Book review – Straw Gods by Tom O’Brien

Posted on December 14, 2020 by Judy

Set in a coastal village and on the surrounding seas, Tom O’Brien’s intensely told novella-in-flash examines the insularity and isolation of grief.

Our narrator is Rosa, living on the shore of the sea that swallowed her husband Matteo ten years ago. With the sound of waves endlessly within earshot, she can’t move on from the hope that Matteo will re-emerge with the next tide.

It opens with a powerful declaration: ‘“I know that you’re dead,” I said to my husband. He didn’t respond.’

Rituals bring scant comfort – the making of tea for a wraith who can never drink it, the poring over of treasures he gave her as tokens of their love – each repeated as if Rosa can lull nature into letting what it has taken slip back to where it, or rather he, belongs.

Rosa confides: ‘There was no storm when he drowned. A freak wave hit the boat, they told me, caused by something far away.’ The details of this sentence are intriguing – the idea of something so seemingly inconsequentially distant could cause such devastation in the centre of a woman’s life ripples through every story that makes up the novella.

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Sky Light Rain – Distant Storms

Posted on December 10, 2020 by Judy

I can never resist the opportunity to peek behind the curtain and catch a ‘behind-the-scenes’ glimpse into the workings of a creative endeavour. It’s part of the reason why I launched this series of posts offering insights into the inspiration behind the flash fiction and short stories that make up my Valley Press collection Sky Light Rain.

The twenty-fifth story is also the first in the ‘Rain’ section, in which all tales are dappled with rain, or washed by ocean waves and rivers. ‘Distant Storms’ invites us to glimpse a future when rising sea levels creep above the lower areas of cities, isolating many people.

Imagine you and one other have been finding ways for the two of you to survive for a decade when a column of smoke lets you know you’re not entirely alone. What will you do?

I originally wrote this flash fiction for the Redcliffe Future Way story walk.

A shorter version was published in Mslexia’s Little Ms newsletter.

The story begins:

When the floods came, most people stuck it out for a time, then lost their nerve and travelled beyond the outer reaches of the city, seeking higher ground.

Not us. We stayed put in the tower block, watching as the streets went under, and then the bridges and even the skyscrapers closest to the strand. You showed me how to fish from the windows, going up a floor each month as the water levels climbed. We learnt to swim through the murky waves, salvaging anything that floated, diving down through waterlogged buildings to rescue anything we could make use of.

Sky Light Rain is published by Valley Press and is available to purchase here.

Discover the inspiration behind my other Sky Light Rain stories by clicking on the story titles below.

If you’d like to request a review copy of Sky Light Rain or interview me about my writing, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

Writing prompt – hierarchy

Posted on December 9, 2020 by Judy

Flocks and herds naturally have their own strictly observed pecking order. As humans, however, it’s up to us to decide whether everyone gets treated well or not.

Imagine a future where none of the existing rules apply. How do your characters establish order? Who thrives, and who barely survives? Who finds themselves top of the heap? How can balance be maintained without anyone being left out in the cold?

Can you glimpse any solutions to current world problems through the fictional story that arises?

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I may publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Book review – if there is no shelter by Tracey Slaughter

Posted on December 8, 2020 by Judy

Piecing together the gritty aftermath of an earthquake in extraordinarily vivid and poetic language, Tracey Slaughter’s novella-in-flash has the strength to shake you to your core.

Written entirely in the second person, she places ‘you’ directly inside the drama that unfolds as people count their loved ones, their possessions and their blessings. With each header a line from instructions on what to do in a disaster, she both deepens and lessens the horror through the relationships shivering around her narrator: her severely injured husband, her missing, presumably dead, lover, her guilt-stricken father and his determinedly buoyant friend Jack, who provides much of the comfort while seeking relief from his own fears through gathering and hoarding fragments of other people’s shattered lives.

In “use common sense, keep calm, and follow any instructions given’, Slaughter depicts the discombobulation following a cataclysm on this scale, wryly observing the sightseers venting in the narrator’s dad’s taxi. “They feel compassion, but also ripped off. It’s like booking a luxury break in a carpark.” Even in the bleakness, Slaughter serves up humour amid lines of startling beauty: “The gouge through the Cathedral roof is like a hole straight through to God.”

Slaughter describes unfathomable terrors in sentences so perfectly crafted that we’re standing right there beside the narrator. Her husband, being carried through a fractured hospital, is “all the emergency I could breathe.” Glass is a threat: “we know it careens at you in jerks, until your freckles are lit up, red studded.”

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Theatre review – The Night That Autumn Turned to Winter

Posted on December 7, 2020 by Judy

We may not be able to make it out to theatres this festive season, but Bristol Old Vic has come up with an ingenious way for you to get your cultural Christmas fix from home, and support them in their efforts to keep their noses above the snow.

The Night That Autumn Turned to Winter is a visual and musical feast that I originally reviewed in December 2015. To tempt you to take a look, I’m re-publishing this review here.

While aimed primarily at tiny tots aged 2-6, like all the best children’s fiction, it includes plenty of humour for grown folks too, thanks to the talents of the three multi-tasking performers, Clare Beresford on the double base, Miriam Gould on the violin, and Dominic Conway playing guitar, banjo and ukulele.

The show is a collaboration between the celebrated Little Bulb Theatre, Farnham Maltings and Bristol Old Vic, and is crammed with moments to treasure, regardless of age. Keen on opera-singing rabbits? They’ve got those. A moral conundrum between a fly, a frog and a spider? It’s in there. A Scottish owl quoting poetry by Robert Burns? Absolutely (and this one is a particular pleasure). There’s also a smattering of audience participation as we aid the woodland wardens (who happen to be fairies, though not of your usual fey and Disney-fied variety) in helping the animals prepare for the long winter ahead, but just enough to keep the smaller audience members entranced,

To invite the wonder into your home, you can buy the Bristol Old Vic At Home Season Pass and watch The Night That Autumn Turned to Winter along with four other stellar Bristol Old Vic productions (including their extraordinary A Christmas Carol), for just £12.99. Alternatively, you can rent The Night That Autumn Turned to Winter on its own for 48-hours for just £4.50.

Find full details here.

Sky Light Rain – The Blue Suitcase

Posted on December 3, 2020 by Judy

The twenty-fourth story is ‘The Blue Suitcase’. This is the last in the ‘Light’ section of stories about journeys and change. It was inspired by discovering that someone close o me accidentally went home with the wrong suitcase from an airport carousel. Whoops! How must they have felt when they opened the case they thought was there’s, and found it filled with someone else’s things? How confused and distressed might the person whose case had been taken have been?

Seed in a marital betrayal, and there’s a drama, ripe for the writing.

It’s also a chance to relive those heady pre-pandemic days when we could jet off to Greece without worrying about quarantine.

The story begins:

I’m looking out for mine, I really am, hoping and hoping it will be next, but then I spy it, a little blue case bouncing jauntily along the conveyor belt. I can’t help myself – I just… reach out.

I don’t know what makes me do it. It doesn’t resemble mine in the slightest. Bella is sobbing and squirming in my arms, it’s too hot with everyone crowded around the luggage carousel, and it takes forever for the first weary bags to roll into view.

Somehow I feel like this is the suitcase I’ve been waiting for. The handle fits comfortably in my palm, as though it’s chosen me.

Sky Light Rain is published by Valley Press and is available to purchase here.

Discover the inspiration behind my other Sky Light Rain stories by clicking on the story titles below.

If you’d like to request a review copy of Sky Light Rain or interview me about my writing, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

Writing prompt – souvenir

Posted on December 2, 2020 by Judy

I spied this broken tray by the roadside, and was instantly flooded with questions. Who are all these people? Are they a family, or is this a group assemble to photograph for tourist tat? Who owned and discarded this treasure so unceremoniously?

In my home we have a hand-me-down couch where people we’ve lost once used to sit. The scene above made me wonder if in some small way a hint of us remains in the goods we use, handle or sit on.

Imagine a household accessory imbued with the essence of your ancestors – whether that’s a tray, couch, or something else. What significance does their presence have? If you wanted to replace it with shiny new or more comfortable version, could you get rid of this poignant old one? If so, how would you do it?

How can you weave this idea into a story?

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I may publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Book review – When It’s Not Called Making Love by Karen Jones

Posted on November 28, 2020 by Judy

Fewer friendships are more complicated than the same-sex ones we have as we near and break into our teens. In ‘When It’s Not Called Making Love,’ Karen Jones draws us into the intimacy that straddles bullying and lust, as innocence sloughs off cell by cell.

Jones makes powerful use of the novel-in-flash form, with each of her 16 flash fictions building on the last as her characters hurtle towards adulthood.

While each story could be siphoned off to stand alone and shimmering in solitary perfection, each plays such a crucial role to the overarching tale that should any be removed, the whole structure could shatter. This contributes to the tension of the underlying story, with a sense of characters clinging on by their fingertips.

The novella opens with ‘Recommended Stopping Distance’, a flash that rings out for almost a full page in one long torrential sentence, before finally a full stop allows us to take a breath. There’s so much crammed into this first sentence that it’s worth reading twice – once for the sheer exhilaration of it, and again, to catch the details that may become important later.

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Sky Light Rain – Geese Among the Trees

Posted on November 26, 2020 by Judy

There’s something magical about catching a ‘behind-the-scenes’ glimpse into stories, music and theatrical productions. It’s part of the reason why I launched this series of posts offering insights into the inspiration behind the flash fiction and short stories that make up my Valley Press collection Sky Light Rain.

The twenty-third story is ‘Geese Among the Trees’. Just a few times in my life I’ve seen geese grazing – it always seems to me to be something uncanny and incongruous. I wanted to harness that feeling while exploring the challenge of being someone who’s been hurt too many times to give into wonder, and offset this against a person who actively seeks opportunities to be amazed. Can the cynic and the innocent ever find a happy ending together?

This story was written for the lovely folks at Liars’ League Hong Kong for their literary night of performances in December a few years back. I wanted to write something that wasn’t Christmassy, but captured some of the sense of childlike awe the season can evoke in those that way inclined.

Susan Lavender performed my short story as part of the special showcase.

The story begins:

I see it from the train each day, nestled between the fields and the canal. If I’m travelling at dusk or the day is overcast and stormy, the windows glint against the stone walls. I can imagine you then, moving about in there, doing whatever it is that you do without me. Or perhaps you’re resting your elbows against a window ledge looking out, wearing a worn-thin, oversized jumper, watching the train zipping by like something fleeing through the landscape, headed god knows where – who cares where, as long as it’s away?

Away from the house we shared – the one and a half rooms downstairs, two and a half up, if you counted the loft where the bats lodged and paid rent in foul-smelling droppings.

“Guano,” you told me, and scooped it up to fertilise the garden, transforming it into carrots and lettuces – a kind of alchemy. I never could eat them without feeling squeamish, although I knew they’d been scrubbed clean.

Country living, it’s not for everyone.

Sky Light Rain is published by Valley Press and is available to purchase here.

Discover the inspiration behind my other Sky Light Rain stories by clicking on the story titles below.

If you’d like to request a review copy of Sky Light Rain or interview me about my writing, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

Writing prompt – balance

Posted on November 25, 2020 by Judy

Picture a pair of children who have been told to wait somewhere unexpected and increasingly perilous, such as on a crumbling cliff-edge or at the edge of rising water.

Use this extreme situation to dig into their relationship. How do they feel about each other? Is their primary emotion jealousy or devotion.

What dramatic event has led to their predicament? How will they each help the other to escape?

Add in an unconventional characteristic the pair have in common, and explore how they might use it to improve their situation.

To skew the balance of power, provide just one with a tool that could help with their situation. Do they choose to share their advantage or keep it to themselves?

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I may publish it on SkyLightRain.com.