Regal House Titles

How the Stories Began…

August 14, 2019 Leave a Comment

Every time I visited Ireland, my father would ask, ‘What kind of rent are ye paying over there?’ I would admit that Paris rents were high – even then, ours was what would soon be called a thousand euros. But we loved it.

My father’s questions may have eventually influenced the decision we made, shortly before the millennium, to buy a place. There were still some bargains to be found in Paris. We soon found a small apartment, applied for a loan, and waited. In a parallel move, using a small sum supplied by my dear and now departed parents, I bought a smaller place I hoped to use for writing. Writing was all I ever wanted to do, but there was never enough time, or a place for it.

We gave notice on our rental, a lovely place near Bastille with marble fireplaces, parquet floors and ceiling moldings. It was one room too small. The owner promptly put it up for sale, having paid too much for it some years earlier during a kind of boom. She had been very fair and easy to deal with, so when her estate agent announced he was bringing a client to visit, I pulled out all the stops.

The agent and the client visited one evening after dark. I had the lamps lit, Mozart piano in the background. The client told the agent he wanted to buy it. Now there was no going back. We waited for news of the loan. And waited. After what already seemed too long a time, I started harassing the bank. My husband’s work schedule didn’t allow him to hang onto the phone for an hour during the day. Anyway, he was too nice to harass anyone. My teaching schedule was more varied. I finally rustled up suitable interlocutors at the bank. At first hesitant, they finally suggested I call the insurance company dealing with the loan. Again, there was a lot of delay. I sensed kerfuffle and kept digging. The purchase of the writing studio went ahead.

I finally managed to wiggle it out of the insurance: my husband was unacceptable for a loan application, because he’d had stomach cancer. The cancer had been removed some months earlier, along with 4/5 of his stomach (that was when we learned that the digestive system is ‘outside the body’ – think about it). He hadn’t received treatment because he hadn’t needed it. His oncologist’s report, which we’d supplied to the bank and the insurance, contained one magical word: CURED.

Back in those days this wasn’t enough for the insurance. They refused the loan (they’re no longer allowed to refuse a loan in France on those grounds). Our rental lease came to an end. We packed up our stuff and got a removal company to drive it all to my new writing space, which luckily had a kitchenette and a tiny bathroom.

There was torrential Parisian rain the day we drove past the hospital in the removal truck, and eased into the narrow street to our new abode. Everything looked sad and run-down in the rain. Some buildings were in bad condition and would later be evacuated by the city before restoration. The removal guys worried for us. All the things that had seemed attractive and even romantic when I’d found a suitable – and cheap – place to write, especially on a sunny afternoon (narguileh parlors, Chinese herbalists, a broad variety of foreign food and music places) seemed to them doubtful.

That night, our boxes piled to the ceiling, we lay in the only flat space left on the floor. The move began to look like a terrible mistake. My gentle husband felt it was his fault. In fact, it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened. We were about to discover, only a short walk from central Paris and its tourist hotspots, a universe teeming with immigrants of all stripes with their problems and the exacerbation of these by French habits and rules – or their own misunderstanding of these.

It was an amazing revelation and a life-enriching experience. I was paying attention to a new place, where our own dilemma, and my status as another immigrant, drew me to relate better to those of my new neighbors and friends. I’d had some success with a few early short stories when living in Morocco. Now, more stories were inspired in that Paris quarter, and Plugging the Causal Breach was born.

Mary Byrne graduated in English and Philosophy from University College Dublin. She has been a scientific and academic editor, French-English translator and English teacher in Ireland, England, Germany, Morocco and France. She now lives in Montpellier, and loves philosophy, art, and anything baroque.

On Writing: Karol Hoeffner’s Notes from Budapest

June 3, 2019 Leave a Comment

I just returned from a month-long working vacation to teach screenwriting workshops in Hungary at the Budapest Film Academy. My family, friends, and colleagues were tucked away in their busy lives, so I traveled solo back to the city where I worked for four months in the fall of 2017. I immediately recognized the ornate art-deco door to the courtyard of my old apartment from the backseat of my cab. I even remembered which of the multiple keys belonged to the four locks on my gated door and how you had to turn the key counter-clockwise twice to unlock it.

I unpacked one suitcase and, slightly jet-lagged, ventured out to my favorite grocer for supplies: water and yogurt. The street where I once lived basked in the hazy light of late afternoon. I passed a tiny tot on a scooter followed by her bear of a father, gently guiding her past the street cafes. I breathed in the familiar smell of cigarettes wafting my way. I listened to the cacophonous refrain of a language I neither speak nor understand.

And halfway down the block, I literally ran into a former Hungarian student strolling toward me. He hugged me and said, “Karol, I was just thinking about you.”

I was back in my Hungarian hood experiencing the exhilaration of being in a foreign city that no longer feels foreign. After a good night’s sleep, I ambled down half-empty side-streets to the Central Market, a once cavernous train station that was now a bustling farmer’s market. Later, I was swept up by crowds on a busy boulevard leading to the Danube. And remembered how much faster Europeans walk than Californians! The pace in Budapest brings to mind a high-speed autobahn, while strolling in Los Angeles more closely resembles the steady slog of the 405 Freeway during rush hour.

I developed a theory that explains the difference, and stick with me, because in that theory resides a moral lesson for writers. Throughout the morning, I passed hundreds of people. But I did not see one person talking or texting on their cell. Not one.When I boarded a crowded tram at Kalvin ter for the square at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, I did note two tourists on their cells. But the locals were gazing out the window, lost in the sweep of city scape.

I wondered if Hungarians pocket their cells because of the distances they travel on foot; maybe they want to keep their hands free for cigarettes or street food – my personal favorite being langos, warm fried bread bubbling with cheese. In Los Angeles, the farthest we walk is from a parked car to our destination. We cross streets, heads down, cell phones in hand, checking messages, Instagram, and funny cat videos. Because we can’t bear the thought of missing anything.

And in doing so, we miss everything.

The inner working of a writer’s life is defined by the interplay between experience and writing. But the backbone of experience begins with noticing. I decided to put my cell away for the rest of the trip. That night, I had an Aperol spritz at the tiny café next door and eavesdropped on a conversation by three expats. I pretended to be writing in my journal; instead, I wrote down what they said. Among their more memorable comments were the following two:

“In Scotland, God is harsh.”

“My five-year-old niece said that Daddy’s most senior but mommy’s in charge.”

I have no idea where those lines will lead or what they will unlock, but they are worth noting. Since most of my overheard conversations were in Hungarian, I began to focus not on what people said, but how they behaved. And suddenly, standing in lines no longer felt annoying; eating alone no longer seemed lonely. Both were opportunities to observe life I might miss if I was scrolling through my emails.

I amused myself by making up stories about the people I saw, like the woman in a half-empty restaurant who left her four friends at the bar to answer her cell. She crouched on a footstool near the door, her head bowed, her brow furrowed. She spoke in forceful staccato beats. I surmised she was either breaking up with a bad boyfriend or plotting the demise of a mortal enemy. I also considered that she might be in real estate and closing a deal.

But the point is when we cannot participate in language, our sensory awareness heightens. I found it so much easier to journal in Europe, not because I had more time. But because I had noticed more during the day and therefore had more to write about at night.

What marks us as writers is that we are a noticers of life. We are born observers. We are expert spies, listening in on other’s people’s lives. We not only pay attention to details, we wallow in them. But if we walk through life glued to our cell, we’re not in the world. And if we’re not in the world, we miss out on the stories that surround us in plain sight. So, as writers, let’s stow our cells. Ignore the pings. And aspire to become chroniclers of life because we took the time to notice the details.

Karol Hoeffner is the Chair of Screenwriting at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. She has fourteen film credits including several Danielle Steel adaptations, a television mini-series Harem, movies-of-the-week based on true stories – TheMaking of a Hollywood Madam and Miss America: Behind the Crown. Among her other credits are the original movies, Voices from Within and Burning Rage. She has penned two young adult novels, All You’ve Got, and Surf Ed.

Martha Kalin, on Writing Fearlessly

May 7, 2019 Leave a Comment

Regal House Publishing Senior Editor, Pam Van Dyk, interviews Martha Kalin, winner of the Terry J. Cox Poetry Award, on the craft of poetry, winning the award, and advice for novice poets.

Martha Kalin, winner of the 2019 Terry J. Cox Poetry Award

Regal House: We’d like to know how you got started writing poetry. What is your “poet’s origin story”?

Martha Kalin: I began writing poetry as a very young girl, so it seems as though poetry’s been part of me forever. It’s a bit of a mystery what drew me to poetry in particular, but I always loved the sounds of words, loved to be read to, and had an extended family of teachers and writers who encouraged me. I particularly loved writing limericks and other short forms. I even created a collection of my work, with the book divided into sections, one titled “Poems About Animals”, the other titled “Poems About Anything but Animals”! In school my favorite classes were always creative writing and I often would secretly write poems when I was supposed to be working on math problems.

Regal House: Who were/are your biggest influences as a poet and why?

Martha Kalin: There have been so many influences I could never name them all. In college I fell in love with English Romantic poets such as Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley and American poets such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens. In some cases the influence was because I shared a love for the beauty of the natural world, in some cases, because there was so much feeling in their poetry, I always felt transported. Over the years I’ve dipped into the waters of many contemporary poets and have loved many. About ten years ago I was fortunate to discover Lighthouse Writers Workshop, a non-profit center for writers in Denver, Colorado and became closely involved in the Lighthouse community. This has been a rich source of ongoing learning and support and has had a huge impact on my writing.

Regal House: What books, poetry or otherwise, are you currently reading?

Martha Kalin: I’m reading (and re-reading) Marie Howe’s beautiful poetry collection Magdalene, and Ocean Vuong’s stunning collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds. I just finished Natalie Goldberg’s memoir Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home and am slowly making my way through The Way of the Dream: Conversations on Jungian Dream Interpretation with Marie-Louise von Franz, by Fraser Boa.

Regal House: What does winning the Terry J. Cox Poetry Award mean to you?

Martha Kalin: It’s such an incredible honor to win the Terry J. Cox Poetry Award. As a poet, it’s often hard to know how one’s work is being received, or whether it speaks to people in memorable ways. It means so much that others appreciate my work and want to support me in finding a wider audience. I was particularly moved that the award was named for the father of Regal House Publishing’s Editor-in-Chief, who was a poet himself.

Regal House: Among the poems in your winning collection, How to Hold a Flying River, do you have a favorite or one that holds special meaning? Can you share why?

Martha Kalin: The poem “Between Your Sleep and Mine” has particular significance to me. It represents a point in time when I was consciously trying to move from writing short, and more traditional lyric poems toward longer (for me), more complex and layered poems. I was seeking to reflect more fully today’s world, the pain, strangeness and intensity, but also new forms of understanding. I began to develop increasing interest in experimental and hybrid forms that integrate poetry and prose and that make leaps into and out of dreams and the unconscious.

Regal House: Alice Walker once said, “Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.” What are your thoughts on what poetry does for the world?

Martha Kalin: I love this quote and feel deeply that poetry has tremendous power to speak the unspeakable. Poetry, can startle, shock, and break us open in ways that can lead to deeper compassion and connection with one another and the truth of our experience.

Regal House: Do you have a routine or process for crafting your poetry?

Martha Kalin: Yes! This may seem a bit weird, but I write most of my poems these days in my phone. I use it like a journal, but it works even better than a paper notebook, in that I almost always have it with me and can capture little fleeting images and lines that otherwise would be lost. I’ve never been adept at writing in a disciplined way, or at responding to prompts or assignments. I do best when I catch impressions and unexpected passing phrases that then stimulate my imagination. I take all these notes in my phone and mull them over and play with them. Eventually I’ll gather them to see whether anything interesting starts to arise. Only when I have something with a bit of sizzle for me do I begin to craft the lines into a poem. I usually work on a poem for quite a long time, sometimes even for years.

Regal House: Finally, what words of advice might you offer to those who are just beginning to write poetry?

Martha Kalin: I encourage anyone with an interest in writing to read widely and find poems that inspire you, delight you, or speak to you in an important way. Listen carefully to the rhythm and music of the language. Practice writing by imitating or just letting your imagination run freely. Take feedback from others you respect but don’t let criticism stop you from writing what you want to write. Search for your own voice, the voice uniquely yours. And then write fearlessly.

Martha lives and write in Denver, Colorado where she works for University of Colorado’s Department of Family Medicine, developing programs for vulnerable and high risk patients. Her recent publications include poems in Anastamos, Don’t Just Sit There, Inklette, Hospital Drive, Panoply, San Pedro River Review, and the anthology Obsession: Sestinas in the Twenty-First Century published by University Press of New England. Her chapbook Afterlife and Mango, was published by Green Fuse Poetic Arts in 2013.

The Birth of a Short Story Collection: Women of Consequence

March 22, 2019 Leave a Comment

I’ve been writing short stories full time for the last ten years, and I’ve been fortunate enough to see a good number—more than eighty—published. But although I’ve got piles of journals and anthologies featuring my work lying around, though I can Google up dozens of my stories in online publications, and though I’ve received awards and recognition for individual pieces, what I wanted was a book—a whole book with just its title and my name alone on its cover.

For a short fiction writer, a book means a collection of stories, and the expectation is that these stories will be connected somehow— by theme or by setting, for example, or by recurring characters. It seemed to me that I could satisfy any one or all of these approaches, as I had plenty of stories with intersecting characters, motifs, and locations. I tried basing collections on road trips, on works of art, even on parenting. Unfortunately, though some of these collections drew compliments and even recognition, none yielded an offer of publication. After a decade of hard work, I still didn’t have my book.

The idea, when it came, struck with the force of a cultural tidal wave: several of my most successful stories feature women as either narrator or principal antagonist. Moreover, these stories about mothers, daughters, lovers, sisters, and female friends reflect—and are unified by—an idea central to my writing: Kafka’s assertion that a literary work “should be an ice ax to break up the frozen sea inside us.” And so, Women of Consequence came to be.

Why “Consequence” in the title? Because it’s a term that allows ambiguity. The women in my stories are more often cautionary tales than role models. Some are victimizers, some are victims. But the characters in Women of Consequence approach the world with boldness and creativity: a fallen starlet revives her career by voicing a wretched dog-man in an animated horror film; hoping for greater profit, a surrogate nearing her due date runs off to Mexico with her valuable cargo; a meals-on-wheels driver with an eating disorder survives on bits picked from the dinners of her clients; a casting agent hires a performance artist to nurse her new baby; to become eligible for an exclusive dating service, a young professional pretends severe colorblindness; a dangerously overprotective mother attempts to destroy her child’s faith in his physical senses. These and the other women in this collection may or may not achieve their goals, but the consequences of their efforts are inescapable.

Readers may find the premises of some of these stories disturbing. A surrogate running off with the baby she carries? A mother stripping her child of his senses? And several of the stories feature ghosts and surreal or supernatural phenomena. But if the stories of Women of Consequence disturb, they do so because they represent a kind of exaggerated familiarity. The object is not simply to shock, but to compel readers to reflect on their own lives and the thickness of the ice of their inner frozen seas.

More than seventy of his short stories have been published or are forthcoming in print and online journals such as The Georgia Review, The Florida Review, The Baltimore Review, The Pinch, Post Road, Nashville Review, A-Minor Magazine, Yemassee, The Madison Review, The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review, The Los Angeles Review, PANK, Superstition Review, Tahoma Literary Review, and Zymbol. Gregory’s work has earned six Pushcart Prize nominations and his stories have won awards sponsored by Solstice, Gulf Stream, New South, the Rubery Book Awards, Emrys Journal, and The White Eagle Coffee Store Press.

What Empty Things Are These: Why Then, Why There?

November 1, 2018 Leave a Comment

“Why,’ so many ask me, ‘write about this period?’ That is to say, 1860, and London, no less. I’m not English, and honestly, I wasn’t around then.

But context is all. I do absolutely think that history can tell us much about ourselves, and my abiding impression of Victorians is that they are very, very familiar to us. We can see ourselves in them. Much, believe me, is explained about our times by looking at theirs.

Who the Victorians were – or at least, who they believed they were – was pretty well established by 1860. They had travelled far, metaphorically speaking, from the Georgian period, when, frankly, life was a lot more laid-back for the moneyed classes. That was because these were mainly the titled, and society was not based so consciously on commerce. Their houses were outward-looking, with large windows and balconies. The sun shone in on apartments where rooms did not necessarily have established functions, where servants were just as likely to share sleeping quarters with their masters. They might, in fact, all end up after a late night snoring gently on a handy couch.

Victorians by 1860, however, lived in a very different society. The industrial and agrarian revolutions had changed many things. Never let it be forgotten that there were legions of vulnerable people destroyed by these revolutions (some of whom were transported to the penal colony of Australia, in punishment for attempting to establish some rights), but in the meantime town and cities became swollen with the newly and vastly expanded middle class. Life was suddenly much more urban in general, where time was no longer measured in seasons and harvests but by clocks, minutes and hours. People were more educated. Transportation – trains particularly – linked them and proved the means of carrying food and other stuffs from city to city. Newspapers and periodicals spread far and wide, of course, and, with newly educated markets and the means of reaching a far-flung audience. Discussion and commentary, poetry and literary works boomed.

Patterns were established to demonstrate that the finer people deserved their status: the family was headed by the patriarch (a little like God), and everybody else ranked beneath him. It was not only important that society be aware that these families were awash with money, but that (there was perhaps some guilt here) they were nonetheless good. The home itself reflected the sense that the Victorian family was a virtuous entity – nothing loose about the way they lived, no sir. The family (and this was a nuclear family) was the centre of everything, and so the house looked inward. No more balconies; many heavy curtains over the windows. Every room must have its designated function; servants would begin to have their own tiny bedchambers immediately below the roofline; as far as possible (and even though it might reduce the actual bedchamber to cupboard-size) those who could began to insist on adjoining changing rooms. Roles were strictly delineated. ‘Upstairs’ was not to mix with ‘Downstairs’; the lady of the house worked hard to do the right thing, symbolising the virtues of the family (and of herself) and displaying her home and family at their best.

Victorian parlor — The parlour, or front parlour, or drawing room was essentially meant to display the Victorian family at its ‘best’: its virtues, its taste and its success.

The front parlour or drawing room was the formal room of display, and she would also have a morning room.

Once again, however, this was a society where virtues were on display, but also concealed some dark contradictions. People were conscious that appalling housing in the cities were a very bad look indeed, and they spoke about the need to clear whole areas of verminous and noisome habitations. They were not, however, so attracted by the idea that urban renewal – that is, replacement housing – might be a companion notion. And where the fortunes of many increased during this time, there were also many charlatans who would became obscenely wealthy through shonky schemes that ruined the more credulous investor. Railroads, real or fables, were a favorite ploy.

Interestingly, crinolines – that odd piece of underwear so identified with Victorian women – in themselves say a lot about the times. By 1860, for example, these were now made of hoops of fine steel, and were therefore far lighter and more comfortable to wear than the bent-wood and horsehair versions of a few years before. Thus, you could say, industry had improved the lot of women in general. But that’s not all that can be said about crinolines. Punch, the satirical periodical, had quite a lot to say, in fact. Crinolines enabled skirts to bell-out to some ridiculous dimensions, with which cartoonists had a lot of fun, and, since a crinoline meant that very few petticoats were now needed to create a really impressive width… ladies were very vulnerable to a high wind. Punch loved it.

The Perils of the Crinoline — A high wind was not a friend to a lady out for a stroll. Luckily, she was wearing underwear.

But there’s more. Crinolines meant, as I said, that a fine impression could be made with a much-reduced acreage of petticoats. Yards and yards of dress material advertised the status of the wearer (and her husband and father, perhaps more to the point), but the expense need not extend to the underwear. Victorian dress of 1860 was a bit of a shop-front, indeed. Except for the important point that a certain vulnerability in windy weather encouraged the rapid development of good, solid underwear – drawers and stockings, and so on. In my researches, I was surprised to learn that undies were not so common before the advent of Victorians and their crinolines.

Dress, being such an item of personal display, is a fine subject for those analysing any society. Really, it is. Victorians went through many versions of the dress that not only demonstrated how little a woman was required to do in the way of work (if they weren’t farm workers, servants or factory hands, of course), but that also displayed the status of their husbands or fathers. But, in addition, their dress – especially in 1860 – absolutely demonstrated how confused and contradictory was the prevailing attitude to women. Just look at it: the woman was covered from neck to toe, but her shape was almost grotesquely sexualised.

The Countess Castiglione used the crinoline to perfection as a display, not just of wealth – but also of an exaggerated and almost cartoonish sexuality.

This of course, is where the corset came in, as the companion-piece to the crinoline. (As a little aside, however, the corset in 1860, while it could be tugged very tight, was itself a part of a piece of trompe l’oeil: a good, wide crinoline could help give the impression of an hourglass.)

Not enormously surprising, then, that the bourgeoise in her finery was subject to the politics of the time. This seems a bit unfair, to me, since she and her dress were always in effect lived statements about her husband or her father, really. She herself owned nothing. However, John Ruskin, commentator of the time, was quite caustic about the ostentation implied by extremes of bourgeois female dress; and there arose at this time the Aesthetes and their ‘rational dress’, which did away with both corsetry and crinolines.

Jane Morris, née Burden, a Pre-Raphaelite model — Jane Morris, née Burden, was a Pre-Raphaelite model and muse whose face graced myriad paintings and drawings of the time. Here she is without corset or crinoline, wearing ‘rational’ dress in 1865.

These were political statements in themselves, absolutely, and a sign of revulsion at so much conspicuous consumption. But they were not necessarily a sign that women’s lot in particular was being seen as political – Ruskin was no feminist, and there was a lot of idealisation in artistic circles that really doesn’t suggest women were being seen as anything more that symbols. Just as the nouveau riche, bourgeois class saw them, really.

However, let it also be said that education was reaching women, too, to an unprecedented extent, and that there were some intellectual giants about, who were beginning to speak of the condition of women. John Stuart Mill was one such. Another, if less well-known, was Barbara Bodichon, feminist and member of the Langham Place Circle, which argued for dress reform. She had already written in 1850, after a walking holiday in which she and Mary Howitt opted for practicality and comfort, turfed their corsets and shortened their skirts:

Oh! Isn’t it jolly

To cast away folly

And cut all one’s clothes a peg shorter

(a good many pegs)

And rejoice in one’s legs

Like a free-minded Albion’s daughter.

(Wojtczak, date unknown)

Thus it is clear that in the midst of what was not, to tell the truth, a very liberated space for most women, there were the seeds of a very different set of views altogether. And of course, while not everyone was conscious of taking up anything like a feminist cause, the expansion of the middle classes and the proliferation of journals and literature meant that more women were being heard as writers, and occasionally as commentators. And women were increasingly characters in novels, as well, characters who were active and intelligent. Even children’s literature might sometimes recognise girls. Who could forget Alice in Wonderland or Alice Through the Looking Glass, both of the 1860s?

And it struck me, while indulging my fascination for all things Victorian by writing a novel about this most interesting time (remember, 1860 was also the year after Darwin’s theory of evolution crashed onto the scene) that some intriguing questions could be asked. What, I mused, would happen if the patriarch of this most Victorian of households were to lose his hold on it? What if he and his domestic influence were to fade? What would change?

Adelaide encounters many things in my novel, in her search for a life that would have meaning for her once George, her comatose husband, finally passes on. But fundamental to all the changes she goes through are the alterations to the patterns of her own home, including all of the relationships under that roof.

—–00—–

For those interested in pursuing some of the themes mentioned above, my Master’s thesis: Beneath the carapace: virtue versus sexuality, and other contradictions behind meanings imposed on English female shape and clothing in the 1860s is available at my website: www.jlcrozier.com

JL (Judy) Crozier’s early life was a sweep through war-torn South East Asia: Malaysia’s ‘Emergency’, Burma’s battles with hill tribes, and the war in Vietnam. In Saigon, by nine, Judy had read her way through the British Council Library, including Thackeray and Dickens. Home in Australia, she picked up journalism, politics, blues singing, home renovation, child-rearing, community work, writing and creative writing teaching, proof reading and editing, and her Master of Creative Writing. She now lives in France.

J.L. Crozier’s historical novel, What Empty Things Are These, is available from booksellers all over the world.

The Nudibranch Elegies: Waiting for Release

August 9, 2018 Leave a Comment

Nudibranch Elegies Anthropocene's End by James Lawry

Waiting for Release

The Nudibranch Elegies were shades

unheard from,

buried in boxes,

hidden,

but Jaynie trusted,

released their essences.

Now others may read, ponder,

trust,

perhaps might even love some of them.

Aren’t we all shades waiting for release

to be loved?

Educated at Stanford University and UCSF in biology and medicine, Jim Lawry became another ancient mariner loving science and literature. Jim’s writing includes: Essential Concepts of Clinical Physiology (Sinauer) and The Incredible Shrinking Bee: Insects as Models for Microelectromechanical Devices (Imperial College Press) as well as technical papers, poetry, and plays including Otto’s Inferno (Retention of German atomic scientists in Farm Hall England after WWII) and his newest play, Xanadu, a Mathematical Farrago.

Pre-order your copy of The Nudibranch Elegies & Anthropocene’s End for immediate delivery upon release.

On Writing ‘Path to the Night Sea’ by Alicia Gilmore

February 9, 2018 Leave a Comment

I have always loved reading and creating, with words, with paint and pencils, from joining a Creative Writing class as a child – as an asthmatic and more than a little uncoordinated, team sports were never my forte – to studying art and then writing at university. Since childhood, when I realised that someone had created the book I held in my hand, I have wanted to write. To create. Perhaps it was reading Little Women and wanting so fiercely for Jo to succeed, to be Jo, or alternatively her sisters and enter the Marsh household. Perhaps it was Alice in Wonderland and wanting to throw myself down that rabbit hole. Books were a perfect escape when I was indoors with another bout of bronchitis. They gave me the world. From those tame beginnings to discovering books could not only captivate and inspire me, but thrill me and scare me, keeping me up at night reading under the blankets with a torch. Books introduced me and immersed me in new worlds.

Looking at art, being captivated by passages of paint, the use of light and shadow, thinking how did the artist do that? Reading novels and admiring the skill, the clever hints and clues, the beautiful play of words, wondering how did the author conceive of that? How did they do that? There have been more than a few false starts, a multitude of drafts, dreadful poems and sketches that will never see anyone else’s eyes but I love the process, being swept away into another space, another moment, when reality (and the day job and all the ordinary, everyday concerns) subside.

Path to the Night Sea started as a short story in a fiction class with Sue Woolfe. Sue had given the class a selection of photographs and objects to spark our creativity and give us a physical stimulus to write a short fragment. I remember a small glass perfume bottle and a photograph caught my attention. The photo featured a woman in profile, seated at a piano, her hands poised to strike the keys. There was a cat sitting on top of the piano, and I wondered if these were the two most important things in her life – music and her pet. I started to write about this woman who would sit and play, not looking out of the curtained window, but indoors with her cat. Her face in profile, her ‘good side’… The perfume bottle that perhaps had belonged to a woman who would never get hold. A bottle that held scented memories… Ideas and elements came together and what is now a lot of Day One in the novel formed the original short story. Sue read the story, said I had written the start of a wonderful novel and she had to know what happened to Ellie. I realised so I wanted to know too.

Coal Cliff, Australia, setting for Path to the Night Sea, a Regal House title — Coal Cliff

The story became darker the more I delved into Ellie’s world. Seven days seemed the fitting structure for Ellie to be introduced to the reader and for her to seek her path, tying in with the religious dogma she’d heard from her Grandmother and Father. Listening to music by Nick Cave and Johnny Cash helped me establish the mood at times and gave me the impetus to embrace the flaws and the darkness. When I was writing the first drafts, I was living near the beach and the waves, particularly during storms, formed a natural soundtrack. If I peered out from my desk, I could catch glimpses of the ocean. By the time editing was underway, I had moved to a house that backed onto the bush and had inherited a cat. Listening to the raucous native birds, possums scurrying up trees and across the roof at night, dealing with the odd snake and lizards, plus watching the cat, heightened those natural elements of the story.

I was concerned about and for my characters. I needed to ensure that Arthur in particular had moments, however fleeting, when he was ‘human’, and that Ellie, despite her circumstances, not be passive. I found myself going off in tangents in early drafts with minor characters and subplots but judicious readers and editing brought the focus back to Ellie and Arthur, and the confines of restricted world they inhabit.

I had thought of letting Ellie go one morning years ago when I woke up and heard the news about Elizabeth Fritzl kidnapped and abused by her father. In my drowsy state listening to the radio, the reality of her situation came crashing in and I wanted to put my humble writings aside. What was fictional pain in the face of such devastating reality? Even in 2018, the newsfeed this week is full of children being trapped at home by their parents, the neighbours unaware. Path to the Night Sea is my way of using language to explore familial dysfunction, small town horror, and ultimately, hope.

Alicia Gilmore lives in New South Wales, Australia. Her debut, Path to the Night Sea, is a contemporary gothic novel exploring the dark secrets hidden within an otherwise idyllic coastal setting. Alicia has had short stories published in Phoenix and Cellar Door. In 2012, she was a contributing writer and lead editor of Burbangana. In 2009, Alicia received an Allen & Unwin / Varuna Publishers Fellowship that included a residency at Varuna, the NSW Writers’ Centre.