The year moves on

Well, the evenings are drawing in, it's darker in the mornings and I've done my last stint covering for Rona Laycock on Corinium Radio - autumn must be on its way! Not that I want to say farewell to the summer at all, but there's certainly plenty to look forward to writing-wise in the coming months.

An interesting morning on Thursday, though, with Jennie Farley and Marian Eason as guests on The Writer's Room programme. Jennie has a new poetry collection coming out before Christmas and gave us a preview of some of the great poems in it, along with some of my favourites from her recollections about childhood. Marian, the author of the 1950s childhood memoir "The Deaf Doctor", read one of her short stories and talked about her present project, which involves writing up oral histories she is taking from elderly residents in her North Cotswold village. It's something about which I feel very strongly, ensuring that memories of earlier days and ways are not lost but validated and preserved for future generations.

Jennie and Marian

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old woman, something else about which I feel strongly is how little many people now know about the stories on which so much of our art and literature is based - myths and legends, Bible stories, folk tales. I recently wrote a poem based on a Biblical character; reading it to a group yesterday only one or two people actually got the derivation. My concern has nothing to do with religious persuasion, but a feeling that so much is missed without a knowledge of the tremendous stories found, for example, in the texts of so many great religions. Certainly the Bible has it all - sibling rivalry, murder, marital infidelity, the underdog defeating the mighty, romance, onerous journeys - all the components in fact of the seven basic plots for storytelling we learn about on creative writing courses! I have to admit that my own knowledge of the stories in other cultures leaves a bit to be desired, but I am trying to remedy that with some of my current reading - and, in very different settings, with people of quite disparate backgrounds, there they are again, the universal themes!