National Short Story Week

"The Wish Dog and Other Stories takes you into the realm of the unknown, the ghostly and the gothic, in a colourful kaleidoscope of half-glimpsed shades" said the blurb; not my usual sort of bedtime reading but, with a story in it by Rona Laycock, my mentor and colleague in Catchword, I thought I'd give it a try in National Short Story Week. And, with some from historical perspectives, some sharply contemporary, a really good read the stories have proved to be.

Published by Honno Press 2014

I've always liked short stories and they fit well into my time-limited lifestyle  - compact tales that slot in to a bus journey or a coffee break, take you into a different world for ten minutes but leave that world embedded in your own for you to think about and enjoy during the rest of your day too. But I certainly haven't found them the easy option to write! To create enjoyable, credible scenarios with rounded, 3D characters within a tight word limit is a challenge; knowing where to start and where to stop, allowing the reader to fill in the backstory, the sequel - skills that take a fledgling writer time and practice to perfect!

Sunday Afternoon Tea and Tales

What better way to spend a damp and dismal November afternoon than in a warm and cosy teashop listening to an expert story teller and a great poet over a hot drink and a piece of ginger cake or a scone loaded with cream and jam? That's how I spent yesterday afternoon, at The Burrow Cafe in Sheep Street in Stow on the Wold. Nicholas John regaled us with tales on such unlikely topics as bored elderly gentlemen and recalcitrant recycling and Derek Healey read poems on everything from first love to cricket and fishing. A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. Next month sees Chloe the Midnight Storyteller entertaining customers with her "adult tales" (sounds promising!) - make a date in your diary for Sunday December 14th at 3pm if you're free to come to hear her.

Remembrance

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow ..." John McCrae

Much discussion this week about the nature of "remembrance" - a lot of it centering on the ceramic poppies at the Tower of London. Are they a fitting memorial to a generation of "glorious dead" or simply a sanitized, sentimental representation of the British losses in a conflict that started a century ago, a conflict that would be better recalled with graphic images of the horror of those four long years? Do they downplay the universal nature of loss and suffering, ignoring the millions from other nations who died both as combatants and civilians?  Views are strongly held on both sides of the debate.

On Friday evening (November 14th) at DeepSpace in Charlton Kings here in Cheltenham poetry will be read and performed by a variety of local poets looking at all angles of remembrance and at the reality of wars past and present. Led by Jennie Farley, Eley Furrell and David Clarke, it should be a thought-provoking evening. I shall be reading the wonderful poem written by the American Sara Teasdale in 1917, "There Will Come Soft Rains"; to me it expresses a salutary truth which we would all do well to ponder.

"There Will Come Soft Rains"

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows calling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild-plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Sara Teasdale

If you are free on Friday evening, do please join us. We'd love to see you there.

The Art In The Everyday

Life has been rather fraught lately with extensive family commitments, but earlier in the week I managed to get to an evening workshop run by the Irish poet C. L. Dallat on "The Art In The Everyday". He spoke about using the minutiae of our every day lives - the things and people on our street, the remains of a meal on the table - as a basis for our poems. Definite food for thought there, as life at present seems nothing but minutiae!