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’...