It's A Sheep's Life ... Baa

You never know when frisky seagulls, a turd left in a pair of pyjamas and a nun in a hurry will lead you to writing award winning poetry. The writer Lesley Glaister, talks about using ‘memory refracted through imagination, and often unconsciously, into something new’ mixing it with more recent events. She calls it ‘the real stuff of fiction’, giving emotional punch and ‘truth’ to our work (thanks to Anderson’s Creative Writing book for this). So, enough with the theory. She’s basically saying that we take our past experiences, chuck them in a mixer and blend them with more recent memories to give us impactful and emotional fiction. A lot of my comedic work is based on the peculiarities of real-life events, but fictionally masked. The following three poems that I recently had published on Witcraft , are three such examples: One Night Stand Seagull was inspired by witnessing two gulls ‘getting it on’ on a rooftop while I invigilated Higher Modern Studies. Nun In A Nissan Micra ...

In my late 20s, I found myself in an abusive relationship. It was unexpected, for he began as the perfect partner; as they all do. And after each event, he apologised and said he would change. Through the support of many friends, I eventually saw and felt the impact he was having on me, and found the courage to leave the relationship. I’m truly grateful to them. But it took time to process this experience with support from Women’s Aid, and communicate it through the only medium that brings me comfort: creative writing. But the poem still lingered in my file manager. A chance reading of a PhD thesis that discussed domestic violence gave me the impetus to share my poem with a supportive audience: the 2024 Edinburgh Napier University’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign (in support of the same-named UN Women campaign) to help raise awareness and inspire change. Unexpectedly, I won first prize in the creative writing section. It was the final validation I needed. I’...

I recently came across a great BBC interview with a young female scientist that's so positive and affirming for any aspiring young women considering a career in science. For me, it was the enthusiasm of my young female biology and chemistry teachers at Walthamstow Senior High School that gave me the final confidence to apply to London South Bank University to study a BSc(Hons) degree. However, when I started work, I didn't look like a 'typical' scientist when I rocked up to meetings as their scientific specialist in a bright green suit, heels and a pony tail. And the 'cockney' accent certainly threw them too. It took dedication to professional development, support from my line management to present my scientific research (including refusals to take minutes at meetings), as well as finally putting my BSc(Hons) and MSc after my name on a signature block (as all the men did), but I got there. I still remember my daughter's school friends asking me if I re...

While clearing out a bedroom drawer, I came across my old camera. The last time I used it was on my honeymoon in New Zealand, but I’d never had the film developed because after taking the final shot, the film failed to fully rewind into its canister.  Yes, the camera is the old-fashioned kind, but was fancy at the time because it automatically rewound the film into the canister at the last shot. Despite changing the battery when it happened, the camera still didn’t rewind the film. If I force open its back as it is now, then a fair few of the photographs will be ruined. It's moved house once and has sat in my bedside drawer for 22 years. That’s procrastination on a mega scale and far surpasses my usual procrastination traits.  But I thought it couldn’t be fixed, and I didn’t want to throw the camera and its precious memories away either. It includes images of the elusive yellow-eyed penguins at dusk on the South Island, the city of Dunedin and its links to Edinburgh (and the...

Christmas seems to come earlier each year and then sweeps in at the last minute like a velveteen cloak smelling of cinnamon, roast potatoes and … pine toilet cleaner. I’m not prepared for the Christmas decoration aisle in August, and I don’t like pine toilet cleaner. To get me feeling more Christmas Elf than Grinch, I penned two flash fiction pieces for Friday Flash Fiction’s Christmas competition who this year, insisted we include the terms ‘peace’ and ‘goodwill’ in our stories. So, I hope you enjoy my small scribblings of Mirror Mirror and The Elf Effect , and although I wasn’t picked to win the prize of $50, I had fun writing them. By the way, no mirrors or partridges were hurt in the writing of these whimsical yarns. Merry Christmas, and hope you have one free of pine toilet cleaner.                                                 ...

Since moving to Scotland in 2013, I’ve seen more wildlife than the entire 45 years I lived in England.  Seriously. I’m not just making this up for the sake of fiction. While out walking or driving in the daytime, I’m regularly treated to the common garden birds and crows, but spread some love in the form of oats and uneaten rice cakes, and the local woodpecker comes knocking. Rabbits frolic on the lawn as mummy rabbit teaches them … rabbity hops and cute nose twitches. There are the toads that can leap across the entire road before we pass them at 45 miles an hour. And if you’re really lucky, a red squirrel will scamper up a nearby tree – with a nut clamped in their jaws, ear tufts swaying in the breeze. Driving home late at night, a different kind of clientele frequent the roads and pathways as if they’re challenging you to a round of the retro 80s computer game about a boy on a push bike who’s thwarted at every opportunity by cars, animals and bins as he tries to deliver his ...