I attended a seminar recently run by the UK Wolf Conservation Trust (www.ukwolf.org) Two professors and a doctor….a lot of information and one particularly interesting speaker (Dr Alistair Bath) who talked about the wisdom of not ignoring the human element in animal conservation. So many decent, passionate and acutely intelligent conservationists only think of the animal. For example, Alistair talked about a farmer in a Slavic country who had thirty sheep. One night a wolf jumped his fence and killed twenty one of them. His grief was not purely based on economics – he cried and said that losing his animals was as bad as losing his children. These are people who have a bond with their creatures, with nature – they live and sleep with them. A shepherd’s average age is 77. Animals are their life and they are in tune with the changing of the seasons, they know if a creature is ill or afraid. Solutions have to think of the wolf but also the people who are intertwined with it.
I also had a chat with author Michelle Paver (www.Michellepaver.com), who is a director at the Trust. She is a quiet and deeply observant woman. As we chatted she put her hand through the bars to stroke one of the wolves, who clearly knew her well and rubbed herself against the bars in joy. Of course this is not recommended for just anyone and although she has a relationship with the wolves she was still told: ‘Michelle, do be careful with your hands.’ Quick as a flash she said: ‘I have another hand that I can write with…’ Wolves are her passion, as her series of children’s books demonstrates. We both stood there for a while, watching Torak, who runs that particular pack. He paced around, being photographed but ultimately keeping his lupine dignity, guarding his sisters. I truly liked Michelle….she is a real writer, lacking in cynicism and ego. She just gets on with the job.
I am also in the process of working with a young film-maker in turning one of my stories into a screenplay for a short film. Now I have to tell him all about my characters, those light shadowy creatures in a quickly written flash. It’s fun….
About Me
- Julia Bohanna
- Shortlisted Bath Short Story Award 2013 Runner-up Cinnamon Press Competition 2013 WNNER: Don Louth Writer of the Year (run by Reading Writers) WINNER: Bradt/Independent on Sunday Travel Writing Competition 2012. SHORTLISTED: Scott Prize (Salt Publishing) 2012 for a short story collection. Writer/ Journalist - assistant editor and writer for the art and books pages of Wolfprint. Most recently published in Independent on Sunday and short story anthologies: Sentinel Champions No 9, 100 Stories for Queensland, 50 Stories for Pakistan, 100 Stories for Haiti and From Hell to Eternity. In a recent writing competition, Joanne Harris described my writing as '...compelling (but quite creepy)'
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Monday, 6 April 2009
The Searchers
Yesterday I fell apart at the seams - like a rag doll in the care of a wicked child – while watching John Ford’s The Searchers. My father died in 2005 and The Searchers was one of his favourite films. We had a difficult relationship with huge communication problems. But we both loved westerns and war films. We would settle in front of them in comfortable silence, knowing that we were both lost in the narrative, the action, that actorly magic. The Searchers is a very emotionally manipulative film, as well as being an ambitious attempt at explaining racism and the bonds that tie, or sometimes break us. It was based on novel that was based on true events, of a young girl taken by Commanche Indians. John Wayne gave one of the best performances of his life; he was always my father’s hero. In fact, my father, who often said very little and was inwardly strong – truly emulated him. Through The Searchers, we always experienced a surge of feeling and heartbreak that we never ever showed one another face-to-face. So that film will always be a floodgate. I cannot watch but I cannot turn away and oddly, through celluloid I mourn him. But I also bear in mind the power of genetics and my father had once told me that as a young man, he had loved to make up stories. So maybe that's where my need comes for writing.
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Today I will be....
Birthdays should be all about whimsy and be defiantly egocentric. After all, it is one day – one day only – to celebrate your slippery entry into the world. So in the spirit of all things whimsical and willful, I like to imagine having a different life on every birthday, no matter how absurd or mercurial. For this one, I would like to be a mudlarker. Originally a job – considered one of the worst jobs – for the very poor….mudlarking is really all about scavenging in the chocolate mud that skirts the dimpled brown water of the Thames. For treasure of course but then treasure is a subjective term – there are many wonderful objects that the Thames regularly belches out onto the pebbled shores: fragments of pottery, clay pipes, horses’ teeth. You now have to have a licence and report all finds to a recognized museum but now, the Mudlarking Society has numerous enthusiasts who don wellies and gloves to lose themselves in the looking. What joy, for time to slip away and to find history to casually secreted…..
'Sometimes they would throw a sixpence into the river, where the water was about two feet deep, to make us wet ourselves through in groping for it. Indeed, they were very generous when they wished to be amused; and every kind of offer was made to them which we thought suited to their tastes, or likely to extract money from their pockets.'
"Dip my head in the mud for sixpence, sir!" one of us would cry out; and then he would be outbid by another."Roll myself all over and over in the mud, face and all, sir - only give me sixpence!"
Next year, a different incarnation.
'Sometimes they would throw a sixpence into the river, where the water was about two feet deep, to make us wet ourselves through in groping for it. Indeed, they were very generous when they wished to be amused; and every kind of offer was made to them which we thought suited to their tastes, or likely to extract money from their pockets.'
"Dip my head in the mud for sixpence, sir!" one of us would cry out; and then he would be outbid by another."Roll myself all over and over in the mud, face and all, sir - only give me sixpence!"
Next year, a different incarnation.
Monday, 2 February 2009
I have found my inner child.....
.....while crafting a snowman in the garden. Dishes piled in the sink, other monotonous jobs pushed from my mind. Packing snow with very cold fingers..three rather snow-phobic chickens at my ankles looking for grass and the odd frozen worm. They puzzled as this big white thing developing before them, especially Desdemona who has a particularly fear of all things white, including one of the other chickens, who she pecks regularly to keep her in place or perhaps to persuade herself that this girl is not a ghost, a phantom, a threat.
I shaped some boots for my man, because they never seem to have them. Usually snowmen erupt from the ground like fingers in a glove. I made these boots smooth, oh so very smooth. Handcrafted. Italian. The snow has to the packed so very tight, because I want him to be the last thing to melt when all the rest has dissolved to slush. Up up up he goes, spindly at first and then fatter. Bits of stone, grass and slate, speckling him so that he is not a plain creature, like an overweight aunt in Austen.
The snow is still falling and I have to catch some on my tongue, where it dissolves like sugar.
I have no idea of time as I work - it is like the best writing session, the ones where the flow is everything and the pleasure of watching something grow is organic, not laboured.
At the end I have a man. Controlled and created by me. Vulnerable to my destruction. The chickens stand back and cluck in some alarm, then run back into their enclosed pen where the man won't see them. But there he sits: comic, ridiculous in his awkward beauty.
If only a novel was a series of snowmen; each one a chapter - but with more complexity of course. For now though, I'll go with simplicity. The glow you get from building a snowman is like no other - it bridges the gap between the happy past and more difficult present.
Pure joy.
I shaped some boots for my man, because they never seem to have them. Usually snowmen erupt from the ground like fingers in a glove. I made these boots smooth, oh so very smooth. Handcrafted. Italian. The snow has to the packed so very tight, because I want him to be the last thing to melt when all the rest has dissolved to slush. Up up up he goes, spindly at first and then fatter. Bits of stone, grass and slate, speckling him so that he is not a plain creature, like an overweight aunt in Austen.
The snow is still falling and I have to catch some on my tongue, where it dissolves like sugar.
I have no idea of time as I work - it is like the best writing session, the ones where the flow is everything and the pleasure of watching something grow is organic, not laboured.
At the end I have a man. Controlled and created by me. Vulnerable to my destruction. The chickens stand back and cluck in some alarm, then run back into their enclosed pen where the man won't see them. But there he sits: comic, ridiculous in his awkward beauty.
If only a novel was a series of snowmen; each one a chapter - but with more complexity of course. For now though, I'll go with simplicity. The glow you get from building a snowman is like no other - it bridges the gap between the happy past and more difficult present.
Pure joy.
Friday, 28 November 2008
Blackbird
Yesterday, I heard screams and flapping from the garden – an animal in pain – so I rushed out. In a haze of brown downy feathers and dead leaves from the tree where the attack took place, I had a vague sense of a large bird flying away. It was possibly a red kite. A small male blackbird fell at my feet and lay there panting, his displaced milk chocolate coloured feathers followed down and curled up around his body. Their beaks are so bright. I could see no blood and thought it best not to pick him up, as he was already traumatised. I just stood over him and talked softly, until gradually he stopped the panting, ran out through the iron gate, up onto the fence and away.
It made me think though, about the percentage of victim and bully/predator/confident being in all of us, how it differs with life experience, moods and attitude. I have met a lot of supremely confident red kites – soaring through life being admired by all. There have been sparrow hawks too, who bide their time but get what they want eventually…but only the odd gentle blackbird. Ummm…. Maybe we are all blackbirds inside, just hoping that no-one will spot the deception and hurt us.
I wasn’t a victim exactly but neither did I feel entirely in control on the Henry Kelly Radio Show on Radio Berkshire yesterday. Radio is an odd medium and presenters are a little like drug addicts: they become extremely twitchy if there is dead air…they need a fix of the human voice to feed that habit. Nodding my head is not the way to convey ‘yes’ and so I ended up saying ‘Absolutely’ and sounded as if I should have a hockey stick and small pony. It was primarily to publicise the book The Map of Me but also to try and come up with intelligent comments about the experience of being mixed race. But suddenly I felt very exposed, having to take about me. No hiding behind characters and their fictional motivations……I felt naked. Not in a good way. My mother-in-law listened and told me I sound articulated. Now that is a new one.
Brief interviews with The Map of Me authors:
http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141038926,00.html
It has been a good week in all though, with a few writerly things such as the radio broadcast and then a few other treats to boost confidence:
I have been shortlisted for The Asham Award this week. I have been shortlisted before, so my excitement is a little tamer this time. It’s still good. Now I send on my story for judging…results of the final twelve in February. It’s a big competition in terms of stature this one and there were 799 entries. To be published alongside Margaret Atwood – that’s something to fantasise about over Christmas.
I wrote six flashes for a wonderfully intense writing session on The Workhouse this week. The quality of all the writing (108 stories in total) was superb and reminded me why it's so life-affirming to hang out there so much. I’m proud to be in that company and am still learning what makes writing literary, resonant, publishable.
I am now visiting a lovely old lady of 86, who was a nurse during World War II and is feisty and fascinating. I love her company, her refusal to be taken for a fool and the stories she has to tell. She also has enormous compassion and insight. She also told me I was very pretty but admittedly her eyesight is very poor.
In early December I get to go to the book launch party at Penguin. I am very interested in meeting the other writers; their stories were impressive, elegiac, emotional.
So I will subdue my inner blackbird for now – that fluttering sense of potential failure and rejection that all writers carry in their hearts – to pursue this funny life of scribbling and making things up, being greedy enough to live several lives in a day.
It made me think though, about the percentage of victim and bully/predator/confident being in all of us, how it differs with life experience, moods and attitude. I have met a lot of supremely confident red kites – soaring through life being admired by all. There have been sparrow hawks too, who bide their time but get what they want eventually…but only the odd gentle blackbird. Ummm…. Maybe we are all blackbirds inside, just hoping that no-one will spot the deception and hurt us.
I wasn’t a victim exactly but neither did I feel entirely in control on the Henry Kelly Radio Show on Radio Berkshire yesterday. Radio is an odd medium and presenters are a little like drug addicts: they become extremely twitchy if there is dead air…they need a fix of the human voice to feed that habit. Nodding my head is not the way to convey ‘yes’ and so I ended up saying ‘Absolutely’ and sounded as if I should have a hockey stick and small pony. It was primarily to publicise the book The Map of Me but also to try and come up with intelligent comments about the experience of being mixed race. But suddenly I felt very exposed, having to take about me. No hiding behind characters and their fictional motivations……I felt naked. Not in a good way. My mother-in-law listened and told me I sound articulated. Now that is a new one.
Brief interviews with The Map of Me authors:
http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141038926,00.html
It has been a good week in all though, with a few writerly things such as the radio broadcast and then a few other treats to boost confidence:
I have been shortlisted for The Asham Award this week. I have been shortlisted before, so my excitement is a little tamer this time. It’s still good. Now I send on my story for judging…results of the final twelve in February. It’s a big competition in terms of stature this one and there were 799 entries. To be published alongside Margaret Atwood – that’s something to fantasise about over Christmas.
I wrote six flashes for a wonderfully intense writing session on The Workhouse this week. The quality of all the writing (108 stories in total) was superb and reminded me why it's so life-affirming to hang out there so much. I’m proud to be in that company and am still learning what makes writing literary, resonant, publishable.
I am now visiting a lovely old lady of 86, who was a nurse during World War II and is feisty and fascinating. I love her company, her refusal to be taken for a fool and the stories she has to tell. She also has enormous compassion and insight. She also told me I was very pretty but admittedly her eyesight is very poor.
In early December I get to go to the book launch party at Penguin. I am very interested in meeting the other writers; their stories were impressive, elegiac, emotional.
So I will subdue my inner blackbird for now – that fluttering sense of potential failure and rejection that all writers carry in their hearts – to pursue this funny life of scribbling and making things up, being greedy enough to live several lives in a day.
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
Grasshopper?
Can I fall any lower? I have been stood up by a Buddhist monk. Finally I found The Priory, which was a humble detached house with only a small statue of Buddha outside to signal its purpose. For some ridiculous reason I was expecting something exotic…with gold leaf…which flies in the face of Buddhist humility. Then I rang the bell, while staring at a grasshopper that sat with its feet splayed on the window. I had been trying not to think grasshopper, as it is a cruel cliché from the old Kung Fu films, where the monk with the opaque eyes calls the seeker of truth ‘Grasshopper.’ Tried not to giggle and rang the bell again. Again. Rapped the door. It was hot and I was getting cross. Goddammit, where was this man who was to help me with my anger? Bloody hell, has he forgotten? Why can’t he hear me!
I went home very angry and it then only dawned on me the irony of being furious that a man who was to help me meditate and control my anger, had made me angrier. I also put a note through his door and my other half was frightened about what I might have said. He knows that I have a feisty soul, flashes of my mother’s shrewish temper. How could he think that I would be rude, whatever the provocation, to a gentle monk?
It transpires (by email) that the monk was in the back garden and had not heard me (what was he doing – nude sunbathing, painting his gnomes?) Oh well, universe – life was buggered up again.
Onward. Mary Stott prize to enter. Book review and interview for Wolfprint. 5,000 words left for my 10,000 novel pledge. Bought a new copy of the Writers’ and Artists’ yearbook. After all, my other one is 2006 – editors have moved/died/gone insane. I once picked up an American equivalent and sat laughing at the extent of specialist magazines. Lesbian Biker Chicks on Acid who Knit – that sort of thing. Ours, with its Horse and Hound and Dogs Today, is so much more tame.
It’s a shame really.
I went home very angry and it then only dawned on me the irony of being furious that a man who was to help me meditate and control my anger, had made me angrier. I also put a note through his door and my other half was frightened about what I might have said. He knows that I have a feisty soul, flashes of my mother’s shrewish temper. How could he think that I would be rude, whatever the provocation, to a gentle monk?
It transpires (by email) that the monk was in the back garden and had not heard me (what was he doing – nude sunbathing, painting his gnomes?) Oh well, universe – life was buggered up again.
Onward. Mary Stott prize to enter. Book review and interview for Wolfprint. 5,000 words left for my 10,000 novel pledge. Bought a new copy of the Writers’ and Artists’ yearbook. After all, my other one is 2006 – editors have moved/died/gone insane. I once picked up an American equivalent and sat laughing at the extent of specialist magazines. Lesbian Biker Chicks on Acid who Knit – that sort of thing. Ours, with its Horse and Hound and Dogs Today, is so much more tame.
It’s a shame really.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
The Future's Bright - But Is It Orange?
On Saturday, I have a date with a Buddhist monk. Shaved heads and acid orange. Yum. Well perhaps not strictly a date – more a search for spiritual solace. Not religion though – I don’t want the whole package. I did consider a Catholic priest – as Catholicism is my default setting and I did go to school with nuns – but no. Meeting up with a priest of that persuasion is like having dinner with a second hand car salesman. Eventually, they try and flog you something. Buddhism simply contains beliefs that largely correspond with my own but more importantly, they give guidelines to coping. Especially with anger. At present I have lots of that emotion; I am overflowing with it. Anger at loss. Anger at not achieving enough. Anger at exhaustion. You get the picture.
So back to the monk. I used to meditate, which had a wonderful calming effect on my impatient, twitchy personality. I want to learn that again, to learn how to centre myself again. As a child I was a very gentle daffy sort, who liked nothing better than counting stones in the garden, or adoring animals to the point of worship. That back please, or at least a little pocket of it that can be held at the core, to counteract all the crap of modern life.
So that is step 1 for returning normal service – essential for everyone around me who is endlessly patient and loving, namely my family. It’s selfish to be so indulgent (Buddha, he say NO to selfishness - apparently)
Step 2 is to help others – to life coach a writer friend who is suffering literary angst of the most critical kind. I have set aside a day to bring her back to a good place. How easy it is to give advice, whatever mess you are in yourself. Also, I have joined a Good Neighbour Club that visits lonely people. I love older people (after all, we are all old people in training) and also their stories. I was dithering about it but I was then invited to a party for all the Good Neighbour Volunteers to meet. Free cake! Tea! They knew how to entice this greedy slattern. But what are a few hours a week? It’s injustice that anyone is lonely in a society with billions of people, all talking to themselves (allegedly into their phones) or clutching fucking Blackberries (I like a good crumble myself.) When I was cat-hunting (no spears, honestly) I found aching loneliness in people, that desperate need to make contact. Every day for example, an old lady with an ancient dog crosses the road to my house and reads my Lost Cat notice. Every day. Then she wipes away a tear, pats her dog and stumbles on. Then I wipe away a tear at her wiping away a tear and awash I am with sentimentality. I can barely hold down my Special Brew. (I’m kidding – I have not succumbed to the demons of drink. I did have a packet of……..crisps though yesterday. I half expected Jamie Oliver to helicopter in with a megaphone, to hear that over-sized tongue announce my betrayal to good food in that cheeky mockney voice.)
Where was I….step 3…bloody hell…I have pledged to two writers friends that I will write 10,000 words of a novel by November 7th. I am also writing fillers, articles etc so quickly that my fingers leave steam on the keyboard. Zipped one off to The Guardian yesterday and now am about to write one for The Sunday Times. I have had a few already in the latter some time ago and they pay £200 for what is to me about half an hours work. Ker-ching. I also entered The Asham Award and for once, I was truly proud of my story. Not that I pretend brilliance or perfection – but that I absolutely felt in the skin of my characters. So much so that I had sensory delusions. It was set in India and I could smell it, feel the heat. Wonderful – like being actor.
Step 4 – to return to the bosom of The Workhouse to post a story and get back into a wonderful community. Also to critique…an important skill.
So there it is. Hope in the darkness.
So back to the monk. I used to meditate, which had a wonderful calming effect on my impatient, twitchy personality. I want to learn that again, to learn how to centre myself again. As a child I was a very gentle daffy sort, who liked nothing better than counting stones in the garden, or adoring animals to the point of worship. That back please, or at least a little pocket of it that can be held at the core, to counteract all the crap of modern life.
So that is step 1 for returning normal service – essential for everyone around me who is endlessly patient and loving, namely my family. It’s selfish to be so indulgent (Buddha, he say NO to selfishness - apparently)
Step 2 is to help others – to life coach a writer friend who is suffering literary angst of the most critical kind. I have set aside a day to bring her back to a good place. How easy it is to give advice, whatever mess you are in yourself. Also, I have joined a Good Neighbour Club that visits lonely people. I love older people (after all, we are all old people in training) and also their stories. I was dithering about it but I was then invited to a party for all the Good Neighbour Volunteers to meet. Free cake! Tea! They knew how to entice this greedy slattern. But what are a few hours a week? It’s injustice that anyone is lonely in a society with billions of people, all talking to themselves (allegedly into their phones) or clutching fucking Blackberries (I like a good crumble myself.) When I was cat-hunting (no spears, honestly) I found aching loneliness in people, that desperate need to make contact. Every day for example, an old lady with an ancient dog crosses the road to my house and reads my Lost Cat notice. Every day. Then she wipes away a tear, pats her dog and stumbles on. Then I wipe away a tear at her wiping away a tear and awash I am with sentimentality. I can barely hold down my Special Brew. (I’m kidding – I have not succumbed to the demons of drink. I did have a packet of……..crisps though yesterday. I half expected Jamie Oliver to helicopter in with a megaphone, to hear that over-sized tongue announce my betrayal to good food in that cheeky mockney voice.)
Where was I….step 3…bloody hell…I have pledged to two writers friends that I will write 10,000 words of a novel by November 7th. I am also writing fillers, articles etc so quickly that my fingers leave steam on the keyboard. Zipped one off to The Guardian yesterday and now am about to write one for The Sunday Times. I have had a few already in the latter some time ago and they pay £200 for what is to me about half an hours work. Ker-ching. I also entered The Asham Award and for once, I was truly proud of my story. Not that I pretend brilliance or perfection – but that I absolutely felt in the skin of my characters. So much so that I had sensory delusions. It was set in India and I could smell it, feel the heat. Wonderful – like being actor.
Step 4 – to return to the bosom of The Workhouse to post a story and get back into a wonderful community. Also to critique…an important skill.
So there it is. Hope in the darkness.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)