Elevated Truths – a short story

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Lift at ABode by Judy DarleyI’m pleased to share the news that my short story Elevated Truths has been published by Fictive Dream magazine.

The story explores the changing relationship between a father and daughter over a number of years, as well as the lies we tell and pretend to believe for comfort’s sake. It also focuses quite a lot on lifts, which fascinate and scare me in equal measure!

The seeds of this story began way back in 2016, with this writing prompt. Two years’ on, I actually sat down and began to write it down. Funny how long the germination process can take sometimes.

Here’s an excerpt from the story’s final section.

The elevator doors ping open.

“It’s me!” I yell, fake-cheerful, as I let myself into the flat. I go straight into the kitchen and open the fridge door, blocking my view to the living room. That way Dad will have time to get from couch to bedroom and pull on proper clothes if he’s still in his pyjamas.

There are cherry tomatoes wizening in the salad drawer, and a Peach Melba yogurt only one day past its sell-by-date. I grab it.

“All right, love?” Dad asks, sidling into the room.

‘How’s the writing going?” I ask, spooning a small orange mountain into my mouth.  

“Oh, great, making real progress.” Dad’s eyebrows pinch outwards and down.

I used to think that movement showed he was lying, but I’ve come to understand it means he’s trying to convince himself that what he’s saying is true. A subtle difference.

You can read the full story here.

Theatre review – Wise Children

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.Wise Children company1, credit Steve Tanner (2)

Vibrant, comical and moving, Wise Children at Bristol Old Vic is a joyfully dizzying swirl of an end-of-pier helter skelter with a vein of minty gravitas spiralling through the middle.

We meet twin sisters Nora and Dora Chance (Etta Murfitt and Gareth Snook) as they prepare to celebrate their 35th birthday, then zip back through time to meet their paternal grandparents. Some theatrics, debauchery and a spot of violence orphans their father and his twin brother, and so a pattern is laid out for the sisters before they’re even born.

Bringing Angela Carter’s last novel to wriggling, whooping, high-kicking life is director Emma Rice, the creative whizz behind the enchanting The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, among others. The production is the first from Rice’s new theatre company, also named Wise Children, and it’s a fabulous indication of the treats to come

The small cast conjure a whole world, with earlier incarnations of the sisters and their fathers appearing throughout, sometimes as ghostly memories and other times in a change of costume as a lover, pier comic or stagehand. Gender is fluid, and morals even more so. The recommendation is that performances are best suited to ages 14 and up. Sex is portrayed with cartoonish vigour or fleeting tenderness, and education on this theme from Grandma Chance is accessorised by bagels and sticks of seaside rock.

Katy Owen as Grandma Chance in Wise Children, credit Steve Tanner (2)

Katy Owen as Grandma Chance

The youngest Nora and Dora (apart from Lyndie Wright’s puppets) are performed with boisterous wide-eyed enthusiasm by Mirabelle Gremaud and Bettrys Jones, while their showgirl personifications, played by Omari Douglas and Melissa James, exuded sex appeal and vulnerability in equal, overflowing measure.

Melissa James as Dora, Omari Douglas as Nora in Wise Children, credit Steve Tanner

Melissa James as Dora and Omari Douglas as Nora

 

Katy Owen is magnificent as the girls’ ever-tipsy, often unclothed (apart from golden nipple tassels) grandma, while the elder embodiments of their father and uncle, (Paul Hunter and Paul Rider) manage to smudge the bravado of their younger selves (Ankur Bahl and Sam Archer) into the wistful, somewhat melancholy humour of old age.

The sisters long to be acknowledged by their father Melchior, who abandoned their pregnant mother, but settle instead for the intermittent adoration of his brother, Peregrine. Dashing and affectionate, young Peregrine is also the instigator of one of the production’s most chilling scenes.

Taking place in a moment of quiet between 13-year-old Dora (Bettrys Jones) and her uncle, while other action takes place around them, it’s skilfully handled enough that we questioned whether we’d really seen what we thought we’d seen – a unnerving parallel to the reality of such instances.

Laughter, song and dance coupled with the vivid set (including an ingenious turning caravan and some exquisite projected animation) plus enticing costumes by Vicki Mortimer keeps the tone on the right side of fun, but this dark core thread draws us towards the shadows beyond the glitz, if only for seconds at a time.

Wise Children is on at Bristol Old Vic until 16th February 2019. Find out more and book tickets. Production images by Steve Tanner.

Seen or read anything interesting recently? I’d love to know. I’m always happy to receive reviews of books, art, theatre and film. To submit or suggest a review, please send an email to judydarley(at)iCloud.com.

Writing prompt – language

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Bible_St John On The Wall. Photo by Judy DarleyIn Jan Morris’ ‘Over The Bridge: Sydney 1983, part of her Penguins 60s From The Four Corners, she mentions with delight that the motto of a Sydney school: “I Hear, I See, I Learn,” translates into Latin as “Audio, Video, Disco.”

This gorgeous detail is a reminder of how language twitches and evolves, developing and conjuring subtly different meanings, tones and contexts over time.

Match up a weighty old word or phrase with its modern-day interpretation and use this as your starting point. The results may surprise you.

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’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Writing prompt – beholder

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Artwork at the RWA_Photo by Judy Darley

I caught this moment on camera almost by accident, and love the miscellany of disparate figures and objects. Some of these items are bona fide art complete with a price tag, others are simply clothing or possessions set down for a moment. Best of all, I love the people pausing or passing by.

What jumps out to you when you look at this photo? What do you see as art, or happenstance? Can you express this through fiction, poetry or art of your own?

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’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Writing prompt – out

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Kalamazoo homeless. Photo by Judy DarleyWhile visiting Kalamazoo, Michigan, I passed a park full of tents. The waitress where I ate lunch confirmed what I feared – the tents were evidence of the growing issue of homelessness. It’s a problem that’s growing in the UK as well, where cuts to benefits are resulting in more people losing their homes when things go wrong.

Think about how that could happen to you, but don’t scare yourself silly. Instead think of what could keep you strong in that situation.

I invite you to write a piece either from the point of view of a) someone holidaying who encounters such a scene, b) from the point of view of someone newly homeless seeing someone holidaying, or c) someone who has been homeless for years responding to a) a holidaymaker, and/or b) someone newly homeless.

Whatever point of view you choose, try rewriting your finished piece from one of the alternate protagonists to see how that changes you reading of the situation.

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’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Review – Quartet: The Four Seasons

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Quartet coverEdited by Deborah Gaye of Avalanche books, Quartet is a celebration of the moods that make up each season. The anthology of poetry and short prose doubles up as an almanac reminding us of the best that every quarter of the year has to offer.

Two of my pieces, a poem and a flash fiction (More Water Than Land and The Moth Room), lodge in these pages, among with many, many others. We begin in winter with a murmuration, glimpses of lapwings, an “upturned umbrella” on Pendine Sands, and the generosity of a dawn sky “layered in gold.”

In DecemberJohn Mole welcomes nostalgia in the form of “our ghosts/ as they come out of hiding/ to warm their hands/ at the fire we have made”, while in Foula, Auls Yule, Katrina Porteous invites us to “drink to the days/ the sun makes ripe”.

In Precious, Gaia Holmes evokes the magic of ice working “its dark magic,/ gliding and glazing/ the grid of dull roads,/ laminating grass/ and slug tracks,/ making rotten fence posts/ precious”. It’s such a vivid, recognisable scene of the ordinary rendered spectacular. Continue reading →

Writing prompt – sea

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Oban bay. Photo by Judy DarleyHappy New Year! Have you had any time to write or read over the festive period? I’m currently reading the wonderful A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit. Early on in the book, the author mentions the correlations between science and the creative arts, drawing the distinction between the two thus:

“They [scientists] transform the unknown into the known, haul it in like fishermen; artists get you out into that dark sea.”

What dark sea would you choose to lure readers, viewers and other bystanders into? What might they discover through allowing you to get their feet wet, and following you, possibly far, beyond their depth?

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’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Become a woodland writer in residence

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Arnos Vale light in the canopy. Photo by Judy Darley

Forestry Commission England is seeking two writers to share the stories of our country’s woodlands.

They ask: “What do forests mean to you? If you’re a writer with a passion for nature, we want to hear from you.”

The successful applicants of the Writers in the Forest opportunity will be invited to observe the Commission’s expert foresters, wildlife rangers and world-class scientists at work in a bid to understand the trees that make up the forests that still sprawl across sections of England. The works created in response to these experiences will form part of the centenary year celebrations of the Forestry Commission.

You will receive unique access to England’s forests, promotional support and a platform on which to share your work, development opportunities and £2,500.

The submission deadline is midnight GMT on 14th January 2019.

To apply, you need to send your CV and a pitch outlining your interest in the opportunity and how you might respond creatively to our nation’s forests, whether that’s through poetry, short story or something else entirely, providing it is rooted in words.

Pitches can take the form of up to 750 written words, a video of maximum three minutes durations via YouTube or via Dropbox/WeTransfer, or up to three minutes of audio via SoundCloud.

They say: “We’re looking for innovation and imagination, and welcome all forms of storytelling.”

Find full details here: www.forestryengland.uk.

Poetry review – The Weather In Normal by Carrie Etter

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The Weather In Normal coverThis limbo time between Christmas and New Year always seems to me to be a period for renewal and contemplation. Few things facilitate this better than a poetry collection that speaks of space, time and what it is to be human. make p

Carrie Etter’s fourth poetry collection, The Weather In Normal, is an ideal choice. A deep tenderness weaves through the pages, from the love of family to the love of place. Etter succeeds in reminding us that the breadth of her setting is echoed within the confines of each person, where rolling prairie sweeps us through the range of emotions, predilections and experiences that make up our psychological topography.

Continue reading →

Festive wishes

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Tinsel tree 2018. Photo by Judy DarleyMerry Christmas Eve! As feared, our small Christmas tree didn’t make it through 2018 and when we moved to our new home in March, he didn’t come with us. I’m hoping his branches helped to nourish some other growing trees.

However, when I mentioned we might not have a tree this year, my mum immediately offered to loan us her 1960s tinsel tree. This slender silver beauty has pride of place in our cosy living room. We’re just taking care not to place any candles too close!

And yes, in case you were wondering, that is a fairy sheep on top, and a peeping snowman to the right. And no, I can’t (won’t) explain those two little festive oddities.

This year has been tumultuous in many ways, but speckled through with serene pockets of creativity and spangled with small but shining literary successes.

Wishing you a peaceful, joyful Christmas, however you choose to spend it.