Author: hampshirewriters

“Looking behind the canvas: repairing notions of (dis)ability through the tool of (in)verse ekphrasis”

Report by Sarah Noon

Dr Kane Holborn is a poet-painter who gained his PhD at Winchester University. As someone with Cerebral Palsy, his work explores art and disability.  His assistant, Louise Tett, accompanies him this evening and he is talking to us about what he describes as inverse ekphrasis -ekphrasis being the use of the spoken word to describe art in great detail.

Kane begins by thanking the people who have enabled his talk to happen – Gary, Louise, Antosh and others.  He then goes onto explain that his exploration of ekphrasis is more contemporary than James A W Hefferman’s work, which Kane describes as “largely redundant” in relation to his own writing.

Kane explains that he is “…to describe a contemporary viewpoint [which] cuts to the core of what it means to be a disabled poet,” and goes on to say that living with a disability “carries a form of being othered.”  He uses his work as a “tool in my craft of poetry” to discover and highlight the feelings and behaviours surrounding disability. He explains that he writes the “in” part of the word “inverse” in brackets – (in)verse – “as a way of encouraging my readers to see me holistically.”  What he means by this is that he writes his poems as paintings.  He uses his work as a way of “putting my lived experience of what it’s like being disabled, on the page.”

There is a whole movement dedicated to disability poetics. However, Kane explains that he has a “distaste” for much of the “depressive verse” that is often created within this genre. He clarifies that as a reader, he does not want to be left “feeling depressed.” With this in mind, Kane decided to create work that turns this on its head and explores his own personal feelings and experiences more specifically.

He then reads us one of his poems entitled “Wheelchair Flâneur:”

He then goes on to ask, “What is a parallax?” He compares it to looking through a kaleidoscope, which “offered us a more coloured viewpoint of things.”  He also compares it to looking through the window of an aeroplane or wearing sunglasses – or looking through a lens of a camera. “…the lens of your camera only photographs the perspective field you have chosen to capture in the moment.  Kane uses this parallax as a way of explaining the world through his lens.  “My poetry presents another lens through which the reader can see me as I truly am.”

Kane describes the effects of his condition, including memory loss, unwanted movement and speech impediment. He talks about the preconceptions that people have of him and how he challenges these within his poetry – using parallax and ekphrasis as powerful tools.  “It is a way of redirecting my reader’s attention to reflect on my real-life capabilities.” He also highlights the impact of creating poetry, but physically being unable to read it, and how Wheelchair Flaneur is describing that “ultimately physical differences are meaningless when it comes to love.”

Kane views himself as a “poet-painter.” His use of ekphrasis, he says, blurs the lines between poet and painter. He also is “playing with” the idea of sonder “The idea that every passer-by is living a life as vivid and as complex as your own.” This notion, he explains, creates “elaborate passageways” to other people’s lives. Kane has also collaborated with his brother, Tayler Holborn, an artist. He shows us one of his images and reads us the poem he wrote alongside it, entitled Self Portrait of Someone Else’s Self Portrait.

In terms of his writing, Kane’s talk has delved into great detail about how he approaches his writing – his notion of (in)verse ekphrasis and the idea of having the power to steer the reader towards a particular viewpoint. His poems are moving and thought-provoking. They seem simple on first reading, but there are many layers to be unpeeled.

As a final quotation from Kane, he summarises that (in)verse ekphrasis “ is the tool which has allowed me to adapt ekphrasis in a way which transfers my true experience of disability in a more striking way, and, like a photographic negative, develops the negative to a positive in the truest sense.”

Dr Kane Holborn’s poetry appears in The Lost Art of Staring into Fires (2022) and is due for publication in Dancing About Architecture and Other Ekphrastic Manoeuvres (2024); he runs his own poetry collective, Quills Anonymous, which meets monthly on Zoom. He has hosted poetry workshops at the University of Winchester, as well as at the Disability Expo as part of London Excel (2023).

Report by Sarah Noon

Adrienne is a great friend of both Hampshire Writers’ Society and the Winchester Writers’ Conference. Her latest book, due out in 2024, is called Storysmith, The Craft of Storytelling for Writers and explores the writers’ craft. She has worked in all manner of places, from schools to high security prisons and delivered talks at a variety of conferences. She is here today to talk to us about the art of storytelling.

Adrienne shares with us how she began giving talks about writing after meeting Barbara Large at the Writers’ Festival. She tells us how Barbara was about to start interviewing Adrienne when a man “…threw his arms around me and shouted ‘Thank God you’re alive.’” It transpires that he had witnessed Adrienne get her skirt caught on the door of the Tube and did not know what had happened to her. This, Adrienne tells us, was when Barbara declared, “Oh, I think we’re going to be friends.”  Although already an English teacher, Adrienne credits Barbara with encouraging her to teach the craft of writing and storytelling.

Over the years, she tells us, she had collated so many notes, she felt she needed to put them together and define “what exactly is the craft of storytelling made up of?” She gave her manuscript, Storysmith, to an agent, and she reminds us that you then wait “…as long as you need.” She goes on to clarify, “…because as long as they have it, they haven’t sent it back,” urging us never to give up hope, “That’s one of the rules.”

Adrienne’s book is written in seven sections. She is focusing this evening on the beginning of it. It concentrates on the confidence to begin and the confidence to keep going. She describes the writer’s process as “bipolar.” Writers can be full of ideas and positivity one minute and full of despair the next.  “…I would get more money if I were stacking shelves in Waitrose …”.  Reminding us that “Writing doesn’t pay.”

Adrienne explains how we need to value our imagination, “It’s at the heart of everything we do.” Her first three books were published very quickly. She describes this as “terrifying.” She goes on to tell us a story about going out for dinner with “John and Margot.” Margot was a magistrate and talked about this throughout dinner. It was during coffee that she finally asked Adrienne what she did for a living. The fact that Margot had not heard of Adrienne suggested that Margot believed Adrienne was “A figment of my own imagination.” She said to Adrienne “You must have a very big imagination.” She tells us that she “… still has no idea…” as to whether she was insulted or complimented by that. However, Adrienne tells us that Margot was right; storytellers do indeed need big imaginations.

Big imagination, she says, is not about “loads of stuff coming out of it…” it’s about “…loads of stuff going in.” She compares her brain to her husband’s – a mechanical engineer. Their brains work in very different ways. At this point, she puts a sieve on her head! She describes the sieve as her imagination. Everything she experiences goes into the sieve.  However, because it is a sieve, not everything will stay in there. Many things go through the holes (“white noise”) but some things (like Margot) will stay.  Those things, she says “…compost down, and become the rich soil from which we develop our stories.” She also recalls an early HWS meeting in The Stripe where the writer PD James (then in her 90s) was asked how she could “…write murderers” because she was the last person one would expect to be able to understand the mind of a murderer.  She replied “…every murderer’s rage is my own.” Adrienne explains that this is how it works with storytellers. “Every emotion that will appear in the stories that you write, has to be your own.” It’s about knowing and feeling the emotion as a writer. She describes a fine line where the writer is not purely making it up because the emotion is there already.

How do I want my character to feel at the moment?  This is what we should ask as writers, when we are struggling. Adrienne advises us to take the emotion and “…make it bad, make it worse, then make it personal.”

The second part of Adrienne’s book is about “…telling lies for a living.” Adrienne describes how she met someone who was writing his memoir. He was not interested in “telling lies.” Adrienne’s response was “There’s more truth in fiction than there is in memoir.” Memoir writing is very subjective. She goes on to explain that actually she is talking about authenticity rather than truth, 

At this point, she pulls a story out of her imagination (the sieve!).  She tells us about an incident when she and her sister went to a school reunion. Although the school itself is no longer there, three paths remain that were originally part of the school. These were known as Hell (the lower path), Purgatory (the middle path) and Heaven (the upper path). Adrienne and her sister stood on Purgatory and discussed when they stood there as children.  Adrienne described it as her ‘prison’, but her sister described is as her ‘nest.’ “Which one of us was telling the truth?” says Adrienne? It is all about point of view – which stems from how one is feeling at any given time. Adrienne advises that if you are struggling with a story, change the point of view.

To illustrate this, Adrienne gives the example of Little Red Riding Hood. She asks us to retell the story – which, of course, we all know. She then asks us to consider the story from the mother’s point of view.  “A woman who won’t go and see her ailing mother and instead sends her daughter – it’s about mothers and daughters.” She points out that the “psychopathic” mother sends her own daughter through a wood where she knows there is a wolf – and if that isn’t irresponsible enough, she dresses her in bright red.   

The next part of Adrienne’s book looks at plot and emotional arc. She explains to us the difference between our inner critic and inner editor. “The inner editor is always your friend, the inner critic is not.” Adrienne tells us that her inner critic is “Sister Mary Pious” and she holds aloft a small wooden figure of her. Sister Mary once asked Adrienne what she wanted to do with her life, and on telling her she wanted to be a writer and storyteller (or Shanachie) was told, “The idea was ‘ridiculous.’ However, now that Adrienne is doing what she always wanted to do, “I bring her with me and make sure to mention her”. Our internal critic, she tells us, comes from inside our head. It is this voice, she claims, which instructs us to do our displacement activities (ironing, emptying the dishwasher etc.) rather than “checking that chapter that just isn’t working.” She advises us that we need to make our inner critic work for us. But, she warns, do not talk to them too early.

She compares this to creating a recipe and making a mess in the kitchen – we may use every pot, pan, and ingredient in the kitchen to see how we can come up with our desired flavour. This is our first draft – it is a “dirty draft,” (Stephen King also talks about this).  Adrienne urges us to think about Michelangelo and a piece of marble. She tells us that until the marble exists, there is nothing to chip away at (the editing process). The danger is to allow the critic to stop us before we have written the story. Another way that we allow our inner critic to hinder us is to continually check that our previous chapters are perfect before we carry on with the next bit “It’s called procrastination.”

Crime writer Meg Gardner, Adrienne tells us, when writing her first draft, would frequently have big gaps in her story where she would jot down what needs to happen, and just keep going with her story. This meant “…her first draft was very patchy and had loads of holes…” but the structure was very clear – something which Adrienne reminds us can be incredibly useful.

Adrienne has been kind enough to judge our competition entries this month, and she explains that some of the entries were, “…beautifully written” but had no emotional arc. Cue another story.  This time about her middle son, Tom. When he was nine, he hated sports, “…because he never understood the rules.” However, on this occasion, he participated in an obstacle race. Adrienne describes Tom’s fear as he was lined up with the other pupils, and he spots the penultimate challenge of the race … the buttoning up of the shirt! Tom hated buttoned shirts. Adrienne advised him to not think about it and just run towards the finish line and “…it will be fine.”

She continues to tell us the story in great and amusing detail, ending with Tom managing the buttons on the shirt and winning the race.  The point of Adrienne entertaining us with this story is that this event changed Tom. The story has emotional arc – Tom goes from a probable loser to a possible winner and then finally a winner. She urges us to consider the point in our stories where our character changes. She suggests that this is where many people have not quite worked out why the character changes or what makes them change (the peak of their emotional arc).

Adrienne goes on to address structure. Where do you start? Do we front-load or end-load? Do we structure our story chronologically? She encourages us to consider how the story might change if we begin at a different point. This may be a useful strategy if we are struggling – try to turn it on its head and restructure it.  She explains that some writers are plot-led, and generally find front-loaded stories easy. Some writers are more character-led. She suggests writing the events of our story in chronological order and then changing the order or considering how one event affects the other.

“Stories have to have an effect,” we are reminded. Stories need to have a message.  Adrienne continues, “Every moment in your life that touches you, changes you.” It is these changes, she suggests, that make the scenes work. A useful thing to do is a memoir sheet for characters, with things such as their age, the places they lived, the people who are important, words, events, sayings and lessons learned. Adrienne tells us that the memoir sheet can be a good way to address issues within our writing.  The elements can be included throughout the course of the book. By creating these sheets for characters from the beginning to the end of the book, the points at which a character has changed become the chapters.

Adrienne finishes her talk telling us a final story from when she was a teenager.  She had worked over the summer and therefore had some money to spend.  Her mother had said that she could spend the money anywhere she liked “…as long as it wasn’t The Ritz!” This was a greasy-spoon cafe “…full of undesirables.” She went there anyway, and met and fell in love with Fergus Donnelly. She tells us how she and some friends would go on a Tuesday, when her mother was out shopping. She goes on to explain how they she would sit opposite Fergus Donnelly on a plastic seat in a booth and they would share chips and a coke. She then introduces us to the character of Catherine Ivy who was overweight, explaining how as she was leaning across the table, unwittingly exposed her midriff which Fergus promptly poked.  Adrienne was horrified, but Catherine put him in his place in front of the others, telling him “…that’s MY flesh, and YOU aren’t allowed to touch it.” Adrienne tells us that in that moment, everything changed and Fergus Donnelly became “Catherine Ivy’s cast-off,” and Catherine became “…an object of desire…” for the rest of the summer. Catherine Ivy, Adrienne tells us, has been her heroine ever since – inspiring a her book Toppling Miss April.

I suspect that Adrienne could have regaled us with many more stories, but we ran out of time.  She is a fantastic storyteller (or Shanachie) and her talk was both entertaining and inspiring.

6.45pm -7.30pm

Hampshire Writers’ Society

The Tower, King’s School, Romsey Road, Winchester SO22 5PN

Book Fair held prior to the evening’s talks from Adrienne Dines and Jill French.
Please come along to the Book Fair to support HWS members who will have their published books available for sale. Enjoy a browse and a chat!

Authors attending:

Louise Morrish

Louise Morrish is a librarian and author, based in Hampshire. She completed the Faber ‘Write a Novel Online’ course in 2012, and is a member of the Hampshire Writers’ Society, the Historical Writers Association, the Romantic Novelists’ Association, and the Society of Authors. When she’s not writing, she loves to trail run. 

Louise Morrish’s 2022 historical fiction debut, Operation Moonlight, is a heart-warming story about Betty, a reclusive centenarian hiding a very dark secret from the War. Described as a truly page-turning story, with enough thrills to satisfy both fans of World War Two fiction and those who love a good romance, Operation Moonlight won the 2019 Penguin Random House First Novel competition. 
Louise is represented by Luigi Bonomi at LBA Books. You can find her on Twitter at @LouiseMorrish1, Instagram at @LouiseMorrish_books, and Facebook at Louise Morrish. You can learn more about her books and writing at www.louisemorrish.com. 

---

B. Random

Sci-Fi/Fantasy author of three novels, Survivorship; Alienship; and Ridership

A passion for sci-fi/ fantasy as a teenager led to B. Random writing a first book aged fourteen. After a family and a career in law and medicine, came a chance to return to her first love for writing. Her inspirations come from science, wildlife and nature, especially the sea. She has been a member of the Hampshire Writers’ Society since its inception.

The appeal of living in another world, escaping from the mundane, endures.  Delighting in the weird and wonderful, sharing glorious flights of imagination, she draws you into fantasy lands and darkest emotion. The style will take your breath away and make you smile. Expect a vivid roller-coaster of action, emotion and the unexpected. For her, the writer’s reward is to take other people into that brand new world and show them its magic. 

Alienship – An action packed adventure spanning galaxies, set after Ky’s alien father leaves for his home planet Mrax, bringing to life a model made from junk for his son; his comic sidekick.

Survivorship – An adventure between worlds. The race is on to save Earth. On planet Mrax to learn about his father’s world, Ky finds a powerful enemy among the Elders, who wants to rid his pristine planet of a ‘worthless half-breed’. As he struggles to fit in, a baby Mrug adopts him and becomes another challenge for Ky.

---

Jude Hayland

JUDE HAYLAND was a commercial short story writer for women’s magazines for over 25 years, published in the UK and internationally. After completing an M.A. in Creative Writing at Winchester University and graduating with distinction, she switched to writing full length novels and has published three with a four completed and out later this year. She writes literary/commercial/book group fiction and blogs regularly from her website on all things writerly and bookish.

Novels: MILLER STREET SW22 – my third novel – about the complexities of love and loss as well as the power of hope and the possibility of change and redemption – set over a year from 2005/2006, as neighbours prepare for a centenary street party (Cover image from a painting by local Winchester artist, Josephine Chisholm)

THE LEGACY OF MR JARVIS – my second novel has a dual time-line of a late 1960s childhood and an adult perspective of 2008, the novel explores secrets and lies that can lie within a family and fester for years with some entirely unexpected results.

COUNTING THE WAYS – my first novel – with settings ranging from London, Oxford, the Welsh hills and a Greek island, the story explores the complexities of family life and relationships over two generations.

Website: www.judehayland.co.uk

Facebook: Jude Hayland

Twitter: @judehayland Instagram judehaylandwriting

---

Alex Delany

Alex Delany is a first-time writer, having retired in 2018 from a long-term technical career in IT involving significant amounts of travel and work with banks worldwide, which somewhat informs the background to his novel Strategic Intent. He moved into the Winchester area in late 2019 and joined the Hampshire Writers Society in 2023. 

Strategic Intent, a thriller.

The story follows our protagonist from his role as a technical strategy consultant working with a large UK bank, via recruitment into an innovative government-sponsored quantum software company in Kazakhstan, through to belated realisation that he is caught up in a conspiracy far larger and more serious than his own narrow and naïve view of the world. With fatal results.

“The best tale of quantum computing, cryptography, folk myths, modern imperialism and cult horror films that I’ve read this year”

---

Damon L Wakes

Fiction and interactive games writer will have his huge collection of books available for sale, including the latest anthology, Order and Chaos from Breakthrough Books which reached  No.1 on Amazon ‘hot new anthology’ list.

Damon writes everything from humour to horror and produces a brand new work of flash fiction every day during July each year. Damon also writes interactive fiction and games, and provided the story and dialogue for Game of the Year nominated virtual reality title Craft Keep VR.

Order and Chaos, an anthology from Breakthrough Books that opens with one of his flash fiction pieces. That story is “Songbird and Statue,” which also provided the anthology’s theme.

Ancient gods in conflict and a zombie on welfare,

a disappearing boyfriend and AI with daddy issues, a balloon bound for icy danger and a mysterious theft at the museum, a sinister woodland cabin and a pleasure house that’ll cost much more than you can afford.

Raiding parties in dystopia, art classes in the city, opposites attracting and love catching fire. Separations and siblings, life and death decisions, flying into trouble and traveling to self-discovery…

Which comes first, chaos or order? The cycles between may seem inevitable, and change may be the only constant, but what does that mean for the human experience?

Sixteen authors from the Breakthrough Books collective explore our relationships with nature and technology, science and the sacred, each other and ourselves, offering an array of stories as individual as every reader.

Ten Little Astronauts— a novella published by Unbound

To find out more about Damon and his many books visit his website:
https://damonwakes.wordpress.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authordamonwakes

Twitter: @DamonWakes

Newsletter: https://damonwakes.wordpress.com/newsletter/

---

Anne Wan

Children’s writer and author of the Snow Globe trilogy and picture book, Manners Fit for the Queen.  

nne began writing six years ago when her middle son became ill. As he convalesced she helped him transform an idea that he had, into a book. This ignited her enthusiasm for writing stories for children. She started writing picture books as a hobby and went on to study creative writing with Barbara Large. Anne is passionate about inspiring children as readers and writers. She enjoys giving talks, craft and storytelling sessions in schools, libraries, and Brownie groups.

Having completed the Snow Globe trilogy, I am excited to announce the release of my debut picture book Manners Fit for the Queen. In this humorous story, Hector causes chaos with his terrible table manners. His sister, Isobel, has found her own way to cope with the mess. But how will she cope when they are both invited to a tea party with the Queen?

Secrets of the Snow Globe – Menacing Magic is the finale to my ‘Secrets in the Snow Globe’ series. Chaos rages in the world inside the snow globe following the theft of seven, magical, diamond snowflakes. In a race against time, Louisa and her brother, Jack, shrink into the globe and embark on a perilous journey to catch the thief. Can they retrieve thenowflakes before the snow globe world is destroyed?

Secrets of the Snow Globe – Vanishing Voices

Can they succeed in their quest to help their new friends, and find a way back to Grandma’s house? A captivating adventure story of courage and friendship for 7-9 yrs. In a land of magic, snow, and secrets Louisa and her brother, Jack, are flung into a dangerous mountain adventure when they shrink into their Grandma’s snow globe.

Secrets of the Snow Globe  – Shooting Star

How much does Grandma know about the snow globe’s magic? Louisa and her brother, Jack, are determined to discover the truth. In this sequel to, Secrets of the Snow Globe – Vanishing Voices, Grandma’s story is revealed. But how much should she tell? After all, some secrets are best left untold…

Are you ready for the magic?

You can purchase the books from http://anne-wan.com/

---

Lynn Farley-Rose

Author of 31 Treats And A Marriage and The Interview Chain

Lynn Farley-Rose spent her childhood by the sea in Devon and then went to university in London. She spent some years working as a research psychologist before a move to East Sussex resulted in a complete change of lifestyle. At one point she was responsible for the welfare of thirty-two animals and eight species including her four children. 31 Treats And A Marriage was her first book and arose out of an interest in ways to cope when life throws up challenges. Her second book The Interview Chain is an exploration of connections between people. She now lives in Hampshire, has no animals and is working on her third book. In her regular blog at treatsandmore.com she writes about topics of general interest from a popular psychological perspective.

31 Treats And A Marriage

From Austen to Brown—a giant table in Liverpool to hidden churches in London— New York to Edinburgh—and cannibalistic spiders to a horse named Twilight—

When Lynn’s family seemed finally to have overcome a series of disasters, and her husband was at last in recovery from cancer, she thought it was time to focus on recovering herself. She decided to have some treats—not frivolous material things but exploratory, enriching experiences. Then life threw up a new obstacle and she found that the problems weren’t over. In fact they were about to get much worse—and suddenly the treats became something far more; they became a lifeline. 

The Interview Chain

Everyone has something interesting to say if you take the time to listen. The Interview Chain is a series of conversations—each interviewee was asked to nominate someone they admire as the next link. Starting from a casual conversation on a boat on the Thames, the chain wended its way for over 23,000 miles, alighting on three continents and gathering up personal perspectives on issues that really matter in the world today. The interviewees include a theatre director, a rabbi, a philanthropist, a sculptor, a New York Mayoral candidate, a pioneering documentary maker, and a man who rescues giant trees. Some have worked in challenging places—Kabul under the Taliban, a Romanian orphanage, immigration detention centres, remote Indian villages—while others have found themselves caught up in extraordinary situations such as the Rwandan genocide, the Ferguson uprising, and the UN Climate Change Negotiations.

---

Natasha Orme

Editor, travel writer and thriller writer. Her crime thriller, Murder in the Fast Lane is out now!

I’m a book-loving, writing enthusiast. I love to travel, drink tea and pet every animal I meet. When I’m not elbow deep in the editing world, you can usually find me being silly and having fun with my young son.

Murder in the Fast Lane

Formula One racer Stacey James is taking the world by storm. But when her body double is killed on the Hungarian podium, things begin to spiral out of control.
Menacing phone calls, creepy photos and subtle threats. This guy just won’t quit. The worst part? Everyone’s a suspect but the police are no closer to getting answers.
Jason Hunter, personal security specialist and dad of two, has been hired to provide protection. But can he keep Stacey safe and catch the killer? Or is he out of his depth and putting more lives on the line?

Webiste: https://writer.natashaorme.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writernatashaorme/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/writernatashaorme

---

Chandlers Ford Writers: Maggie Farran, Catherine Griffin and Sally Howard

Three writing friends from Chandlers Ford who collaborated on a new project in lockdown, culminating with publication of Winchester Actually. Unravel the intrigue of the great train robbery. Witness the thrills and spills of rioting through the streets. Wonder at sacrifices made to save the cathedral and defend the city. Enjoy gentler tales of romance and motherhood set in and around Winchester.

---

Mark Eyles

After working in the games industry, writing for comics (2000AD & Sonic the Comic) and spending time as an academic running videogame courses, Mark finally settled down to writing books at the start of 2019. His writing draws on his love of science fiction, creating a slightly quirky, but grim and gritty story set on a colony world where everything’s gone nightmarishly wrong.

Mark’s Science Fiction novels: Vast Alien Crisis – Icefall Cities; Vast Alien Crisis – Firedrift Moon

Graphic novel: Stellar Megastructure – Travels of Immortals

You can find out more about Mark on his website: www.eyles.co.uk

Mark’s LinkTree has handy links too: https://linktr.ee/markeyles

Icefall Cities is available as an ebook, self-published on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09X21QWXL

---

Martin Kyrle

Travel writer and author of Jottings from the Trans-Siberian Railway  and Jottings from Russia and the Baltic States.  Part 1: Russia and Estonia.

Read the Allison Symes’ interview with Martin Kyrle about the writing of this book and of his adventures on the Trans-Siberian Railway in the http://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/jottings-from-the-trans-siberian-railway-part-2-martin-kyrle-interview/

---

Mary L Phillips

Audio book narrator and storyteller from Riveting Narration  

For Web, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube click below:

www.rivetingnarration.com
https://www.facebook.com/RivetingNarration/#
https://twitter.com/RivetingNration
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIi_0K3wug1EaikF8tA1f6Q

Current books on Audible:  http://www.rivetingnarration.com/audiobooks-available-now/

Sign up for our newsletter about New Releases, Authors and Narratorswww.rivetingnarration.com

---

A talk given to the Hampshire Writers’ Society 9th May 2023

Report by Sarah Noon

Louise has won the Penguin Random House First Novel Award in 2019, as well as our own Barbara Large Memorial Award for an outstanding contribution to our society. She is here tonight to talk us about what life is like once your first novel is published, and the importance of staying connected to the writing community.

The novel that won the Penguin Random House award was Operation Moonlight, which came out last summer. Louise admits that after her novel was published she had “… no inkling as to what would happen.” She urges us to think about this when writing – to “… bear in mind what you might have to do when you have a book out in the world.” She reminds us that whether our book is traditionally published or self-published, “…you’ll have to do some stuff.”

Louise tells us that having her book published has opened up many opportunities for her, one of which is talking to people, as she is with us this evening. She shows us some photographs of groups she has presented to, including the WI, libraries and literary festivals. Some of these were arranged by her agent, others she organised herself. Quite often, Louise explains, once you start meeting other members of the writing community, “…things roll on” and other visits and speaker opportunities present themselves.

She chooses this evening, to focus on a particular opportunity, involving Goldfinch Books.  This is a family-run, independent bookshop, which opened last year in Alton, Louise’s hometown (“If you get a chance, go!”). It is owned by couple Gary and Jude Clark. Gary, Louise tells us, is a published author himself and “…a whizz at self-publishing.” He has published a trilogy of YA novels and at the time of writing is working on his first crime novel. She describes him as a “very knowledgeable man.” Louise describes how she wanted to get involved with the shop as soon as she had heard about it, feeling that “to have an independent bookshop is really good for authors.”  The owners of the bookshop knew that Louise’s book had been published, and they got talking and “…just clicked.” Louise goes on to say that following on from that initial meeting, many other things have occurred. “I would urge you also to make sure you have connections with your local independent shop… they are going to be a very powerful resource for you.”

The first thing Louise did was to help set up a “proper” book club, “…where you talk about books,” (she admits to being in book clubs with friends previously, and do “…anything but talk about books,”). They now have over 100 members, across four groups – soon to be a fifth group as there is a waiting list (there are so many members that they now wear name badges). Members read and discuss the same book and Louise expresses how lovely it is to be with people who are passionate about books.

Goldfinch Books, Louise tells us, is also a community hub. Events include live acoustic music nights, singing nights, poetry open mic nights, children’s art workshops, writing workshops, Dungeons and Dragons club, literary quizzes and a philosophy group.  It is also hired out for private parties and book launches (“It offers a lot more than just books and coffee and tea,”).

The publication of Operation Moonlight has opened up opportunities for her to attend author events. Louise helped to organise one at Goldfinch Books.  Here she sat on a panel of women who began writing “…almost as a second career.” There are many authors lined up for the future, to do talks etc., at the bookshop. Louise tells us “Goldfinch Books are so welcoming.” They like to hear from anyone who has had a book published through either route, regardless of experience.

Gary runs free workshops about self-publishing. “What he doesn’t know about the self-publishing world isn’t really worth knowing.” He shares his knowledge and research with people who are looking to go down the same route.

Louise herself is traditionally published, with Penguin. She claims that …”even that is a mystery to me.” However, she is well placed to advise us on what to expect if we are new to the publishing world.  She informs us that both forms of publishing are catered for at Goldfinch books. She tells us that when she was writing her first book she was desperate for guidance and advice from people who “…were just one step ahead on the journey.”  She gives writer Claire Fuller as an example. She says that now she is one step ahead, she now wants to help those who are one step behind her. With this in mind, she set up a six-week creative writing course at the bookshop. She speaks with positivity about how friendly and supportive the group is. Those on the course are talked through the process from how to write, to getting published. Louise explains that she “…felt like I needed to give back.” She goes on to say that having editors from Penguin go through her work has given her “just enough confidence and credibility” to help others.

If that isn’t enough, Louise has also set up a writing group called ‘The Charms’ which also takes place at the bookshop once a month. Most members of this group are unpublished, but support one another. She reminds us that writing can be an isolating and lonely thing, and making connections is very important (“The more friends you can make on this journey, the better.”).

Louise finishes her talk by giving us contact details – goldfinch-books.com is the website for the bookshop and her own website www.louisemorrish.com . Both of these sites are certainly full of support and inspiration to keep us motivated … wherever we are in our writing journey.

A talk given to Hampshire Writers’ Society on 9th May 2023.

Report by Sarah Noon

Joanna is a writer, counsellor and writing teacher. She is here this evening (with a croaky voice due to recently sanding a floor “classic bank holiday behaviour!”) to talk about her journey of “Rejection to Auction.” She adds that she feels it is important to be “really honest” about life as a writer.

She begins by sharing with us typical responses she receives, when telling people she is a writer.  The most common being “Have you had anything published?” She is also frequently asked about when she began writing and when she first got published. She gets asked about her process, as well as what else she does –“What people mean by that is ‘How do you make money?’”

Joanna feels that writing competitions are “brilliant.” She goes on to show a picture of her as a little girl (pointing out the “classic 80’s wallpaper in the background), proudly holding a certificate she won for a writing competition. She wrote a piece called A Journey Through Time for an international competition for Save the Children. She holds aloft for us the anthology published with the winning entries, describing it as “antique.” She tells is that “… it only took me thirty years to get the next one published.”

Having won the competition when she was about ten years old, she tells us how she continued to “bombard” the editor who judged the competition, with pieces of writing, finally getting “the most gentle rejection letter.” However, by this point, Joanna had her heart set on becoming “…the next Enid Blyton.”

Her journey continued with an English Degree and a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing, but she then went into sales as a career. She tells us that it took her a long time to progress any further with her writing.  However when she did, it was once again down to a competition. She tells us that she had written a book and was not getting anywhere with it, so sent off her manuscript as a competition entry. She describes this as being her “…final roll of the dice.”  Joanna explains that she does not want us to think that this route is easy.  To demonstrate her point, she has brought with her some of her rejection letters, reading us several extracts (“I like to keep these, just to torture myself.”)! Joanna continues, admitting that if she had not got anywhere with the competition, then she was going to either shelve her book, or self-publish it. She also felt that if she was long-listed or –short-listed, then it would be something she could include in her letters to agent which may help.

Thankfully, Joanna was short-listed. The judge, Juliet Mushens, was an agent with whom Joanna was keen to work and “…much to my amazement…” she selected her manuscript as the winner. This gave Joanna the opportunity to work with Juliet on honing her work and preparing it for publishers. She shares with us the joy of having a “…mad day in London” where after many rejections, she was visiting publishers who were keen to work with her.  Her 15 years of working in sales was telling her that they were selling to her and the tables were turning – resulting in a four-way auction! A two-book agreement was finally made with Ebury (part of Random House at the time). Whilst this was a high point of Joanna’s writing career, she is keen to tell us “… don’t worry, there are some more lows coming!” Her book was also published in other languages – Italian and Polish (“The Italian reviews were not great though.”).

Now that Joanna was getting paid for writing and was having to work to deadlines. She “…did the thing you’re not supposed to do and I quit my job.”  She had by this time worked in advertising for 15 years, and was also training to be a counsellor. Having been advised by a sales executive at Random House that that was exactly the wrong thing to do, she reminded herself that this was a childhood dream. Joanna goes on to explain how different it felt writing her second book – one that she had been contracted to do and which was attached to deadlines.  However, she tells us that she is equally proud of both books (and rightfully so).

The next part of Joanna’s writing journey concerns her third book. As her current publisher, Ebury had first refusal on whatever she wrote next.  However, she explains, she is such a slow writer, and was no longer under contract, so by the time she had finished it, Ebury publishers had folded and was no more! She therefore sent her manuscript to her Ebury editor (cue another rejection letter!). She and Juliet continued to work on the book, and Joanna advises the importance of having an agent with whom you can work with editorially rather than one who is simply there to broker a deal. Despite redrafting the book three times, it was not picked up and Joanna points out that this is very much part of the “…ups and downs of a writer’s career…” However, she was consoled by the fact that she had Juliet to work with. She clarifies that she does not think it was a bad book, but it “… just didn’t find a home.” She refers to this time as her “…licking my wounds experience.”

Juliet’s advice was to “…just write something else.” Joanna maintains that this is not easy when you have spent the last four years writing something that did not get anywhere. But, she continues “You have to want to write.” This brings us up to date with Joanna’s work.  She is now working on her forth book (“…and off we go again.”).

Joanna finished her counselling training.  She is now a counsellor as well as continuing to write.  She has also brought both of these things together by way of offering therapeutic writing workshops for wellbeing. This followed on from running a women’s writing group for Artful Scribe. Additionally, having been through the professional editing process herself, Joanna offers an editing service – something she tells us she really enjoys. She also judges various writing competitions. She tells us how she enjoys longlisting. For this, she is sent the first 5000 words and synopsis of approximately 20 entries. She then has to decide if she wants to read the rest of the novel or not “…it’s Roman emperor time.”  She claims that you have to be “brutal,” adding that it makes you understand what it must feel like to be an agent. However, it has also been very useful in terms of reflecting on her own work. 

Joanna goes on to talk about her process when writing, explaining that she always gets the best ideas when she cannot write them down (i.e. when she’s swimming). She describes this as “… the back room…” which works away quietly at the back of your brain, and then “knocks” to give you something when you’re doing something else. She shares that she has recently discovered the voice notes app on her phone that has helped her to collate her thoughts and ideas.

She considers whether she is a “plotter” or a “pantser. “ A plotter is a writer who plans everything before they write.  A “pantser” is a writer who “flies by the seat of their pants” and doesn’t necessarily know how the story will end (she tells us that Phillip Pullman writes like this and she quotes him as saying “If I know how it was going to end, why would I bother to write it? That would just be boring. I need to find out how it ends by writing it.”). Joanna says she used to be like that but is now becoming more “plotty.”  She confesses this is why she dives in to all the exercises she leads within her writing groups.

Joanna clicks onto a slide that is simply titled “Top Tips if You Want to Write a Book.” She has managed to condense this down to five points – no mean feat! These are reading a lot (she tells us that she has met may people who are writing in genres they have never read in!), writing a lot, writing the book YOU want to write, finding your tribe and getting feedback from people you trust (but not before you’ve written the first 20 000words!).

The final slide lists questions one must NEVER ask a writer:

• How’s the book going? (A writer will always think their work is terrible).
• What’s it about? (Make sure you’ve got those elevator pitches ready).
• Why don’t they turn it into a film / TV series? (If only it was that easy!)
• Why don’t you write for children? (Joanna refers to this as the JK Rowling / David Walliams effect).

Joanna’s talk has been informative and engaging, and to finish, she urges us to write down our dreams and goals (she shows us a journal she wrote when she was considering leaving her sales job).  There is, she says, “something powerful” in doing this – and clearly it worked for Joanna.

Report on Chris Heal’s talk to the Hampshire Writers’ Society, April 2023 by Sarah Noon

Our guest speaker this evening is Chris Heal who has come to discuss his latest book The Winchester Tales which was released in August 2022.  It has been described as “… the story of the Norman invasion of the city. It is also a story of Anglo-Norman love and deceit.”

Chris begins by showing us copies of his previous books which have sold internationally (some have sold even better in countries such as Nigeria and Morocco than they have in the UK).

He tells us of a time when he was discussing what his mother might like for her 100^th birthday “… she decided she’d like her own murder book.” He then says that he was “instructed” to investigate Four Marks – a village described as “The murder capital of the south of England.” Chris had already been collecting stories. The result was The Four Marks Murders published in 2020. Sadly, his mother only got to read the first three stories (“which she approved”) but passed away before she saw the rest. Chris shares with sadness that his mother died alone during lockdown on “…the day that Boris had his famous party.”

Chris began to realise the significance of enclosures and land ownership to the area’s history, and may of the murders were connected to the enclosures. He says that he believes the landowners were simply stealing the land rather than “… an attempt to improve the efficiency of farming.” As a result, Chris commissioned some political cartoons which sums up the injustice of the land issues. He tells us that some of the villages he researched were “gutted” of commoners and those that remained were “… labourers for the rest of their lives.”

He shows a table which illustrates “one of the great land-grabs.” Where ownership of the land was transferred from people to landowners.  He continues by explaining how William the Conquerer “set the clock on land ownership” in 1066 and that whatever land was previously owned before that date then became his to give to the people who helped him steal the land – barons and the church – many of whom still own it today. This lead to the Domesday Book, which was the first record of land ownership.

So where does Chris get his sources from? Well, mostly books (he tells us that he has over 100 books about the First World War, worth over £1000). He also studies charters from the church (most of which are forgeries, he tells us) and other manuscripts and he shows us some images of these. Chris’s research has brought up stories of theft, lying, treachery – a tangled web of claims over land. With regards to the books he has read, he reminds us that “It is important to go back to the source rather than use the books.” However, he points out that when looking at sources that go back to Norman times, a lot were actually written “… many, many years later.” He continues, “… they’re all half-truths and half-lies.  They’re all propaganda.” Therefore, with his books he “… made the best that you can out of it.”

As well as visiting Winchester and London to look at documents, Chris also visited Rouen, the capital of Normandy. At this point, he tells us that although adopted (he didn’t find this out until later in life) his parents were French.

Chris’s talk is a fascinating reminder of the importance of research knowing your subject.  His presentation this evening has been very interesting, and we look forward to the publication of his next book.