Colds and Successes and Feeling Smug

They say that when you stop’s when it gets you. And they’re not wrong. Last year was ridiculously busy in many ways (most of them wonderful and writing shaped) and this year’s not been too different. But, as I’d not any looking deadlines tapping at my window when I felt a cold coming on I thought bugger itI’ll take it easy for a couple of days.

And that’s when it hit me. Since the weekend I have been absolutely wiped out and, as such, not much has been getting done (lucky those deadlines are still a little while off).

 

But what’s been lovely and amazing and really heartwarming is seeing so many emails come in from people I’ve worked with or mentored, taught or edited, who have been doing good things. Winning things. Receiving copies of their book. Being long and short listed. Getting their names in some amazing places (first time I’ve had the pleasure of having anything to do with Glimmer Train). The editing and teaching side of things isn’t something I really go on about here that much, but it is something I’m really proud of and, I know I’ve said it before, but there really is room for everything that’s good. This writing thing isn’t a competition, it’s a celebration. And if it’s not, it certainly should be.

So I raise a glass (of ginger tea) to everyone else’s success. Be proud. You’re good.

 

(PS There are still some places for the Shakespeare Week workshops I’ll be doing in the March holidays – click here for more.)

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Welcoming Susan Tepper – Dear Petrov

Susan Tepper is definitely one of the nicest people I’ve never met and is a wonderful supporter of other people’s work (here’s a brilliant interview I gave to her for Black Heart magazine). She’s a great writer too.

And she has a new book out, Dear Petrov, and it’s a delight to have her over here to talk about it. Over to Susan…

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Dedicated to dear Petrov and all the other dears..

 

When I try and understand the root of my current book ‘dear Petrov,’ I can only come up with one thought: it sprung up out of a war.   A setting in which I was (metaphorically) cast as a soldier, a medic, the sole person in charge of someone else’s life and well being. It was up to me whether they made it or not. A personal family crisis. It went on for months and left me completely debilitated.

So it was during my time of so-called recuperation, last spring, that the first story which I tilted ‘Dear Petrov’ was written. I set the story in late 19th Century Russia during a time of war. It was written almost tongue-in-cheek, which is the way I deal with my emotional stress when it becomes overwhelming. I turn to humor to bail me out. Our most cherished comedians are often deeply troubled people who use comedy to mask their true feelings. I believe I was in hiding behind the very first story.

But, I am a writer. And I thought it was a pretty good story so I sent it out to Cheryl Anne Gardner. She published it in her ‘Abstractions and Apocrypha.’ It was an aha! moment for me. Then, somehow, the second story ‘Floods’ came out in a rush. Looking back, I believe it was a moment of cracking open— an opening of the floodgates. Richard Peabody took that story for ‘Gargoyle’. After ‘Floods’ the Russian soldier Petrov seemed determined to have his say. Or, to be more precise, the woman who loves Petrov, the one he left behind to go to war, she was anxious to relay their story.

I pretty much wrote a story a day. There was this feeling of going to the screen and unloading a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff comes up in these stories: lake trees, snowfalls, a mountain, decay, petals, perfume, a beloved horse, liver, bluebells, a red plate, garlic and lamb, a straw mattress, bats, a potato seller, a buried child, flat stones, rivers, a locket, and a blackened branch (to list a few).

It was an emotional unloading to write these stories. I felt exhausted after each one yet they kept coming. This woman living alone in Russia in a house, with only her trusted horse for company. This woman who pines after Petrov, understands his foibles and weaknesses, yet pines all the same. While writing her journey I was releasing my own troubled past winter.

Thus the setting of the book: a harsh and extreme landscape co-existing with lush beauty = LIFE

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Susan Tepper has been a writer for twenty years. ‘dear Petrov’ is her sixth book. www.susantepper.com

 

~

Dear Petrov is out now.

Shakespeare Week, Sheffield

A little while ago those amazing people at the Sheffield Library Service asked what I could do for Shakespeare Week. And this is what I’ve come up with. We’ll be running five free workshops at five different libraries, over the school holidays, for ages 7 – 11, beginning Monday 21st March and we will be having fun with words (as you’ll probably know Shakespeare invented hundreds). All the details are below.

Places are limited so I’d strongly suggest you signed up as soon as possible.

And do spread the word, if you can. This is something I’m hugely excited about and I think it’s going to be an awful lot of fun. Hope to see you there!

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Live Your Life

It’s been another very busy couple of weeks but now I have at least a couple of weeks of not having to be anywhere for anything. It’ll be nice to catch up and get some writing done.

On Wednesday I was in London, working at the BBC again which was brilliant. I ran two sessions there, met some more brilliant people and was really, really impressed with what was produced. A good, and very enjoyable, day all round really.

And, a little before, I was reminded of this and, although it’s an oldie and I’m sure a lot of you will have already seen it, it doesn’t hurt to be reminded. I love it. Live your life.