‘Two Blogs in One …’

‘Two Blogs in One …’ by Ms Paige Turner
I’ve been away fishing in Fish Hoek, Cape Town for the past six weeks and attended some lectures and book groups. Finuala Dowling was lecturing at the first in Simon’s Town. Her novel ‘The Man Who Loved Crocodile Tamers’ I enjoyed and I loved her collection of poetry ‘Pretend You Don’t Know Me’/Kwela Books.
From her collection:
‘Lastness’
‘All this brouhaha about birthdays and first days
while anniversaries of lastness pass us by.’
Oh, how true.
I attended Dawn Garisch’s lecture on Memoir. Dawn runs the Life Righting Collective www.liferighting.com and I read her creative non-fiction book ‘Eloquent Body’. As a doctor, Dawn writes about keeping the body, mind and memory in balance.
I ran the Fish Hoek Scribblers workshop on ‘Colour’ whilst also reading my short story monologue ‘Scheurer’s Green’ which has been published in the anthology ‘Evergreen’ by Bridge House Publishing. One writer said my cockney accent was better than Audrey Hepburn’s in ‘My Fair Lady’. I hope so but maybe next time I will come back with Audrey’s eyebrows. You can hear me here: http://www.janmoranneil.co.uk/media/flufferedit.mp3
I also attended Helen Moffett’s workshop in Noordoek on ‘Reading Your Poetry Aloud’. What a wonderful voice, Helen has. She’s a singer – would love to hear her sing!
I’m moving into narrating audio novels so watch this space.
So for a second bite of the blog apple which I missed posting when I was away I also read Joanne Wallace’s ‘You’d Look Better as a Ghost’ published by Serpent’s Tail and out in September. Jo started this wonderfully hilarious thriller at Creative Ink.
Laura Shepperson, a Cambridge MSt colleague has just published ‘The Heroines’ with Sphere. It’s a fascinating re-working of Phaedra’s story – a Greek tragedy with a ‘Me Too’ message.
And finally, to end on ‘lastness’, Wenyan Lu, another Cambridge MSt colleague is bringing out ‘The Funeral Cryer’ published by Atlantic Books in early May. Wenyan sent me the first few chapters some time ago and this story about a young woman in contemporary rural China has haunted me ever since. I can’t wait to read the whole book.