Writing prompt – blooms

Posted on August 26, 2015 by Judy

This Mazda MX-5 was recently parked in a smart part of Bristol, annoying locals by taking up a parking space, but charming passersby with its abundance of flowers.

This week, imagine the person who created such a floral cornucopia. Why plant it in a car? What does the car mean to them? Where do they intend to go with it? Why?

If you create something prompted by this, please let me know by sending an email to judydarley(at)gmail.com. With your permission, I’d love to share it on SkyLightRain.com.

Explore ideas of identity with an exhibition in Bath

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Judy

Map of Days by Grayson Perry, etching 2013-detail- cr Grayson Perry and Paragon-Contemporary editions Ltd

Map of Days by Grayson Perry, detail © Grayson Perry and Paragon Contemporary Editions Ltd

What makes us who we are in the eyes of others? Is it our outer appearance, our inner turmoil or the objects and actions we surround ourselves with?

Portrait artists have been exploring these concepts for centuries, as a new exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath reveals.

The free exhibition Portraits and Identity has been curated around Grayson Perry’s Map of Days etching, which was acquired last year for the Gallery’s permanent collection.

“The piece is an unusual self-portrait in the form of a walled city, the streets and buildings inside the wall representing aspects of the artist’s personality, whilst outside the walls are the things that did not penetrate the defences,” explains Jon Benington from the Gallery.

Map of Days by Grayson Perry, detail showing Bradley Wiggins

The river of imagination flows past a walled city made up of streets with names such as ‘Intuition’, ‘Revenge’ and ‘Churning Insecurity’.

Other portraits in the exhibition include works by artists as diverse as Hogarth, Dürer and William Nicholson.

H M the Queen (Victoria), by William Nicholson 1897

It’s an intriguing insight into the ways artists used visual props, such as books or the tools as their trade, to impart us details of a sitter’s life. Other examples offer more subtle clues, such as this lithograph of Queen Victoria walking her dog in the gardens of Kensington Palace, and described by the artist as looking like ‘an animated tea-cosy’. It reveals her formidable character alongside her love for her affection, and, through this, for her people.

Then there’s the work of caricaturists, which are far more direct, with Gillray transforming naturalist Joseph Banks into a showy butterfly after receiving the Order of the Bath, while William Hibbard depicts the Bath Corporation with symbols of their businesses for heads.

Portrait and Identity is on at the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, from 20th August until October 4th 2015, and runs alongside the Jane Austen’s Bath exhibition.

Are you an artist or do you know an artist who would like to be showcased on SkyLightRain.com? Get in touch at judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’m also happy to receive reviews of books, exhibitions, theatre and film. To submit or suggest a review, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com.

Theatre review – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Posted on August 11, 2015 by Judy

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime cr Brinkhoff Mogenberg

Mark Hadden’s 2003 bestseller is dream material for any imaginative dramaturg. The result from playwright Simon Stephens, director Marianne Elliott and their team is an exquisite work of art, incorporating clever lighting, movement and huge volumes of emotion.

It begins with a dog, a garden fork and a distressed 15-year-old boy. Christopher Boone (Joshua Jenkins) has trouble making sense of other people, especially when it comes to reading their expressions. Unable to lie, in many ways he is an innocent, yet one equipped with extraordinary amounts of resourcefulness and determination.

Christopher sets himself the task of solving the mystery surrounding the dog’s demise, treating it as a project, and takes us along for the ride.

And what a ride it is. Through the street he lives on, to the train station and then into the bewilderment of the London underground. At times Christopher’s sensory overload became my own, as crowds ebbed and flowed, lights fractured and sound pulsated – ringing through us, the audience, as well as our hero on-stage.

There are moments of real fear amid the overriding tension, as well as sublime beauty, magic and even peace. The scene where Christopher imagines being an astronaut is particularly elegant.

Joshua Jenkins is extraordinary as Christopher – as the character he reels off strings of facts, figures and theories at speed, uses the entire stage and the full scale of human emotion. The whole cast were excellent – his parents, played by Gina Isaac and Stuart Long, were especially impressive – drawing us deep into Christopher’s vibrant, sometimes alarmingly intense, world.

The answers he finds in his search aren’t the ones he’s anticipating. If you’ve read the book, I urge you not to re-read it before seeing the play as the surprises when they come are revealed with grace as well as gut-wrenching power. As audience members we emerged exhausted but exhilarated – and, unexpectedly, understanding Pythagoras‘ theorem.

I watched the play at the Bristol Hippodrome. To find out where The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is on near you, visit www.curiousonstage.com

To submit or suggest a review, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com.

Writing prompt – bridges

Posted on July 29, 2015 by Judy

There’s something breathlessly astonishing about bridges, the way they span dizzying gaps, link places and people. Iain Banks set an entire novel on a bridge (one of my favourite books, actually), and it makes sense when you consider the possibilities they present.

By its very nature of hanging in space, a bridge offers an element of danger, while equally providing a sense of safety, potential for escape, and, of course, outstanding views.

This week, begin to write a tale set on a bridge, and see where it takes you.

If you create something prompted by this, please let me know by sending an email to JudyDarley(at)gmail.com. With your permission, I’d love to share it on SkyLightRain.com.

Book review – The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Judy

This richly detailed, immersive book draws you into the life of Nella Oortman, 18 years old in 1968 and freshly married to a man she barely knows. At the start of her story, she arrives in Amsterdam, a very different place to the rural Assendelft she’s left behind. Her life is on the brink of changing forever, but not in the ways she anticipates.

Told solely from the point of view of this naïve yet spirited girl, The Miniaturist is a story that crackles with suspense, straining at the seams with vivid descriptions and characters so finely sketched they seem utterly real. Within the first few pages we meet Marin, the stern sister-in-law with a hunger for distant shores, and Cornelia, the servant who will prove a crucial ally as the novel unfolds, and Otto, the first black man Nella has ever seen.

The actual miniaturist of the title, however, is a far more intangible creature, difficult to meet and impossible to grasp, yet armed with an uncanny knowledge of Nella’s new household and its many mysteries.

Continue reading →

Eco-art in Bristol

Posted on July 23, 2015 by Judy

I recently encountered a pair of whales in the centre of Bristol. Not in the harbour, where you might expect the occasional sighting of a cormorant, but in a fountain on Millennium Square.

Made from Somerset willow woven into the two immense marine mammals, it’s a truly imposing work, with 70,000 plastic bottles, collected at the Bath Half and Bristol 10k forming the swirling, glimmering ocean they swim through.

And yes, those are bottle tops hanging from its imposing tail.

It’s a really dramatic, beautiful way to draw attention to the 15 million bottles we send to landfill every day – apparently around eight million tonnes of plastic end up in oceans each year, equivalent to the body weight of 45,000 blue whales.

So the message is, avoid single use plastic, upcycle and, when you’re thirsty, think of the whales.

The artwork will be in situ until 1st September 2015, when, I presume, the whales will migrate to warmer waters. Find more details at www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-33548708 and www.bristol2015.co.uk/bristol-whales/

Writing prompt – cloud

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Judy

I was at the beach last summer when a strange fog rolled in. One of my companions said it was the result of a cloud being born far out at sea, and forgetting to rise before travelling over the land. Curious!

As we lay there, trying to soak up the sun, we found ourselves bathed in icy water droplets instead. I think it makes an eerie shot – what other reasons, supernatural say, could there be for such an event on a hot summer’s day? What if, instead of dispersing, the fog just kept getting thicker?

If you create something prompted by this, please let me know by sending an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com. With your permission, I’d love to share it on SkyLightRain.com.

How to write a short story collection

Posted on June 26, 2015 by Judy

Today’s guest post comes from writer KM Elkes and offers an insight into the art of stringing a short story collection together.

Telling people you are working on a novel is easy enough. People ‘get’ novels. Even the least reader-ish person has probably read a couple, either because they were forced to at school or because they were part of Generation Harry Potter.

But a short story collection? Not so much.

Maybe that’s because short story collections are relatively unfamiliar – not so surprising when you consider bookshops force readers into an Indiana Jones-style quest to find them. They lurk unassumingly, a diaspora spread among distant bookcases, waiting for the day when someone has the bright idea to give them a shelf of their own.

But there’s a deeper issue too – even those in the biz, writers and publishers, are sometimes ignorant of what a short story collection really is. Which makes putting one together feel like a Sisyphean task.

Think about it. There’s plenty of advice out there on what makes a good novel – how to write it, pace it, plot it, sell it. But I’ve yet to Google a go-to guide on what constitutes a fantastic collection.

Most short story writers are busy just trying to make each story the best we can. The emotional investment is quick, deep and hard, the art tricky. It’s only when you come to the point of putting your own collection together that you realise it’s not simply a matter of polishing up your bestest, nicest stories and pressing Send.

What does a short story collection involve? What does it need?

Well, in my opinion, many of the same things that characterise a good short story – unity of purpose and theme.

I’m not talking specifically about some clunky link (hey, watchya know, they’re all characters from the same street!) but something less obvious, spider silk thin at times, but there, somehow.

Look at some wonderful collections – Alice Munro’s Runaway; Cathedral by Raymond Carver; Nathan Englander’s For The Relief of Unbearable Urges; Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan. Whether or not the author planned it, there is a thread that runs through these books, located in place, or in an overarching theme, in the kind of lives they tackle and in that most intangible thing: voice.

Regardless of point of view, tense, sympathetic or abhorrent characters, regardless of timeframe or timeline, great authors have a voice, a way of storytelling that leaves an imprint on their collection.

Think of George Saunders at the frayed edge of satire, or the rich gravy of Saul Bellow’s language, the wry humour of Kevin Barry and Edith Pearlman’s precise concision – all give a shape that is the author’s own.

What can those of us putting our debut collection learn from this?

Being ruthless is necessary, especially with our earlier work. Yes they might have won prizes or been shortlisted for decent competitions, but do these stories fit with our latest work, where a more individual voice is starting to form? Perhaps it’s time for that tricky chat: “Thanks guys, we had fun, but I’ve moved on. It’s not you, it’s me.”

Tough love is also needed for the stories that are up to scratch, but simply don’t fit in. That cracking three thousand worder, which someone said reminded them of Jorge Luis Borges, probably won’t fit if you are building a reputation as the Cheever of Milton Keynes.

Even then, this process throws up fresh dilemmas. How do you know when you’re done? How do you know that the next story you write won’t be the one to top out the collection, the crowning glory that will pull it all together?

This is particularly tricky for me, and, I suspect, many other short story writers because I don’t (I can’t) write with a collection in mind. Story writing for me is a weird alchemy, when character, voice, theme and tone come together through some process that has little to do with the analytical part of my brain.

So time is important, to allow things to accrete. Maybe the key to creating a short story collection is the key to all writing – keep going, get better at it, read stories by people who are better than you, learn from them, accept your failures, don’t get carried away with your successes, rinse and repeat.

Eventually you may begin to ‘feel’ a group of stories huddling together. You sense a deeper resonance coming through, common themes being explored. You think – and this is as important as anything else – of a title that makes things tick.

Good advice is hard to come by, but fresh perspectives (note the plural), might help you push to keep creating new material or re-think existing work.

All of this points towards a simple fact – creating a short story collection is also about growing up as a writer, reaching a maturity which enables you to fathom how stories hang together, the palette you work with, the themes which gnaw at you and how that is not such a ‘bad thing’.

And that’s about as much as I can tell you. For now.

About the author

KM Elkes is an author, journalist and travel writer. He has won the Fish Publishing flash prize, been shortlisted twice for the Bridport Prize and was one of the winners of the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 2014. He also won the Prolitzer short story prize in 2014 and wrote a winning entry for the Labello Press International Short Story Prize 2015. His work has appeared in various anthologies and won prizes at Words With Jam, Momaya Review, Writing WM, Bath Short Story Award, Lightship Publishing and Accenti in Canada. He blogs at www.kmelkes.co.uk and tweets via @mysmalltales.

KM Elkes will be sharing more of his writing expertise at free flash fiction workshops taking place at Bristol Central Library for National Flash Fiction Day (this Saturday!), along with NFFD director Calum Kerr and prize-winning author KM Elkes. The workshops take place from 1.30-4.30pm. KM is also taking part in An Evening of Flash Fiction, from 6pm at Foyles Bookstore Bristol, along with a number of other writers, including Zoe Gilbert, Kevlin Henney, Sarah Hilary, Freya Morris, Grace Palmer, Jonathan Pinnock, and, well, me.

A flash flood this Saturday, and a poem

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Judy

My story On The Rocks is getting another outing this week as part of National Flash Fiction Day’s FlashFlood event.

National Flash Fiction Day is on Saturday 27th June this year, and the organisers plan to flood the internet with flash-fictions. I’m pleased to say that my story ‘On the Rocks’ will be published on the FlashFlood journal blog at around 9am (BST) on 27th June 2015.

Stories will be posted at flashfloodjournal.blogspot.co.uk throughout National Flash-Fiction Day, so do pop by to take a look!

In other news, I’ve recently had a poem published!

I admit, I have a curious fondness for pigeons. Something about their dauntlessness as they crowd the city streets, pecking for crumbs and dodging vehicles impresses me, possibly more than it should. So when I saw a call for poetry submissions about these generally unbeloved birds, I had just the poem in mind.

Happily, my poem Crusty was accepted for publication and now roosts in the poetry anthology Poeming Pigeons along with many feathered friends. It’s available from The Poetry Box, but you can read it here.

Crusty by Judy Darley

We’ve reached an understanding, he and I
sharing the same street corner
ignored by the same passersby.
His stained blanket mirrors my ragged wings
We both limp from hunger and on twisted limbs.
His fractured, fractious stories echo my plaintive call
His rheumy eyes, filth-clouded, reflect my skies, dismal.
We’ve both experienced the same fall from grace,
existing on life’s edges in this wretched place.
He raids the bins, eats what he can, and what he can’t he passes on.
When night crowds in, I rise to roost
watching over him till dawn.

Lifework with Yurim Gough

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Judy

Who says drawings need to be done on paper or canvas? Korean artist Yurim Gough has found clay to be the perfect medium, much to her own surprise.

“It was always my dream to be an artist, but in my own country I never even touched clay,” says the former fashion designer, who moved to Bristol eight years ago in search of a new creative direction.

In fashion design Yurim experimented with a multitude of materials, but says it took five years of exploring “new mediums for my art, such as wood-carving, before I found that the feeling of clay told me that it was my thing to use. In fashion design I took great satisfaction from realising my imagination, and the attraction of clay is in being able to achieve that same satisfaction.”

Since early childhood, Yurim has “always been drawing. I was looking for a long time for what I could do that would make me the most happy, and since the drawing had always done this, and now the clay did too, it just happened that I brought these two things together.”

It was a visit to “a reclusive local pebble beach” that helped realisation dawn. “I was playing with the stones, drawing on them with a pencil for fun and making up stories.”

Yurim is entirely self-taught, developing her skills through “concentration and repetition. I went to lots of life drawing sessions on and off for a period of almost 20 years.”

To create the ceramic bowls and other objects that she likes to draw on, she explains, “I hand-mold the pieces, then they are bisque fired, then I draw in front of a live model with ceramic pencil.”

Following this, the artwork is glazed then fired. “I then apply gold lustre and fire again.”

Through combining her ceramics with her beloved drawing, Yurim says she had something of a breakthrough. “I have never rubbed anything out when life drawing, because there is not enough time,” she says. “One day I was drawing and made a mistake and in frustration, I crossed strong lines through the attempt. It made me feel so free, I suddenly realised that this was me, and carried on. I also found that drawing like this, I could focus in a way I had not been able to before.”

The result is a sketchy, vibrant style crammed with vitality. Her figures are gorgeous but imperfect, just as we are – in fact, their stunning beauty lies in their imperfections.

Being in front of a living, breathing model has an impact too.

“I love the human energy giving me craziness, sadness, happiness and other feelings – it is different every time.”

They fizz within their stillness, seemingly holding in emotions evident in their posture, and where their tensions lie, with Yurim’s lines emphasising this with powerful understatement.

The restrictions imposed by a life class drives her productivity, that, “and wanting see what the result will be. Living in my country, and working in fashion, I never had any time. Coming to Bristol things slowed down and I realised what I could do with limited time. In life drawing, you have a fixed time limit for the pose but you have to slow down and see what comes out.”

Find more of Yurim’s work at yurimgough.com and shop.theotherartfair.com/artists/yurim-gough.