emailing updates to everyone you have ever met - but how many people have you ever met?

No, I do believe that for all of us writers out there with books to sell -- and yes, probably even for those famous enough to have their pictures hanging off the sides of buses and on Tube and Subway posters -- the best way, the only sure-fire way to sell books is by public appearances. Let's face it. We writers are the new rock stars, only without the drugs, and the sex, and the groupies - though we do occasionally get some cheap red wine in a plastic cup. In the way rock stars do concerts in order to sell records (I know I'm showing my technological age here), writers do appearances to sell books. Actually, that's being a bit too cheeky. It's not that one is solely for the purpose of the other. I actually love doing readings and signings and workshops and book talks. I have even come to the realization that if I was the sort of Emily Dickenson-type writer who sat in her house and wrote all day but never met her readers, I probably wouldn't be a publishing writer at all. The two feed each other for me.

But it is true that when I am out in the public, I sell books. When I stay at home, I don't (or at least not nearly as many). The equation is quite simple, really, and I do believe it is true for most of us. But that also means that it is not enough for a writer "just" to write these days. Today's writer must also be a Project Manager. I have written about how to plan a book tour here. But I think it's worth reiterating and looking at in another way. The administrative tasks associated with the planning of events is one thing. There are also other crucial steps that need to be considered as well. Once you have the event date set -- whether it is a public reading, a private book discussion group, a bookshop signing, a launch (and this goes for fiction and poetry and non-poetry alike) there is still more to be done:
    You are the Publicist: contact all the local newspapers, magazines, radio and tv stations you can to get local publicity
     You are the Party Planner: make sure the books are there to be sold, there is a cash float so you can make change, order the drinks and get the cups and if there's also food, get that plus napkins, plates etc. Get there early enough to set up the chairs and tables.
    You are the Technology Consultant: arrange for and be there to set up and test whatever equipment you need, ie microphone, overhead projector and screen, video or audio equipment
    You are the Performer: Take time out a few hours before the event to make sure you know what you are going to say and how. Practice it several times, whether you have done your talk a dozen times before or not. Decide what you are going to wear -- yes, this matters. It doesn't mean you have to be dressed up, just appropriate and professional. And do whatever pre-performance rituals you need to do. Don't kid yourself. Any public appearance IS a performance, whether we like it or not. You can't engage an audience if they can't hear you. If they don't think you know what you are doing on stage (or behind a table or in a chair in front of them), they are less likely to believe that you know what you're doing on the page.
    You are the Secretary: after the event, go through your lists and note any new people you have met, update your contacts. Sometimes you will also need to write thank you's and follow-ups.
   and finally - You are the Writer: amid all this, don't forget to keep making progress on your next book.
    So why am I talking about all this now? For several reasons. First, it is a topic of conversation that has come up over and over lately. Based on these talks with people in the industry, this all really seems to be true for all publishing writers, whether you are being published by your best friend's mother next door, or by a multi-national global corporation. From what I have been told by booksellers and pr people around the world, it is often (though thankfully not always) the case that the bigger the publisher, the less promotion they do. Again, it all falls into the lap of the writer. By all means, get whatever help you can with any of this, but ultimately we must all know that it is really our own responsibility and no one else's. In some ways, that is very good news for writers. Our destinies are much more in our own hands. But, man -- it's a lot of work.
    Second, as a writer and someone who better understands what she's thinking when it's written down, I needed to step back for a minute and think this all through. As many of you know, I am in the amazing position of having two books to promote at once, while writing my third novel at the same time. Is this what I really want to be doing with my life? All jobs carry stress, I know. But is this the sort of stress I want my little shoulders to carry? Happily, yes. I love what I do. I love creating worlds in my head and trying to express them with this incredible English language of ours. Plus, I love meeting people, sharing ideas, spreading the creativity. I wouldn't have it any other way -- which is a good thing since I am presently trying to promote my work on three continents.
And third, because tomorrow I'm appearing at another event in London, reading from both my novel, A Clash of Innocents, and my poetry collection, Her Life Collected. If you're free and in the area, do come by. There will be cheap wine in plastic cups. And there will be books to buy!
     Friday Night Writers Series
Swiss Cottage Library, 88 Avenue Road ( 2 minute walk from Swiss Cottage Tube)
    6 pm - 8 pm
    Admission free. There will also be an Open Mic, so if you are a writer, you can bring something to read. Or if not, just come and listen.

Instead of a tie this time....

2011-06-19T09:00:00.004+01:00

How about doing this for Father's Day?

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there -- but especially to mine!

Anjali House Writing Workshop: Issue 2

2011-06-16T08:00:00.009+01:00

This tiny photo is a picture of me working with the young adults of Anjali House back in March when I was there in Siem Reap setting up the Writing Workshop. Careful readers of this blog may remember that at that time we published the first issue of the kids' new literary magazine which they have titled: Wonderful Writing: Imagination is the Best Power.
    This week was phase two of the project, the experimental phase which I'm referring to as the "Distance Learning" segment of the workshop. A few weeks ago I wrote up a lesson plan which I sent back to Richard, the Director of Anjali House's Young Adult Program. In it I reminded them of the structure of the week's classes and the approach to learning which we have developed, namely one of encouragement, openness, flexibility and fun. The idea was to spend a day reminding the kids about the elements of writing both poems and stories, then have them write first as a group and then individually. I also sent over some photos of London life to use as a prompt. My idea with that was to help them think outside of their immediate surroundings, to open their eyes to lives lived across the planet and to try to apply all that to their creativity at home. Richard and Rhonda, another important part of Anjali House's growing team of volunteers, then spent a week working with the kids. As new pieces were written, they were downloaded onto a password-encrypted forum via the rickety old unreliable Anjali House computer (hint hint: if anyone has a decent computer they would like to donate, let me know :-) ). I then read the pieces, made my editorial comments and wrote individual notes of encouragement to each student. The kids used these comments to edit their pieces, accepting my suggestions or not as they saw fit. As I told them, their work is their own and the final decision about any possible edit comes from them. They're the bosses! And the result? Another amazing new issue of their magazine, full of poems and stories and photographs -- all the result of the creativity and fearlessness of these wonderful kids. Here's one example:
                                          The Life of Musicians
By: Pech, Rattana, Moni and Vireak

In the winter a group of 4 musicians are playing music to make money. They learned to play at school and they stayed friends. Sometimes they play music which makes the people happy and they will throw money into the box. The group of musicians hope people will give them money every day. The musicians need to buy food, clothes, things for their instruments.
Some people don’t look at the musicians and that makes them sad. Sometimes that makes them not want to be musicians anymore. When people look down on them they play the music very quietly and it sounds lonely. They want to find new jobs, but their skill is music and they really love music because music is their life.
Once When they were playing a rich man came and said to them: “Stop! I don’t want to hear your noise! Go away. Don’t play here anymore. If you play here, I will tell my servant to come and give you a black eye!” They packed up their instruments and they walked tired and hungry to the market. They started to play near the place that sold souvenirs. They started to play their music. A fat man got out of his silver Lexus. He heard lovely music and it made him feel very interested. He looked at them and the music told this man about their lives. He talked to them: ‘Your music is very lovely. I want to take you to my restaurant to play for my guests. I will give you a salary’. The musicians were very happy and they said: ‘Thank you, you are a very good person. You do not look down on us and you help us a lot.’ They now know they will have enough money for their families.

-----------------------

And here's a poem:

                             The Farmer’s Life in the Countryside
By: Sopheak, Sandi, Seut, Samphors, Chanroat and Kimlong

Fresh air
Green
Rice field
Cattle eating grass
A buffalo laughs
Ohohohohohoh

Farmers planting
                 Rice
                 Vegetables
                 Fruits

A cow eats grass
The farmer’s working hard
Everyone’s busy
But I’m relaxed
After working

---------------------------------

We have all now agreed that the experimental stage of our workshop has been a success. With some minor logistical tweaks, we can now look forward to several Distance Learning Workshops each year which will give the kids the continuity they need to really enhance their education and build up their self-esteem. And then once a year, I'll be there to reinforce it all. That's the rich and creamy icing on my cake! And who knows....maybe some day we'll be able to expand the program so more writers can go see for themselves what it is like to work with these kids. I can't tell you how privileged I feel to be able to be a part of all this.

Kelley Swain talks about "Affiliated Creatives"

2011-06-12T08:30:00.007+01:00

My friend, Kelley Swain, is a talented poet and freelance writer, and a fascinating person to hang around. We try to meet every few months to discuss our work and something interesting always come up. She's full of ideas and new perspectives, and I wanted you to meet her. Her focus is creative approaches to the history of science, and her first book, the poetry collection called Darwin's Microscope ,was published by Flambard Press in 2009. She is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and a Contributing Writer to New Scientist. You can read more about her work here.

I've asked Kelley to come to my blog to talk about the role of Writer-in-Residence. She holds that position at The Whipple Museum, Cambridge, and her understanding of how you can make it happen, the pros and cons of it, are unique and important. It is actually because of her experiences that I decided to try to become a Writer-in-Residence myself, and I'm thrilled to say that I have just been appointed to that post in the SE Asia Department of The University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). Here she is making her case for what she calls "Affiliated Creatives".

Though the experience of every Writer-in-Residence is sure to be unique, I discovered, upon setting up my own residency, that there are generally two kinds. In both cases, ideally, a Residency is a symbiotic relationship where both host institution and writer-guest gain equally from the experience.
The obvious kinds are Residencies which are planned and funded by the host institution. They are advertised, they are extremely competitive, and they often select either competition winners or ‘established’ writers. These positions are valuable for the writer, who gains a ‘home,’ an affiliation, and a salary for a set time. These posts also do a great deal towards encouraging writers to interact with the public. Just a few Residencies which fall into this category include the Wordsworth Trust Poet in Residence, The Whitechapel Gallery Writer in Residence and even, one might argue, the Oxford Professor of Poetry position. But I want to discuss the second kind of Residency, one that I have begun to think of as more of an affiliation, and of the recipient as an ‘Affiliated Creative’. This could be applied to any artist, not only writers.
    In 2009 I was introduced to the Curator of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, part of the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. I proposed a residency that was in line with a document published by the Arts Council England in 2003. I had read this closely, and it was the only document published by ACE which was relevant to what I wanted to do, which was to apply for funds jointly with the Whipple Museum, enough to provide me with a part-time salary, so I could actively be in residence for two to three days per week in the Museum over the course of a year. The Whipple Curator, Liba, was very supportive of this proposal, but when I went to ACE with some questions, no one I spoke to was familiar with the publication, and they said that because Cambridge was already such a busy city, artistically and culturally, I would be unlikely to get funding.
   Liba and I went back to square one, and we sought, and gained, two much smaller ‘pots’ of funding – she secured funds from an anonymous donor who had given to the Museum previously, and I gained a small grant from the British Society for Literature and Science. These funds enabled us to run four very successful events over the course of the year, events for which my transport (from my home in London) was covered, as well as my meals when I was at Cambridge. A generous friend let me stay in her guest room, and I was able to become the Whipple Museum, Cambridge, Writer-in-Residence. I continue to run events for the Whipple Museum; for now, my Residency has no specific end-date, but events are planned one after another, as we get funds, so it does lack certainty. For our next event, I’m going to run a writing workshop with Laura Dietz, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing Anglia Ruskin for the Cambridge Festival of Ideas in October, which I’m very excited about.
One challenge I’ve grappled with throughout the Residency is the age-old question of getting paid. Because we set up the residency with the understanding that funds would always have to come from external sources, sourcing those funds has always been a question. I am certain that we’ve gained what funds we have because we applied for them jointly. Those first small ‘pots’ of money allowed us to set up our first series of events at the Whipple. After that, with a letter of support from Liba, I applied for and secured an Arts Council England Grant towards my next year of activities as Writer-in-Residence. This time around, I was able to cover expenses and get paid for each event. I believe it was essential to show ACE a successful track record before I applied for funds: a matter of, ‘See what I can do? And if you support me, I can do even more’.
    One rule for a Residency is that it should never cost you money. It seems obvious, but it can be very tempting, as a writer who wants to become established, or known, or ‘get out there,’ to say, ‘don’t worry, I’ll do it anyway’. Of course I’ve paid for my own rail fare for events in the past – but I think it’s very important to put a value on our work, and it’s something to build up to. The affiliation with Cambridge has encouraged invitations for me to run workshops and give readings elsewhere, and I’ve charged the rates recommended by the Society of Authors, and asked for transport cover. I’ve also been flexible with fees when it comes to speaking at schools, for example, if their budgets are small. I feel it is fair to build this up incrementally – to earn it as you continue to publish, establish your area of expertise, and gain experience.
    Two lovely ladies whom you’ll be familiar with, Sue Guiney, my host today, and Tania Hershman, came to hear me speak at the Royal Observatory Greenwich because, at the time, Tania was interested in how I became Writer-in-Residence at the Whipple. I encouraged her to set up something like it, and she has done so with great success. Now Sue is doing the same.
    Becoming a Writer-in-Residence, or an Affiliated Creative (which to me is a more accurate description of what I am, as I’m rarely actually in residence, and as I don’t usually get paid for my activities at the Whipple,) is up to the writer: treat it like a job interview, go in with ideas, enthusiasm, and your credentials. Be flexible. Find a Museum, or a University Department, or even a shop or café. Most importantly, find the right person to support your role: someone enthusiastic, who will value you and make use of you as their Writer. This is a way for us to find ‘homes,’ gain an affiliation, and gain valuable experience.

Thank you, Kelley, for opening our eyes to this idea and helping us see how well it can work. And best of luck with all your projects.

Introducing The Waste Land

2011-06-09T08:30:00.001+01:00

Some people can't stand TS Eliot. Some find him obtuse and elitist -- and this is an argument that still surrounds poetry today, and I don't mean just about Eliot. Read the latest tempest in a teacup here. But despite all that, I have always loved Eliot. The first poem that I ever took to heart was his Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. But my favourite has always been The Waste Land. Yes, it is difficult. Yes, it relies on all sorts of allusions that we may not immediately grasp. But the language! The sentiment! The Waste Land is a difficult poem, but it is a difficult poem which refuses to push you away. It draws you in line after line and makes you feel as if you are a better and certainly more accomplished person for having stayed with it. So imagine my excitement this week when I discovered that Faber will soon be bringing out a Waste Land Ipad App! The text will be there, I believe, but so will Eliot himself in readings that had been buried in Faber's archives. And one of my favourite actresses, Fiona Shaw, will be there too, reminding us of the amazing rendition she did of the poem several years ago here in London. She created a one-woman dramatization of it which was phenomenal. I was lucky enough to see it, and now I'll be able to relive parts of it on my Ipad.

I know I'm going crazy with the superlatives, but I am truly excited about this. Not only will it bring this masterpiece to life for a new audience, but it will also use it to create a new sort of a book. The app is a fascinating way to link the written word with video and audio and interaction. If this is part of the future of publishing, then I'm not quite so scared. You can learn about it and see the promotional video here.

What Price Poetry?

2011-06-05T08:30:00.001+01:00

There was a lot to choose from Friday night in London, if you are a writer and/or reader of poetry. One of the wonders and surprises of London's arts scene is the very large role that poetry plays in it. On any given night you can find a reading, an open mic, a performance, a workshop. And so you have to ask, if poetry is dying in our society and not worth the cost of life support, then who are all these people and what are they doing with their time when they could be at home watching the public get bamboozled on The X Factor ( but that's a separate issue)?

On Friday night I chose to be one of about 300 (I'm guessing) at a reading in support of PBS, The Poetry Book Society, which was founded in 1953 by TS Eliot as a sort of poetry book club, and which has been going strong ever since until the Arts Council decided to cut its funding. Our Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, put together a Who's Who of an evening, half funeral half celebration, and I decided to spend my Friday evening there for several reasons, not all having to do with anger against the government. There have been many blogs and articles in the paper expressing outrage at how the government is cutting the legs out form under Britain's poetry scene. PBS is just one victim. There are many others, including poetry festivals like Aldeburgh and poetry publishers like Salt, Enitharmon and Flambard. There have also been people writing the other side of the story, such as poet Todd Swift whose excellent blog Eyewear points out that perhaps we shouldn't complain about poetry cuts until we have found the money to fully fund universities and the NHS. To me, both points of view have their merit. Plus, I am also enough involved with Britain's theatre scene to realize that our sinking ship is quite large and full of drowning people. The theatre world has certainly suffered just as much under the government's heavy axe as the literary one.

To be honest, I have always been very wary of the arts relying too heavily on government support. Yes, it is nice when the cheque arrives and it is solely for the purpose that you want it to be. But as they say back home, there's no such thing as a free lunch, and I have always been suspicious enough of politicians and their motivations not to want to get too comfy with them. I certainly would never want to have any organization that I care about depend so exclusively on government aid that it might sink without it. I would never want any government to be looking that closely at what art I produce and how I produce it. Nothing but trouble can come of that, just as the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe discovered in the US in 1990 when the National Endowment for the Arts withdrew support from his exhibit because they didn't like his images. And so we are seeing it here in Britain now. The verbiage may be different, but the effect is the same.

So why did I go to Friday evening's event? Several reasons. One, I like a good show and this was certainly going to be one. Two, because a friend of mine quipped, when she read that the evening would showcase 30 of our most famous poets, "Do we have 30 famous poets?" I wanted to see who was on the list and assure myself that a list did exist - whether I agreed with its contents or not. But more than that, I went because I am a poet, a British poet, and I wanted to see for myself how many of us were there, how many of us (understanding of course that this was only out of the London population of poets and people have busy lives and other time commitments) actually care enough to show up. If we don't show up and speak out and make our opinions heard outside beyond the comfort of our own little offices and writing nooks, then how can we ask anyone else to care? So I went because I believe in the importance of poetry to our culture. I may not believe that we deserve funding any more than any of the other squillion institutions who have also been cut. But I believe that as poets we need to use our voices to remind the greater population that we are still here, working away, exposing our hearts through language, and that we are necessary, whether some politician reads our work or not. Poetry matters. Poetry is one of the few things in this life that really is priceless.

Wedding Blogsplash

2011-06-01T08:00:00.050+01:00

Fiona Robyn is a writer I have been following for years. Her work and her spirit is unique, and in a few weeks she will be getting married. In a typically generous way, she and her husband-to-be, Kaspa, want to share it with all of us out here in the blogosphere, and so they have taken over my blog for today. They are both on a mission to help the world connect with the world through writing and for their fantasy wedding present, they are asking people across the world to write them a ‘small stone’ and post it on their blogs or on Facebook or Twitter.

A small stone is a short piece of observational writing – simply pay attention to something properly and then write it down. Find out more about small stones here.

Here is their message to us all and you can watch their short video here. Now, over to Fiona and Kaspa:

If you’re willing to help, we’d love you to do two things:

1) Re-post this blog on your own blog any time before June the 18th and give your readers a chance to hear about what we’re doing. You can simply copy and paste the text, or you can find the html here.

2) Write us a small stone on our wedding day whilst we’re saying our vows and eating cake, post it on your blog, and send it to us.

You can find out more about our project at our website, Wedding Small Stones, and you can also read our blog at A River of Stones.

We also have a July challenge coming soon, when we’ll be challenging you to notice one thing every day during July and write it down.

Thank you for listening, and we hope we’ll be returning from our honeymoon to an in-box crammed with small stones, including yours.

Kaspa & Fiona

Dogsbodies and Scumsters by Alan McCormick

2011-05-29T08:30:00.002+01:00

A short while ago I was asked by Roast Books to review their new publication, Dogsbodies and Scumsters by Alan McCormick. I tend not to do "normal" book reviews, but if I like a book I do like to have a chat with the author -- we writers are such weird and interesting creatures! And I really did enjoy this book of short stories. Perhaps "enjoy" is the wrong word. They are often surreal, sometimes downright creepy, but they are well-written and full of fascinating characters. Some of the stories are responses to the very imaginative drawings of Jonny Voss, and that I found to be quite refreshing as well.

illus by Jonny Voss

Alan worked in a psychiatric hospital in the 1980's and some of the stories are inspired by this. He was recently Writer-in-Residence for the stroke charity, InterAct Reading Service. His short stories have won numerous prizes and have been widely published and performed. Here then is the latest of my blog's great conversations:
Sue: Many of the stories in your collection were written as a result of your being Writer-in-Residence at InterAct Reading Service. I am fascinated by this newish role of “Writer-in-Residence” in various institutions and organizations. Could you tell us a bit about InterAct, how you came to be involved with them, and whether you think the idea of being a “Writer-in-Residence” is a good one, in general, both for the writer and the organization.

Alan: InterAct’s first Chief Executive, the theatre director Caroline Smith, had nursed her sick brother, a psychiatrist, throughout a terminal illness. Although an avid Radio 4 listener when he had been fit and well, he much preferred to be read to when he became ill. Seeing its benefits first hand, she began reading herself on a voluntary basis at her local hospice and then used her theatrical expertise and contacts to set up InterAct Reading Service. Established in 2000 and working in six hospitals, the charity is led now by the playwright Nijay Mahindru and employs a team of 200 actors and works in fourteen London hospitals as well as hospitals in Birmingham, Brighton, Manchester, Stoke on Trent, Hayward’s Heath and Oldham.

Nirjay explains InterAct’s therapeutic role and contribution better than I can: “We take professional actors into hospitals and stroke clubs to read to stroke patients. There is now a growing body of evidence to support the view that stimulation via reading and conversational interaction stimulates the neural pathways of the brain. This helps improve mood and allay the depression suffered by 71% of stroke victims.”

In 2008 I won InterAct’s first story competition, judged by Ruth Rendell, and became their first Writer in Residence. Over the next year I visited various wards and stroke clubs and saw their actors at work. InterAct are a fantastically inspiring and supportive organisation to be involved with, and being their Writer in Residence was a privilege.

I was asked to write five more stories over the year of my residency. With Nirjay’s backing and support I decided not to tailor my work, or in any way over-simplify the way I write or lighten my choice of subject matter – my work tends to the darkly comic and I can’t shy away from that. From my past experience of reading stories at live events I knew dialogue and some unforced humour where appropriate worked better for listeners than dense plots or long passages of descriptive-heavy writing. My brief then to myself was merely to keep the stories reasonably short – attention span of stroke patients can be diminished – and to make the writing lively. I’m not sure if my work in practice is particularly therapeutic but the act of writing stories to be read aloud, both for InterAct and for live events, has really helped me as a short story writer, in honing material and attempting to keep things accessible and alive.

I remain in contact with InterAct and with Nirjay in particular. I helped produce a shortlist for their subsequent bi-annual story competition in 2010 and I’m lucky to have of their two fantastic actresses read at my book launch on June 7. At Faye Dayan from Roast Books’ instigation, half the proceeds of the book will be given to InterAct.

Sue: One of the reasons why I was particularly drawn to your work is because of the connection with stroke victims. I have written a play called “The Bistro Down the Road” which is in development and whose central character is a stroke victim. Can you tell me what drew you to this particular ailment for your work, and what you learned about it from your own interaction with stroke victims and your writing?

Alan: Good luck with your play.
My mother suffered a number of strokes at the end of the last Millennium. I watched her struggle with their effects, and though she had other serious health problems, the strokes not only hastened her end but caused her to suffer greatly in the process. All her life she had been an avid reader of literature, and it was music and company that gave her comfort in her final months. In the eighties I had trained to be a nurse – not a career I was really cut out for – which involved some kind of wish or need to help people who are ill. There must be some link to these experiences in my desire to become a writer for a stroke charity but in all honesty I wasn’t overtly conscious of it when I submitted my story to their competition; my main aim was to further my writing and have the opportunity to work creatively with what appeared to be, and definitely turned out to be, an ethical and innovative organisation.

Life though can be pitiless at the same time as revelatory in its coincidences and finalities. A few months after I became Writer in Residence, my father, who had happily re-married after my mother died, suffered a startling and serious stroke. When I saw him in Brighton hospital the day he was admitted a pretty actress from InterAct was coincidentally reading to patient at the next bed. My Dad was old and never regained full movement or most importantly to him, full and normal speech, despite his own efforts and those of highly-skilled Speech & Language therapists. He fought his condition with honesty, grace and great humour but in the end after eighteen months it got the better of him. Visiting wards and seeing people read to was a bittersweet yet inspiring and moving experience, and though my Dad didn’t seek being read to, what rallied him through his ill health, as through his life, was interaction with people: good company, jokes and conversation.

In the end then I can vouch for the fundamental and beneficial effect of human contact – a visit from a friendly InterAct actor reaching out with a story or someone sitting next to a stroke patient and talking to them as a normal person – on people suffering from stokes. It can be very isolating and frustrating condition that ravages body and soul and it means a lot to me to have been involved, even in a small way, with an organisation that seeks to make a positive difference.

--------------------

Thanks so much for this honest and generous insight into your work and life. And thanks to Faye Dayan of Roast Books for the opportunity to read it and "meet" you.

Noel Duffy: In The Library of Lost Objects

2011-05-26T08:57:00.000+01:00

I'm thrilled to be able to chat today with Noel Duffy, novelist, poet and screenwriter. I had the pleasure of meeting him recently when I was in Dublin over Easter. It's always a bit scary to meet a fellow writer, especially when you admire their work as much as I have come to admire Noel's. But I'm happy to say he's all that a talented, professional and fun contemporary writer should be. And now he has a new poetry collection published by Ward Wood called In The Library of Lost Objects.

Noel Duffy was born in Dublin in 1971, which puts him just a few minutes younger than I am (ahem). He'll divulge more about his background in our discussion below, but professionally so far he has co-edited, with Theo Dorgan, Watching the River Flow: A Century in Irish Poetry (Poetry Ireland/Poetry Society,1999) and has also published a collection of two novellas, The Return Journey & Our Friends Electric (Ward Wood, 2011). Noel has also discovered the joys of blogging. You can follow him here.

Noel and I share a tendency towards the cross-genre, if you know what I mean, and so I was eager to hear his thoughts on the whys and hows of writing in as many genres as he does. He has also done an MFA in Creative Writing, and I was eager to hear his thoughts about that, too. He's also a fellow science nerd, so our chat got a bit long, but stick with it. You won't be sorry:

Sue: Some writers concentrate on one genre, others like you and me, write across several. Although you are just now launching your first full length poetry collection, you have already published two (wonderful) novellas with Ward Wood. So I’m wondering, did fiction come before poetry or did you always write both at the same time?

Noel: Poetry came first. Most definitely. I studied Experimental Physics and did well, and after graduation I joined a PhD student doing research as part of the Human Genome Project. To be honest, that’s not as special as it sounds as nearly every university department was doing some form of research related to this global project (there was a lot of funding made available at the time). I realised very quickly that the laboratory wasn’t my natural habitat. Like most young people at a loose end, I decided to do teacher training. I also very rapidly realised that wasn’t for me either and the only thing that kept me going was that I had started writing poetry, which I had read through my time in college but not written. This was in 1995. I suppose my progress was quite fast as I published my first poem, ‘Apple’, in the autumn edition of Poetry Ireland Review in the same year. That was a big moment, made bigger by the fact that Seamus Heaney had just won the Nobel Prize and his first published poem after the big event was in the same issue. For a brief period at least, writing poetry seemed a realistic thing to do with your life. Obviously, I continued on writing poetry since that time, though my progress has been painfully slow till the last couple of years, when I’ve learned to be more relaxed about it.

The writing of prose was really unexpected. I went to do an MA in Writing at NUI, Galway, much later in 2003, with the main hope of making serious progress on my poetry collection. The irony was the one field of writing I made the least progress with was poetry. In some MA courses – such as Trinity’s – there is a more singular focus. So, if you go in as a prose writer you mostly do that. The philosophy in Galway was to encourage us to try our hand at every form of writing. Most people on the MA were, indeed, prose writers so when I took that course I had no expectations whatsoever. I think that really helped. Our tutor asked us to write a short story and when I tried I ended up writing a first draft of ‘The Return Journey’, one of the two novellas in the book. It was a deeply liberating experience. Having focussed so much on poetry, and having been a student of poetry so to speak, writing prose felt like stepping from a small room (almost like a monk in his cell) into a much larger one. I was extremely surprised at how at home I felt in the form, particularly writing in the first person. I think the key is finding a clear voice for the character, then rigorously following where it takes you. I’ve yet to write prose in the third person, and I suspect I might face some challenges in doing so. I also took a course in Non-Fiction with Prof Adrian Frazier and wrote a long piece about my grandfather which was later published in the Dublin Review. So by the end of the year, I’d produced fewer poems than I’d hoped, but discovered I really enjoyed writing prose.

As a final, general point, for me poetry is a tap that is not always running. Before the MA that led to a lot of frustration for me. By writing in other forms (prose, film, theatre) I started to write more regularly and I really enjoy the variety that offers. The one thing I find is that I can’t easily move from one form to another, so if I’m working on a screenplay I’m not thinking about anything but film. The same is true of poetry and fiction.

Sue: You also write screenplays in the way that I also write stage plays. What has drawn you to that medium? Is it the visuality of it, or the dialogue, or the chance of fame and glory?

Noel: In the same year that I did the Higher Diploma in Education, someone gave me a copy of John Berger’s novel To The Wedding. I was becoming interested in film and found the book very cinematic, so I decided to adapt it for screen purely as an exercise to try learn the craft of screenwriting. I read about three-act structures and so on and had cards for every scene which I rearranged on a wall, using pink ones for important plot points. Again, this exercise was mostly to keep me sane during the teacher training where I was mostly teaching maths. In any case, a couple of years later, someone told me that there was a new (and, in fact, the first) screenwriter agency in Dublin and they accepted my adapted screenplay straight away. For a moment I thought film was a real future for me. Sadly, nothing came of that and I really only came back to film seriously in the last five years. I do think that the fact I’d written a couple of screenplays before the MA probably helped me as a prose writer, as I understood the principles of storytelling and characterisation and how to write dialogue and so on. However, the one thing that’s difficult to do in cinema is to create an interior voice, so first person prose is very attractive for that reason. You can climb into someone’s head and explore their thoughts, as well as their actions and what they say.

I suppose a small part of starting to write films is the excitement of cinema, certainly. You might even say the glamour! It is, also, I think the dominant narrative form of our time really, so yes there is a certain urge to be part of it. Knowing what I know now, though, it’s also one of the hardest fields to break into as a writer. I’ve also come to realise that the writer takes so much risk in the film. You write a script on spec and put hundreds of hours in and then hope you can find a producer. If money is sought and got, it’s only then that most of the other key players enter. So, you can put a lot of work in and never know if you’ll get a payday or see the film on screen, even if it’s good. Films quite simply cost a lot of money to make. In a way, it’s quite frightening to think that something you write might require one and a half million pounds to realise on screen, if not more (and that’s considered low-budget in today’s market). Obviously, convincing people to give you that kind of money isn’t easy.

Someone gave me some very good advice when I started out with this. They said, don’t be the guy with one screenplay in his bag going from producer to producer for years; keep writing them and maybe one will eventually get made. I took this advice and have written five features, with three that are in the shop window, so to speak. That leaves you options when you do meet producers. I’m finally getting to the point where I have relationships with a number of them and there is a possibility of getting things off the ground, but in this business nothing happens quickly so you have to be very patient. I also know now that in film, the writer generally doesn’t receive the credit they deserve. If a film works it’s usually the director and the cast we’re aware of – certainly not the writer!

To answer your question more directly, what really attracts me to screenwriting is that in the same way I love reading poetry and prose, I love watching movies. Like fiction, you are working in the dramatic form with characters, a premise, and dialogue to try bring a world and story to life, but screenplays are more stripped back and exacting in a certain way. You have to understand that you are doing this for the screen and not the page, so that leads to differences in emphasis. In that sense, a screenplay only really exists when it’s projected by light. You need skill and imagination, say, to create a scene in 18th century Dublin in a novel. The same is true in film, but that scene might cost 100,000 euro to realise! So words are free. Celluloid isn’t.

Sue: I know that you have gotten an advanced degree in Creative Writing. At the risk of being too controversial here — do you think it was worthwhile? Is it really just a way to make contacts?

Noel: I think from what I’ve written above, the MA in Writing was very useful for me and helped me to become a prose writer more than anything else. When I took the course it was only in its second year, though I was probably one of the most experienced writers on it as I’d published poetry for nearly eight years in journals and so on. I think a lot depends on the dynamic of the group of people involved, as well as the tutors. Our group was very supportive of each other in the main and, as I pointed out earlier, the philosophy of the programme was to try as many forms as you could and see where you were at the end of the year as a writer. It was also great to have so much feedback from tutors.

At the same time, I do think there is a danger in the emergence of more and more MAs of this kind. When they started in the States in the late 50s they were centres of excellence in writing with very high standards. Now, nearly every university in the States has one and you can’t help but feel that those standards don’t always apply and that they are a money-making exercise for some institutions (the same is true of screenwriting courses, I should add). The other problem over there, is that I’ve heard some publishers won’t look at your work if you don’t have one (or one from a particular university), which is simply ridiculous. In the end an academic qualification isn’t the measure of a writer, the work is. The true qualification is to be published.
One thing I’d add as a final note. For me the year after the MA was my most fruitless as a writer. In a sense you’re in a lovely bubbly of creativity, but when you leave that bubble is gone. You face the harsher world of publishing houses and agents, sending manuscripts out and so forth, and waiting months to hear back and most often receiving rejection letters. After all the attention you received on the course, that’s a difficult transition. Overall, though, for me it was a great opportunity to step out of my normal life (trying to write while making a living etc) and to just ‘be’ a full-time writer for a year. That was wonderful, really.
I just want to add a final thanks to Sue for inviting me onto her excellent blog for this interview. Answering her thoughtful questions has been a real pleasure. I hope they may be of some use to others also working at the writing coal face or those thinking about it.

Sue: Thank you, Noel. It's been great chatting with you. Best of luck with both of the recent publications. And to all my friends out there reading this, I urge you to check out his work. You'll be happy you did.

Are We Dead Yet?

2011-05-22T08:30:00.002+01:00

If you're reading this, then I guess the answer is, thankfully, no.
I was all set to write a thoroughly tongue-in-cheek blog about this weekend's "rapture" hoo ha. Yes, it's the end of the world - again. And I was having a swell time in the shower - where I do all my best thinking -- imagining all the funny quips I could write about the apocalypse etc etc. But then when I was towelling off I started to reconsider. "No, maybe this isn't such a good idea," I thought. "Mr D has a business trip this week in a decidedly dodgy part of the world, and I better not make fun, just in case." Well, well, well. So much for my place in the rational world.

But to be honest, I'm full of superstitious rituals that I adhere to "just in case." Every time I take off in an airplane, I close my eyes and say a little chant of safe passage to myself that I learned a decade ago in a yoga class. There have been plenty of times when I've spoken out loud about something that I was hoping might happen, only to joke about wanting to swing a chicken around my head to ward off the evil eye. Okay, I don't actually do it, but I do always make the same joke. So who am I to ridicule the poor bastards who believed the end was nigh?

We live in a world that is out of control, in many ways. So much is happening to us and around us now that we don't understand, it's not surprising that so many of us are grabbing whatever tentative chance for an explanation or control that we can find. Stevie Wonder, one of my favourite philosphers, proclaimed "Superstition ain't the way," and of course he's right. But that doesn't stop us from performing our rituals, believing the unbelievable. Did I think the world was going to end this weekend? Of course not. But I won't claim that there isn't a host of other things that I believe, or am too afraid to completely disbelieve. I come from a culture that is firmly steeped in superstition. I carry the sound of my grandmothers' pooh poohs and tsk tsks forever in my ears. So although I may not believe in the rapture or the imminent end of the world, I'll keep saying my little chant to myself until Mr D gets home.

But what's a chant without music? Here you go......

Novel Writing Tips: Plot Plotting

2011-05-19T08:00:00.001+01:00

I'm committed to sharing the process of writing Novel 3 with you all. I already wrote about diving into the first draft and some tips I have remembered here. But now I find that I have entered a new mini phase that I want to discuss.

I have indeed written over 20,000 words in a very short time and before I went any further, my editor and I decided it would be best to take a breath and take a look at what I was doing and how I was doing it. She's a wise woman, that editor of mine. Luckily, things seem to be going well. I'm now fairly convinced that my scheme for alternating 1st and 3rd person chapters will work. But there is a trap that I am teetering on the brink of falling into. I need to forget that A Clash of Innocents was ever written. Novel 3 will share some characters with that book, and it will also be set in Cambodia, although in a different part of the country. So although it will complement Clash, it will not be a sequel. You will not need to have read Clash first and, indeed, I can imagine that many will enter this world I'm creating through Novel 3 and then go on to read Clash after. That means I have to beware of the temptation to give updates on what my characters had been doing during the intervening time between the two books. I have to make sure I slowly introduce the characters just as I did before, without assuming that the reader has any prior knowledge. I have to let the story and the characters unfold at their own pace without interrupting them with flashbacks or too many interior monologues or semiconscious reminiscences. And I think we found a way for me to do that.

Although I had plotted out the book to an extent before I started writing, the framework was a bit nebulous. I basically knew where I was going, but the pace was unclear and I didn't always understand what was going to follow what. So I have done something which I actually love to do -- I've brought out the index cards! My, how I love index cards. They're so neat, so tidy, so compactly there. And this is what I've done:
    * On each card I wrote the name of one possible episode. Underneath, I wrote some notes about what would happen and who it would happen to. For example, one card says: Srey and Fred walk to Clinic for First Time Then underneath I wrote (1) Description of street scene, women selling etc (2) street people tease Srey, misunderstanding who she is and who is Fred
    * After doing that, I found I had 34 cards. I then began my favourite part: the index card shuffle. I grouped the cards according to theme, time frame etc until I had 10 stacks, each stack representing a chapter.
    * Within each stack, I put the cards in order so that one episode followed another. Then I wrote one more card serving as an overview of how many chapters, what each chapter is generally about and, to make sure the chapters aren't too lopsided, the number of episodes (so far) in each chapter. And here they are:

Now for Plot Plotting Step 2. In my notebook, spread across two pages, I made a chart with seven columns: Chapter. Voice (because they alternate a bit). Episode. What Happens. To Whom. Themes. Word Count/# of Pages.
For each chapter, I filled out the chart listing each episode. This serves two purposes, firstly to help my increasingly failing memory to remember what happened where. But more importantly, it allows me to actually see where the climaxes fall, where troubles are introduced and resolved, where characters are included. In other words, it sets up the pacing, which is crucial. And the chart looks like this (actually, there are 3 spreads of these):

So there you have it, my Plot Plotting all done and dusted. Now, of course, I have to be flexible, allowing myself to make changes, shuffle things around, add and delete. But I can do that easily because everything is written in pencil and I bought myself an excellent new eraser -- of course, every big task needs a purchasing opportunity.
I know that some novelists out there may be horrified by this and I'm not saying that this incredibly anal approach is for everyone. It is actually based on a format called the Snowflake Method, which I posted about here. But it works for me, and now I'm ready to start writing again, methodically making my way from episode to episode, and knowing that with my plot structure in place, I can allow my imagination to go as wild as it wants, within the 6"x4" parameters of each index card's notes.

Novel Spaces

2011-05-15T09:31:00.000+01:00

Today, I am a guest over at the terrific literature blog called Novel Spaces over here, talking about the experience of bringing A Clash of Innocents back to it's beginnings. Novel Spaces is an eclectic group of authors bound by a singular passion: writing. If you love reading great stories from across the broad spectrum of tales to be told, then their blog is definitely the right space for you. Thanks to them for giving me the opportunity to meet some more readers and writers. Do drop by and say hi.