Looking back over 2013

I started to study writing (but not actually doing it) in October 2002. I only started writing writing when I joined a hardworking online writing group in November 2003. Writing is writing, to me. See? Good. 

So. To 2013. Books first. 
One of the joys of working with an indie press is that you can say, ‘Hey, this text book has been out for a few years - I’d like to update, refresh, add some new chapters by fab writers, maybe do a little pruning?’ and they say, ‘Good idea - do it.’

The result is  the terrific second edition of Short Circuit: Guide to the Art of the Short Story. Eight new chapters, new intro, sharper all round, I think - although the first edition was pretty good anyway. It’s been a huge privilege to be able to put together the text book I’d have liked when I started this writing lark myself, so thank you Salt Publishing.

So. That was book number five. A recap? Ok. 

1. ‘Words from a Glass Bubble’ (short stories, published 2008 by Salt), 
2. ‘Short Circuit first edition (2009), 
3. ‘Storm Warning’ (short stories on the theme of conflict, published 2010 by Salt),
4. ‘The Coward’s Tale’ (novel, published in UK in 2011 by Bloomsbury)
4.5 'The Coward’s Tale’ published in USA 2012
5.  'Short Circuit’ second edition (2013)

and book number 6 crept into 2013 as well, allowing me to say I have almost managed a book a year since 2008 as the US version of TCT doesn’t really count.  

6. My debut poetry publication, ‘The Half Life of Fathers’ was published by Pighog Press in November and launched in Brighton. Again, a joy of working with an indie - I was at Gladstone’s Library in September, there was a literary fest, I was reading, and Pighog kindly produced some advance copies. Thank you Pighog. 

It’s a game, all this - a serious one, but a game still. The writing world is full of ‘you must do this, must do that’, and in the end you could spend your days dancing to everyone’s tune but your own. I’m certainly not playing anyone else’s game these days, just mine.

Little Owl, illustration by Lynn Roberts - from 'Ed's Wife and Other Creatures' 

So. Book number 7, and the one I have had more fun writing than any other, is now with my agent. This is the collection of tiny fictions called ‘Ed’s Wife and Other Creatures’, beautifully and cleverly illustrated by artist and poet Lynn Roberts. Lynn’s own collection of poems inspired by paintings in The National Gallery is due out in April, and I am hugely grateful to her for going with the flow when I changed the goalposts from ‘about ten’ illustrations to ‘oh they are so good, can each story have a drawing?’ when there are almost seventy stories.  Thank to Lynn!

Anthology publications this year include a story in the lovely Red Room, published by Unthank and aimed at raising funds for the Bronte Birthplace Trust - and a lovely trip to Manchester to read at The Portico Library, staying with Elizabeth Baines. Then there is ‘The Irreal Reader’ a compilation of the editor’s picks from The Cafe Irreal, one of my favourite online journals, together with academic essays on irrealism. 

Theology Room, Gladstone's Library

Going places thanks to writing - I look back with huge pleasure over a NAWE conference at York, two (two!) stays at Anam Cara Writers and Artists Retreat early in the year, during which I was able to focus hard on the two separate strands of the next novel, ‘Kit’. I then put the novel away, letting it stew, until a glorious month at Gladstone’s Library in September, during which I was able to focus on getting a wobbly draft together, with invaluable input from both my agent (thanks Euan Thorneycroft) and military historian Jeremy Banning. Thank you to both. 

Part of The Western Front, at July 1916

Mr Banning led an unforgettable trip to France for what is becoming an annual event - the Writers Pals visit to the WW1 battlefields. This year, readings of poetry by the grave of Isaac Rosenberg, readings in  a sodden Strip Trench at Mametz Wood from 'In Parenthesis' by David Jones, and a walk with poet and friend Caroline Davies from the Citadel at Fricourt down to the Hammerhead were real highlights. As was the group writing every evening by the fire at Chevasse Ferme. Next year’s trip is already planned, and full. Can’t wait! Thanks to all the Writers’ Pals, including Tania Hershman, Sarah Salway and Zoe King. 

A bit of judging, notably the Gladstones Library Flash competition, a panel effort,  with the editors of Flash Magazine (Uni of Chester), was lovely. And a bit of supporting The Bristol Short Story Prize, giving out the prizes and giving a short address - wonderful. Bristol was also the venue for a George Saunders event, during which he was interviewed by Nikesh Shukla, back in May. 

Teaching always takes a place at the table. Workshops have been great, giving the odd talk also great, especially to writing students at Lancaster and Brighton Universities- but the best thing this year has been mentoring. This was a  professional working relationship brokered by New Writing South, and it was a huge privilege to mentor a terrific writer for nine months, a novelist who wanted to pull together a collection of short stories. Tick! 

A good year - now on to 2014. What am I most looking forward to? Finishing ‘Kit’ and thus getting the renowned ‘dreadful second novel’ everyone waits for, out of the way. Having 'nothing' on my plate for a while while I think about what I really want to do next, creatively. Readings and other events already organised include Oxted Literary Festival in February, another exciting gig in London in March. A ten day novel-finishing (please!) retreat at the unparalleled Gladstone’s Library also in February, and poetry poetry - I’m exploring being mentored, myself - very exciting. Definitely off to Ireland in October for a week’s poetry at Anam Cara. A weekend at Cambridge with SWWJ in April, also judging a competition for them, on the theme of war, off to the brilliant International Conference on the Short Story in Vienna in July, and judging a short fiction competition for Cinnamon Press later in the summer- I will be busy. 

I wish everyone who reads this a very Happy New Year. Lets hope it brings fresh ideas, the calm to explore them, a few exciting storm clouds punctuated by flashes of brilliance. 

John O'Leary

John at Anam Cara. 

A short while ago, I heard of the death of poet, farmer and scholar John O'Leary, in very tragic circumstances.  I met John first some years back, at my lovely writing retreat in West Cork, when he popped in for a meeting with Sue, the owner.  We met many times over the years. He looked wild as anything,  littered his speech with Latin quotations,  knew the history, social history, the mythology, the geography, geology, the flora and fauna, and a lot more, of this part of Ireland. A man who wrote poetry - didn't bother too much about publishing it - but was proud of his two books, each collections of 77 fractured sonnets - 'Sea' and 'Salt', from a tiny now-defunct press in Seattle.  Who could recite you so many things  - he had an extraordinary memory. Who taught both locally and abroad, who had a First from Trinity Cambridge and another degree from Trinity Dublin. 

John getting ready to read his poems to my short story writers, at Anam Cara in June this year.

Born in Boston, US, he had lived most of his life in West Cork, on a small farm in the tiny village of Allihies, where he bred Irish Draught Horses, farmed sheep. His farm overlooked the North Atlantic. His study, a treasure-house (some might call it a shambles!) of books and papers, had a spidery window looking down over fields to the strand. 

He used to inspire the kids at local schools. The book in the first photo above is a hand made book he helped the older students to make, at the local school. They made the paper from nettles. The ink. The covers from wood. The binding twine also from nettles. They used gannet feathers found on the strand for quills and each student wrote what they wanted to be in life.  He'd also been Visiting Professor of Creative Writing and Irish Studies at Illinois Wesleyan University and Seattle University and has taught at numerous universities in America and Europe. And he ran workshops at the Anam Cara Writers' and Artists' Retreat - with Paddy O'Connor - another friend, a retired headmaster. I was due to go and enjoy a week of their inspirational teaching and insights next year. 

Sadly, John drowned in the sea not far from Allihies, after his fishing boat capsized.

So - as a goodbye to an irreplaceable genius, here's the account of a wonderful journey John took me on last year - into the old copper mine above Allihies. 'I know a way in', he said. 'We used to go when I was a kid.' Paddy O'Connor wanted to come too. 

John at the entrance of the tunnel

So we drove up there, and we parked, John Paddy and I, by the side of the stony road that leads to the Mountain Mine. Barbed wire fences didn't worry John. Off with the jacket,  laying it on the barbs, he swung a long skinny leg over the wire. Me, I don't have those legs, and Paddy said, 'We'll go this way, and we scrambled up the steep slope, slid down rocks, up again, managed to negotiate some easier fences, and eventually dropped back down the slope to where John was standing at the entrance to a closed-off tunnel. 'Oh, its got a lock,' he said. And, 'Oh look, someone's broken it...' Hmm...

Down the tunnel, lichen-covered and dank, up to our ankles in water

I'd borrowed some beach shoes, which was a good thing - 'Be ready for water up to your knees...' John said, pushing the metal gate aside, grinning, and disappearing into a black-as-night tunnel. I took a photo with my phone - it showed for a second the green growths on the walls, the rock-strewn floor, the water. And John's back, rolled up jeans and ubiquitous tweed jacket, disappearing....

Looking up, the sun shone down the spent vein, blueing the walls

Feeling for rocks with our feet, scrambling over a low wall or two built to keep us out, no doubt, we ended up in a wide cavern. The walls ran with damp in places, catching the light. Light which filtered down from above, a slash in the ground, perhaps where a seam has been exhausted many years before the mine was closed. And as my eyes became accustomed, I could see places where the walls were blue, turquoise, green, cobalt - the sunlight catching the colours and throwing them about. There were the wooden supports for walkways long gone. Places where ladders would have taken the miners from one level to the next. There were metal hooks in the rock, gaping, somehow, waiting.

Looking down, the wooden walkway supports from a century ago

Kneeling in a shaft of light to read a poem by a  Cornish tin miner

The floor of the cavern ended suddenly, and the ground fell away into the mineshaft. Not, as I had imagined, a rough circular hole - but a slash the whole width of the cavern, and about six feet across. Thanks to the light from above,  you could see the shaft, disappearing downwards.  Then nothing. You could see the walls, with their blue and green artwork. Then nothing. In the picture above, John is kneeling right on the edge of the shaft - the flash from my phone-camera has lit up the wall going down.   He took a paper from his pocket, and proceeded to read - perhaps the most extraordinary and memorable reading/listening experience I will ever have. John read out loud, his words echoing slightly against the walls. He read a poem written over a hundred years ago, by a Cornish tin miner, describing riding to work on the man engine at Levant - the lift device  that had inspired so much of the structure of The Coward's Tale - but which I had taken out of the novel as one of the last sacrifices during editing.  

The shaft is black and deep, bright blue stains in the rock

There was a man engine at this mine too, and its building is still to be seen, high on the mountain above Allihies. Hearing the words here, in this place, where they seemed to fit so well... I can't describe it. We stayed for a while, drinking in the atmosphere. Talking in hushed tones when we talked at all.  Most of the time I think all three of us were overwhelmed by the place.  I didn't want to leave - the place was magical - a sense of history, and strife, it is no doubt full of ghosts. But the ghosts let us be. 

back through the tunnel towards daylight

And in contrast to our journey into the mine, the tunnel on the way back seemed very different. Instead of the night that lay ahead on our way in, we journeyed out, towards the brightest light.

Thanks, John.



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