Alex Nye's Blog: Life Through A Window - Posts Tagged "fledgling-press"
Even The Birds Grow Silent
Another rain storm is battering down onto the summer house, and I can hear the rumble of thunder in the distance, creeping over the hills. Louie is tucking his nose into his fleecey bed, ignoring the growl of the sky.
I’ve been thinking about the people I’ve covered in Even The Birds Grow Silent – my short story cycle narrated by Death, out in August with Fledgling Press – and wondering why on Earth I left out George Orwell. My narrator, a female Grim Reaper (who is not quite so grim after all) refers to herself as Yours Truly, and writes sensitively about how she met Virginia Woolf on the banks of the Thames, near Monk’s House, and watched her fill her capacious pockets with stones, then felt the mud slip and slide away from beneath her water-logged shoes, how she carried her on the tide in a dark embrace. How three children found her days later, thinking it was a coat caught with seaweed, only to find their dreams haunted forever more. Once you meet me, you never forget. I wrote about Emily Bronte striding across the moors, finding Yours Truly sitting on her favourite tombstone, declaring moodily “you’re in my seat. I sit there, usually.” I wrote about the murderous mother Magda Goebbels, about Leonard Cohen beckoning Yours Truly from the shadows, only to find he’d changed his mind. I wrote about (other stuff too) but I forgot to write about George Orwell.
I could have had such fun visiting him in his rented house on Jura, where the winds blow off the sea, scouring the remote island, and battering the window of the desk where he worked, and wrote 1984. Another story to add to the collection…
Next time, maybe… Because Death visits you all in the end. Not me, of course. I’m impervious, because I’m the one writing it so that gives me a get-out clause.
I’m reminiscing right now about the treehouse we stayed in recently, and wishing I could have a permanent home in the trees, a place to write where birdsong flutes from every branch.
Still, in lieu of actually owning a treehouse, which – let’s face it, not many of us do – my summer house is the next best thing. Being five foot tall and hobbit-sized, I like small safe places in which to write.
The thunderstorm is easing now, so I’m re-appearing from my hole, tentatively.
I’ve been thinking about the people I’ve covered in Even The Birds Grow Silent – my short story cycle narrated by Death, out in August with Fledgling Press – and wondering why on Earth I left out George Orwell. My narrator, a female Grim Reaper (who is not quite so grim after all) refers to herself as Yours Truly, and writes sensitively about how she met Virginia Woolf on the banks of the Thames, near Monk’s House, and watched her fill her capacious pockets with stones, then felt the mud slip and slide away from beneath her water-logged shoes, how she carried her on the tide in a dark embrace. How three children found her days later, thinking it was a coat caught with seaweed, only to find their dreams haunted forever more. Once you meet me, you never forget. I wrote about Emily Bronte striding across the moors, finding Yours Truly sitting on her favourite tombstone, declaring moodily “you’re in my seat. I sit there, usually.” I wrote about the murderous mother Magda Goebbels, about Leonard Cohen beckoning Yours Truly from the shadows, only to find he’d changed his mind. I wrote about (other stuff too) but I forgot to write about George Orwell.
I could have had such fun visiting him in his rented house on Jura, where the winds blow off the sea, scouring the remote island, and battering the window of the desk where he worked, and wrote 1984. Another story to add to the collection…
Next time, maybe… Because Death visits you all in the end. Not me, of course. I’m impervious, because I’m the one writing it so that gives me a get-out clause.
I’m reminiscing right now about the treehouse we stayed in recently, and wishing I could have a permanent home in the trees, a place to write where birdsong flutes from every branch.
Still, in lieu of actually owning a treehouse, which – let’s face it, not many of us do – my summer house is the next best thing. Being five foot tall and hobbit-sized, I like small safe places in which to write.
The thunderstorm is easing now, so I’m re-appearing from my hole, tentatively.
Life Through A Window
Alex Nye writes about life at the creative rock-face, offering tips and remedies along the way. She writes about the books she loves, where she reads them, what they mean to her, and she writes about
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