Collected: July 2024
Collected: July 2024
This month Mary Colson writes about her unease at finishing a book, Amanda Dalton discusses the act of conjuring ghosts and RLF Fellows talk about their experience of being published.
The Finishing Line
RLF Fellow and non-fiction writer Mary Colson on saying good bye to a book as it wings its way into the world.
“I’d forgotten this was what it feels like, finishing a book. I’d forgotten the aimlessness and the wandering. I’d forgotten the lack of purpose. I’ve crossed the line but to what result? I should feel ecstatic but that sentiment has been very short-lived. Instead, I feel anxiously uncertain. I’ve done the final edits, the fudges and the finessing and now it is out in the world with readers and I have no control over it anymore.”
You can read the rest of the essay here.
“The biggest surprise of my writing life is that I have a writing life at all.” Ian Ayris
The Ventriloquist’s Dummy: Writing and the Gut
Poet, playwright and RLF Fellow Amanda Dalton on the inner voice masquerading as the ventriloquist’s dummy.
“There is something about how imagination and memory often work together that can make writing feel like an act of conjuring ghosts.”
The full essay is available here.
The Experience of Being Published
Episode 463 (17.18 min)
“The book was carved from a place within me I’d been afraid of my whole life, with characters braver than me, more scared than me, closer to me than I ever realised.” Ian Ayris
Crime writer Mary-Jane Riley shares her experience of getting published, novelist and non-fiction writer Beth Miller remembers publication day, journalist Alys Fowler reveals how she celebrates a new release, novelist Charlie Hill discusses festivals and novelist and short story writer Ian Ayris reveals his biggest writing surprise.
Charlie Hill
Episode 464 ( 25.29 min)
An interview with novelist, short story writer and memoirist, Charlie Hill by Ann Morgan.
“There’s a lovely thread that runs through your writing about - you call it ‘a stubbornly contrary, go my own way-ness’. A rejection of the mainstream or a rejection of the standard way that writing is done.” Ann Morgan to Charlie Hill
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