Diversity – Nastasya Parker

My Life in Libraries

This Week’s Bit of String: 14 million books

We finished a half-term weekend in London with the realisation of a dream for me, walking up from Lambeth to Camden so I could visit the British Library. I browsed their Treasures collection, a variety of artefacts displayed to the public with no admission price.

There’s one of the original Magna Carta sheepskin documents, a Gutenberg Bible, and a couple of the earliest Greek translations. Each of Shakespeare’s folios, a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation. They’ve curated manuscripts of writers ranging from George Eliot to Oscar Wilde to Andrea Levy to Siegfried Sassoon, and musical notations from Mozart and from the Beatles, plus gorgeous ancient texts from every religion. Fantastic examples of moveable type in Asia (a century or two before Europe managed it), and 2000-year-old homework of an Egyptian student.

The library also has a philatelic collection, vertical tabs so you can pull a sheet out with examples of money or stamps from all around the world. There are the reading rooms, which I’m sure I can find an excuse to utilise one day, and on every, open storey, there are seats all along the walls and overlooks. Each one was occupied by someone studying or working, mainly young people.

There’s a central, multi-storey cube just beyond the foyer. It’s massive, and full of the old, vellum and leather-bound volumes that were King George III’s collection. We’re talking at least 5 floors of this, 4 walls facing out, each many metres long. I wonder if a librarian there knows every book in that collection and where they’re located. I wonder if I could fill my brain with something like that instead of obsessing over how the election will go.

Library History

Yup, I’m still stressed about the state of the world! However, I’m on half-term break so at least I’m not stressing about work and the state of our students. I am carrying on in the vein of last week’s post, by writing about something quite happy. Books!

As I looked at the enormous hoard of books the ‘mad’ King George had amassed, I was intrigued by his motivations. Did he enjoy actually reading the books? Were they merely a status symbol? I felt, for once, a bit smug about my native country because I remembered hearing that Benjamin Franklin started one of the first American libraries and I thought, How perfect that a Revolutionary would counter the tyrant King’s greed by sharing books.

Only, wouldn’t you know it, Franklin’s library wasn’t free. It was a subscription library in Philadelphia, so you had to pay dues to check out books. On the other hand, Britain established its first free public library in Manchester in 1653, thanks to a bequest from a textile merchant, Humphrey Chetham. He even requested that librarians overseeing the collection “require nothing of any man that cometh into the library.”

Isn’t that a lovely thought? Welcome to the library. Nothing’s required of you here.

Libraries I’ve Known

Libraries are so much more than book lenders. They often serve as community centres. Our little library in Lyme, New Hampshire was across from the school, and would welcome us for an autumn celebration every year, serving us donuts and cider as we listened to stories like The Enormous Crocodile, or Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, or The Funny Little Woman who followed her lost dumpling into the underworld to get it back.

*Another phenomenal library I ticked off my bucket list previously: Trinity Library in Dublin*

By the time we moved away when I was 8 years old, I had a boyfriend and we’d kiss hidden by bookshelves from the rest of our class. I also had my favourite little chapter books from the library. One was about a puritan settlement in early America, including a dispute over a pewter spoon resulting in public punishment. Another had a young heroine, Elizabeth, uncover and foil a plot to blow up President Lincoln’s inaugural train. I don’t know the books’ titles, their authors, how old they were, or how I chose them. Perhaps I just bumbled into meeting them, as I did with my then-boyfriend.

The great thing about libraries is they allow you to be reckless. You can choose whatever you want—for free. If you don’t like it, just put it back, no charge. When I was first settling in the UK, I was so lonely I went to the fiction shelves in our orange-carpeted library and worked my way alphabetically, grabbing almost anything. One book had, as its climax, a heroine confronted by two marriage proposals from great guys and the stress of this caused her to fall into a deep sleep for days and wake up with clarity. Why couldn’t that happen to me? I thought.

The library in my parents’ town, where my mom worked when I was a teen, has a theatre hall/ voting place upstairs and a mysterious cabinet of porcelain dolls at the back. While waiting for Mom to finish shifts, I entertained myself reading through weekly news magazines in the 1990s and learned quite a lot about world events. I also spent many of my high school lunch periods in the school library. Compared to the lunchroom with my peers, I truly felt less was required of me there.

What libraries have comprised your history, and what do they mean to you?

Making Links

This Week’s Bit of String: Snakes and the sublime

“I held a snake!”

A Year 11 student greeted me with this after Christmas, while his classmates discussed gifts and excursions. This student’s family didn’t have money for those. But he found out how snakeskin feels: smooth, cool, strong.

I was supporting the student in his English class, and as an introduction to Wordsworth’s “Prelude,” the teacher sought examples of the sublime.

“What’s the most awe-inspiring place you’ve visited?” she asked the class.

With his classmates describing Alpine ski trips, island volcano walks, or seaside visits, my student felt sidelined. He told me again, “I held a snake!”

*A formidable power: Vermont floodline summer 2023. See how the water swept through halfway up the trees?*

After every contribution of wondrous landscapes from the other students, the teacher asked, “Did it scare you?” She established the connection between excitement and fear, the sublime power of nature.

I asked my student if he felt a bit scared holding the snake, and I said his mixed feelings reminded me of the class discussion. The boy’s face lit up and we decided he ought to share his story with the teacher. A snake is part of nature, right?

He held his hand up for several minutes while other students were called on. Reluctantly, the teacher let him speak just as she was closing the topic.

“I held a snake!” he said.

The whole class laughed. “That’s not what we’re talking about right now,” snapped the teacher.

My student was devastated. He kept asking me, “Why did you say I should tell her?”

Finally I murmured, “Because I would have responded differently.” I don’t like disagreeing with a colleague around a student, but taking the kiddo’s side in this somewhat subtle way calmed him down.

Essential Bonds

And I was angry, actually. This student can be quite challenging but his Educational Health Care Plan outlines the traumas he’s been through, the difficulties he has with learning, and strategies to help him access the curriculum. Even if a hardworking teacher doesn’t have time to check the documents again and again, surely making children feel included is just common sense.

*Haven’t got any snake photos, but the pattern on these fritilleries is awesome too*

It takes barely a second to say, “Interesting. Thanks for sharing.”

After all, the English curriculum assesses students on their ability to make connections. Follow literary clues from an extract to deduce the writer’s motivations. Compare how poems show similar themes in different ways. How hard is it to connect the snake, a potentially deadly predator, with formidable but impressive landscapes?

Some connections will be firmer than others. We all make far-fetched ones sometimes, in our natural human tendency to see grand designs behind the events of our lives, hoping to place ourselves in the centre. But the ability to draw these links sets us apart as a species.

When It All Comes Together

One thing I love about writing is teasing out the connections. My first published story took place in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. In my research I learned the Creole word for earthquake shared its root with the mudpies eaten by the most impoverished people: Tè, like terre, for earth.

This term linked vast struggles of poverty and disaster with resourcefulness and survival too, and chained them up into a more manageable bundle. But it wouldn’t have worked if I hadn’t looked into the native language, and if I hadn’t already felt a connection to the country, following stories about mudpies and Cite Soleil and the Creole language long before.

*Keeping the sides connected: Houston’s famous Be Someone bridge*

Sometimes my threads linking a character’s motivation to their actions aren’t strong enough. Or maybe they’re too coarse and unsophisticatedly blatant. Honing those connections is vital, and enhanced by cultivating connections in our everyday lives–by taking those moments to invite other people to share. Even if they just tell us they got to hold a snake that one time.

My latest story is on the wonderful Funny Pearls website. It takes the perspective of a girl with autism as she considers what connections to make, and how to do so. From building a bridge with Knex to practising facial expressions in the mirror and developing a felicity with the subtle burn, read how Sylvie makes links in “The Late, Great Jimmy Stewart’s Video Guide to Emotions.”

As with any force of nature (or predatory reptile), connecting with others and recognising our many links to the world can be quite frightening. It may mess with our pre-established plans to consider someone else’s challenges and let them in, but the consequences can be pretty awe-inspiring all around, too.

How do you build connections in your work and in your life? And does it sometimes scare you?

2023 Reading Round-Up

I read 32 books in 2024. I’d love it if I’d had more reading time, but often when I set a high reading goal for the year, it makes reading feel stressful. I’m rushing to finish a book when really, I should be enjoying it. So, no regrets!

Here are my top reads from the year, and of course, my very favourite quote from each. Because I have tried over the years to savour books better, I always pause after finishing one and write down my favourite quotes.

As to how I mark the pages of my favourite quotes while I’m reading… I exercise my right of protection against self-incrimination on that.

Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris
A master intrigue-builder, Harris sneaks suspense in through everyday details and seemingly idyllic settings. The setting here is a boys’ grammar school, secretly crumbling. Since I work in a school, semi-snarky descriptions of teachers and students amuse me.

“Although listening to boys is bad enough, listening to their parents is fatal.”

Cuckoo in the Nest by Fran Hill
I love Fran’s writing, particularly her hearty humour which is specific without being sharp. Her debut novel gives voice to a wonderfully insightful adolescent character entering foster care. This book is a real gift with its empathy to all characters involved.

“I could have done with help defending myself against the way Bridget would experience the emotions she thought I should be having.”

Not Quite an Ocean by Elizabeth M Castillo
Castillo deftly balances beauty and decay, peace and turmoil. Her latest volume explores womanhood through the metaphor of the ocean, inspiring us to reflect on our journey with awe and compassion. Women, the sea, what’s not to love?

From “Who Will Hold the Ocean?”
“Who will teach her that the darkest parts of her body are where creatures are the most boneless, and bright?
Who will dismantle the great, iron skeletons of conquest that lie rotting, eating away at her throat, and back teeth?”

Braver by Deborah Jenkins
I adore a story with a diverse cast. In some respects, this novel is as simple as a little group of people banding together to help each other out. But of course the tug of each individual’s needs pulls events into a tangle.

“There’s the smell of grass and that scented summer air that drifts into your very soul and makes you believe in the safe familiarity of things.”

The Binding by Bridget Collins
Set in a world where books can only be made when a person is “bound,” surrendering their memory to the page. This results in all sorts of secrets and shocking twists. It’s also an incredibly moving love story.

“It makes one wonder who would write them. People who enjoy imagining misery, I suppose… People who can spend days writing a long sad lie without going insane.”

Salt Lick by Lulu Allison
This haunting epic takes place in a climate-wrought [near?] future dystopia, observed by a Shakespearean-style chorus…comprised of rewilded cows. Between flooded coasts and strict urban areas, various communities help each other and revive hope.

“We see you, boy
We see your gentle heart
Keep it carefully
It has work to do”

Game Changer by Neal Shusterman
A high school football player finds himself in an altered version of his universe every time he gets concussed. Each shift highlights issues of race, class, gender and sexuality, and raises questions. What makes us who we are–and how easily could it change?

“If life exists four hundred times smaller than we can see, it must exist four hundred times larger than we can see.”

March by Geraldine Brooks
The imaginary father of Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters in Little Women is the protagonist here. We see his part in slavery, Civil War battles, and early attempts at Reconstruction. Through him, Brooks unforgettably lays bare the national shame.

“And yet I do not think it heroic to march into fields of fire, whipped on one’s way only by fear of being called craven. Sometimes, true courage requires inaction; that one sit at home while war rages, if by doing so one satisfies the quiet voice of honourable conscience.”

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Written during World War II, this novel alchemically combines some of my favourite elements: a precocious narrator passionate about writing, an eccentric family among castle ruins, class struggle, explorations of love and art.

“‘Anyway, your father had a very distinguished forerunner. God made the universe an enigma.’
“I said, ‘And very confusing it’s been for everybody. I don’t see why Father had to copy Him.’”

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
A brilliant homage to David Copperfield transplanting Dickens’s expansive cast to coal country, western Virginia in the late 1990s/ early 2000s. It exposes the disadvantages and downright exploitation in rural areas, while also inspiring us with the resilience and compassion of many who live there.

“… Wanting to see the rest of us hurt because she was hurting–You have to wonder how much of the whole world’s turning is fueled by that very fire.”

Are any of these your favourites too, or do you have recommendations to add?

Pride and Joy

This Week’s Bit of String: A lick of paint

Last Easter, after nine years living in our house, I realised I hated the colour of the lounge. Dismissing it as beige would be too good for it; it was a dingy, pinkish, dirty-flesh, off-white hue.

At the time, my 20-year-old kiddo was about to move to the USA, my husband was struggling, and I would sit in the lounge not daring to take up a project of my own because either they would need me for something or I would need to convince them to do something, at any moment. And as I stared at the walls and considered how best to help my family, whether to push or to cajole or to leave alone, I noticed that I loathed the room.

It took nearly a year to get round to changing it. I think it took 75% of that time for me to effectively communicate that I couldn’t bear it anymore. By now my little Bear was fairly settled overseas and my husband was doing well also. He has a very good sense for matters of structure and decor, and where I was desperate for almost any fresh paint at all, he was quite sensible and had lots of good ideas and eventually, with a tremendous amount of work, we unbeiged.

*Unbeiged walls best complemented by garden roses and gorgeous baby cat.*

We now have deep teal at one end of the lounge, and clean, pale greenish-aqua on the longest two walls. It’s fresh like a pool you could dive into. Might paint the final wall teal but that end is, unsurprisingly, taken up by large, full bookshelves, so my sense of urgency has faded.

It’s funny how we get these sudden revelations that something is intolerable. It’s funny too how things that have always been there, we’ll only start to discover. I’ve written before about how privilege delayed some of us in acknowledging the struggles of people in other races. I have to admit, as Pride Month comes to a close, that I was similarly tardy in recognising the plight of people in the LGBTQIA+ community.

Early Encounters

The first time I remember someone actually discussing anything other than straight, non-cisgendered relationships, I was in first grade. A classmate used the term “pervert,” I asked what it meant, and my fellow 6-year-old replied, “It’s a man who has sex with other men.”

I wonder why that kid was given such a specific, rather homophobic definition. I wonder what sort of realisations he had as he got older.

Going to high school in the mid/ late 1990s, I had some classmates and friends who were able to be free and honest about their sexuality, and some who could not until later. I was unfazed by it, dealing with my own issues and not wishing to be hard on anyone else. But I did grow up in a church where such things were thought to be abnormal and downright wrong, and I realised during college that I had some prejudices.

This revelation was precipitated by a panel representing LGBTQIA + students from our campus. A girl among them shared how, when she came out, one of her older relatives sighed: “But you’re so pretty…”

My stomach lurched. I’d thought the same thing when I saw her amongst the group. I wasn’t attracted to her (I don’t work that way), but I suppose the implication was: She’s such a pretty girl, must she be squandered on something deviant? It’s a weird thought, because not only does it denigrate homosexual relationships, it also diminishes the value of women, as if beauty may only be reserved for men’s appreciation.

So I recognised that I’d been seeing this young woman as a character or a good-looking avatar, and had superimposed my own ideas of a happy relationship upon her. I had dehumanised her. I tried to be more aware and careful after that.

Going Beyond

You may notice I don’t use gendered language about my [no longer very childlike] child. Our Bear is nonbinary. In their words, it’s not something that can be explained because it’s not a decision.

This makes sense. In the same way no one invents electricity, a person does not necessarily journey toward an identity. It was always there waiting to be acknowledged.

*Love and colour in London during Pride month. “Love is the only language I speak fluently.”*

The brilliant thing about Bear being nonbinary is that we can have discussions about music and baseball and relationships and also about nail varnish and hair length. Of course, any one person should be able to experiment with every one of those things. One reason my kiddo feels “not in between two genders, just above it (or done with it all)” is because throughout history, we’ve created ridiculously rigid definitions for male versus female.

It’s all gone a bit beige and then Pride comes along and freshens things up.

I tend not to say I’m proud of my child because they are their own person; I can’t take credit for the many attributes I love about them. But seeing them settle and feel more free about who they are makes me very happy.

Looking at etymology, the earliest roots of the word proud lie in being forward, first, like a chief or leader. Above things, you might say. I am grateful to those in the LGBTQIA+ communities for marching forward and leading us to be more inclusive and colourful.

What does Pride month mean to you?

Celebrating Books

This Week’s Bit of String: An air of incredulity

“Miss, how are there people who like to read?”

I’d been scribing answers to questions about Lord of the Flies while the severely dyslexic GCSE student dictated. He was then curious about why there are “neeks” (the word “geek” has evolved) like me who actually enjoy books.

“Well,” I told him, “I got to like reading because I was taught so many different books at school, I knew there were loads of great options.”

The openness of the question surprised me and I should perhaps have been more emotive, told him how reading takes me out of my own life and into different worlds. Or that it’s easily as entertaining as TV. I wish I’d had more time to tell him that with books, there really is something for everyone. As long as they can access it–which unfortunately, he physically cannot.

I wonder if this young man gets the sense of luxuriousness from playing videogames which we find with books. Books free us from having to compete. They offer immersive surrender, and that’s what I crave sometimes. It’s liberation from being in life’s driver’s seat.

*Hay Castle: “Love detonates this distance between us to ash holds your flooded heart in the fire of night”*

Again, this only works if you can access it. We all go through stages when there simply isn’t time to read much. Sometimes I find myself reading with a grim desperation to tick books off my reading list.

I remind myself that this is love. As with any relationship, we sometimes get caught up in our duties of care; keeping everyone fed and happy. But the love is there. When it comes to reading, I ensure I take the time to write down my favourite quotes, to reflect in my daily scribbles, before starting something else. It’s not a chore.

Burrowing and Borrowing

I spent last weekend at Hay-on-Wye Literature Festival. If you ever need to rekindle your love for reading, it’s a great place to do so. Sunny but chilled, colourful yet somewhat calming. I guess that’s because even though I’m among crowds, they feel like my people.

Not that Hay’s festival-goers are in any way homogenous. As with writers, there are all sorts of readers. Young and old, Welsh or English or from further abroad, people in motorised wheelchairs or with support dogs. At an evening talk I also noticed another woman on her own, like me, pencilling tiny notes.

In both the first talks I went to, though they were on very different topics, the writers talked about being magpie-like in storing and selecting detail. Marina Hyde, the Guardian columnist on current events, peppers her pieces with pop culture references. Peter Frankopan, a passionate historian who’s recently written about natural disasters throughout history, drew on so many different sources he ended up with 4000 footnotes in his latest book.

Later I enjoyed wonderful readings from the poet laureate Simon Armitage. He opened with “Thank You for Waiting” (have a listen here!) and he talked about how hard it was during lockdown to be inspired without everyday interactions and excursions. He calls those the “cement” which sticks our writing together. Trying to create in his upstairs office, he found himself writing poems about Velux windows.

The reason there are enough books in the world to interest any reader is because writers are so diverse. And maybe when we love our art enough, we can find ways to write about anything.

Safety in the Pages

Beyond offering inclusion, books throughout history have bestowed security. We listened to Irene Vallejo talk about her volume Papyrus, which uncovers the history of the written word. She shared stories of the library of Alexandria, and told us how things changed with the development of the Latin codex.

*Bookish street art in Hay. Is it secret? Is it safe?*

The codex, with similar etymological roots to the word book, means block of wood, or tree trunk. Instead of being a long, flattened scroll you’d have to roll back up for storage, the codex used sheets bound together like modern books.

This change wasn’t just culturally significant. It also made reading a safer hobby. In times of religious persecution, for example, Christians could read in codex form. Should someone come along, they could close the codex and stow it away as a humble block, thus keeping secret the substance of their reading.

I loved learning this bit of history. Even now, in our privileged times, there’s something reassuring about wandering around an event where lots of people have books under their arms or noses. Just a bunch of bookworms sharing a common love if not common tastes, and although there are plenty of magpies about, they’re the curious rather than vicious kind.

What makes you fall in love with reading?

Et Tu?

This Week’s Bit of String: Big wheels and street songs

We camped near Stratford-Upon-Avon over Easter weekend, our first visit there in nine years. A pretty Cotswolds town fiercely proud of being Shakespeare’s birthplace, it’s added a Big Wheel to rival the church spire and the tower of the Royal Shakespeare Company Theatre.

People snap selfies with the statues of famous Shakespearean characters surrounding his statue in the park. Lady Macbeth’s knuckles and the pate of Yorick’s skull are worn smooth by 150 years’ worth of tourists rubbing them for luck. Narrowboats mass on the Avon in front of them, cherry blossoms sway, and a street musician sings “To Make You Feel My Love.”

What would the Bard think of it all? I suspect he would have been okay with most developments, as long as they bring money in. And it wasn’t as if he was humourless. The range of topics he covered in his plays, he doesn’t seem completely traditionalist either.

A Theatre Trip

*Does contain spoilers for a centuries-old play about millennia-old famous historical events

My husband and I went to an RSC production of Julius Caesar while in town. It’s fascinating to me that Shakespeare chose to write this play, and frame the Conspirators with nuance and sympathy, even admiration, when he lived in a strictly royalist time. What could the preservation of democracy mean to him? This play contrasts with the anti-regicide message of Macbeth later on, for example.

We were completely engrossed by the show, although checking online later, it’s had a few sniffy reviews mixed in with decent ones. The director went for fairly plain costumes and set. There was a solemn, black-robed chorus between some scenes, just as the Greeks and Shakespeare would have intended. Between others, there were choreographed group scenes a bit like marches or parties or riots.

*Daft, I know, but I had to get an “Exuent, pursued by…” photo with this Bear at the RSC Theatre*.

This aspect was quite different and a little confusing. I’d looked at the cast list already, though, so I could pick out Brutus and see that her motions represented her inner conflict. I do wonder if some of the same people who criticise the choreographed segments as being too gimmicky, too distracting or confusing—might those not be the same people who advocate for opaque literature, for leaving things up to interpretation? So, I have interpreted it, and find it interesting, and thoroughly believe I would pick up more detail if I had the time and means to see it again.

Both Brutus and Cassius were played by women, which I felt made their friendship more moving, particularly in their parting scene. They were sisters-in-arms. Maybe I’m being egocentric and enjoying a chance to see my gender reflected more in traditional theatre. But perhaps there’s also an objective poignancy in seeing two women take on the accepted power structure, rather than two men do it.

At least one reviewer, as well as an elderly theatregoer my husband overheard, complained about how these two leads kept male character names while using female pronouns, and also kept some lines referring to the characters as men. I was not flummoxed by this. When Mark Antony repeats in his famous speech, “But Brutus is an honourable man,” it’s obvious who he’s referring to.

I wonder again if people who quibble over the lack of matching names/ pronouns/ gender language will wax lyrical about symbolism and analogy in Shakespeare. I suspect they know he’s not always literal. Maybe they just have certain buttons that get pushed when a young Black woman plays Brutus.

Death Scenes

The actress playing Brutus is Thalissa Teixeira, and she was riveting, with a cool elegance befitting an honourable soldier, and moments of passion which showed why she would have such loyal friends. She has ties to Brazil, and you can read how that influenced her portrayal of political upheaval and rebellion.

Brutus’s servant Lucius was played by Jamal Ajala, a deaf actor of colour. So some scenes at Brutus’s house were signed as well as spoken, and the director Atri Banerjee chose to have Lucius reappear in the final scenes as the friend who assists Brutus’s suicide. Brutus’s request to him and his acquiescence were completely silent, only signed. This made it much more striking.

I had to read a lot of Shakespeare in my American high school and university years, much more than the strictly exam-based curriculum in Britain demands. Having been inundated mainly with his tragedies… they get a bit samey. There’s a lot of hand-wringing leading-up-to-death scenes, and this version put the hands to good use. For a taste of what I mean, here’s a video of Jamal Ajala performing Hamlet’s soliloquy in British Sign Language.

Shakespeare bestows an element of control on his characters’ deaths. People get to have little speeches and even Caesar, after he’s been stabbed by several people, doesn’t die until he’s sort of consented to do so: “Let fall Caesar!” This must have been how Shakespeare wrestled with the brutality of life in Tudor/ Jacobean times, when there probably weren’t many poetic farewells. Not during executions and plagues. I doubt he would have begrudged today’s directors and actors using his work to make a mark on society, to make it more inclusive and diverse.

What do you think about Shakespeare, and about reinterpretations of it? Is adding a Big Wheel to the literary landscape a betrayal tantamount to what Brutus did to Caesar?

Language Lessons

This Week’s Bit of String: Water, chipper, calm, them.

“Miss, where are you from? America—I knew it! Do you know how to shoot guns? Say something, say ‘water.’”

I’ve changed jobs recently, emerged from a spreadsheet jungle and opted to be pelted by howls of “Miss! Miss!” as a secondary school Teaching Assistant again. Negotiating crowds of teenagers is a big change after 19 months working from home. Seeing colleagues deliver clear, targeted lessons and witnessing new provisions to nurture students’ mental health makes me feel better about the world.

*This view though… Looking out the wide open window from the TA offices*

I worked at the same large local comprehensive school more than five years ago. This is a whole new group of students, slightly less mature than I remember their earlier cohorts being, because obviously they’ve had to deal with Covid disruption. Students still miss school for positive tests, teachers have long absences and our most vulnerable students can’t abide cover teachers. The windows are all open as the temperatures dip into the single digits (Celsius) so throughout the lessons we burrow into coats and scarves; a Year 11 girl shares her fuzzy white gloves so her friend can wear one while she wears the other.

Slang has evolved since I was last working with young adults. They still use “safe” and “wicked.” But there’s also “chipper” for when they want you to think they’ve understood something: “Nah, Miss, I’m chipper, I’ll start working in a minute.” And “calm” to describe someone they like. Maybe it’s just that they know they can get away with things around a “calm” teacher, but I suspect there are other ways they feel safer with him or her, too.

It makes sense that after the last few years “calm” might be one of the highest terms of esteem used by young people. And that “sick” has gone out of fashion.

Reuniting

Supporting in different lessons means I get to learn, too. In a GCSE class about Maths vocabulary, the teacher shared that “Algebra” comes from an Arabic term meaning “reunion of broken parts.” I love hearing that stuff. The kids were busy sharpening rulers under the table or doodling or exchanging gloves or peeling labels off glue sticks, but with gentle prompting they got a few notes down, and the disparate parts came together a little.

The pandemic seems to have given my school cover to broaden its aims from academic achievement to include more nurturing and tolerance. While the government was forced to acknowledge that students couldn’t be expected to pass the same rigorous exams due to lockdown disruptions, there was more leave to consider their mental state. Consequently, more students have Time Out options, to spend a few minutes cooling down in an alternative classroom designed for that purpose. When I last worked at school, students would get an official warning and be one step closer to detention if they didn’t have a pen. Now, all teachers have equipment to loan.

*“More why, less shhh.” I love this slogan from the We the Curious museum in Bristol.*

The fact that I’m American serves a similar purpose. My slight accent piques their curiosity, forces them to acknowledge I’m here, lets them make fun of my pronunciation and feel more comfortable. “Water” is a giveaway for an American accent. I can try to make the T more clipped, less like a D, but it sounds ridiculous and forced. When I first emigrated our street was called Water Lane and my accent embarrassed me every time I told my address to local people. I oblige the kids when they want to hear it, though. They like to feel superior in something, even if I have lived on this Small Island longer than they’ve been alive.

I have a stash of writing utensils too, of course. Lessons start much better when I can quietly check with a student that they have the equipment they need and lend what’s necessary, rather than them instantly getting into trouble.

“I bet you still say ‘water’ funny.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t quite got rid of all my Americanisms.”

“Oh, that’s okay, Miss.”

So they get to play the part of being generous and hospitable, too.

Retraining

One successful result of the school’s efforts to support well-being may be the diversity accepted within the student population. While it’s a rural area and not very multicultural, students support their friends of colour and Black Lives Matter. I also got to have a discussion with a Year 11 prefect about her witchcraft practice, and of course the crux of my job is to support students with various disabilities.

*Sunrise on a new adventure. We’re not expecting fully calm seas, and that’s ok.*

With a designated unisex bathroom now on site, other students are able, more and more, to inhabit more comfortable roles. Previously it was agony for certain teens to deal with bodies that were developing in an unwanted direction while their thoughts and preferences veered a different way, and everything around them reminded them how they ought to be. There’s a student in most of my Year 11 lessons whom I’ve tried to remember not to apply gendered language to, but I slip up sometimes since my ways of referring to subsets within the group are old-fashioned.

“Here you go, ladies.” I hand out the GCSE Language practice paper to the two students in the back.

“Non-binary,” corrects one, without even looking up.

“Of course. I’m so sorry, I’ll try to keep doing better.” They shrug and get on with the work. I hope that they’re always around people they can safely express their identity to. People who are, one might say, “calm.”

After all, I’m feeling more and more free to say “water” in my slightly redneck American way. That’s one word I won’t convincingly be able to fix, but I can work on a few others. Having to mind my language puts me in a much more writing-centred frame of mind than when I was dealing with billing and numbers. Have you been picking up any new lingo lately?

Closing the Distance

This Week’s Bit of String: The meaning of far away

When our son was very young my husband and I had to live on different sides of the ocean. I missed him badly but couldn’t dwell on it, so when our little Bear asked about his dad, I would say, “Daddy’s far away.”

During a quick visit when Bear was two and a half, he climbed all over his dad and asked him, “Are you Far Away?”

It sounds obvious, but in my own loneliness and the frantic rush of being a single working mum, I hadn’t considered that my toddler would not understand intangible concepts such as distance. My explanation was totally inaccessible to him.

As writers, we are engaged in shrinking things. A written word is a miniature representation of its real-life counterpart; a book is a flattened, condensed episode from a collision of lives. The paradox we deal with is how to reduce things without losing a sense of their magnitude, and as readers, we know it’s possible to do just that.

Amazing, really.

With Great Power…

It’s daunting too, isn’t it? Our job is to serve up bite-sized fragments of potentially suffocating reality, to pinpoint the fleeting, and to bring distant concepts near. We greet an idea after its long flight and take it home and nestle it into bed, letting it in from the cold.

We may feel, when the world is so vast and problem-ridden, when many of us share similar lockdown woes, that our words don’t matter. Isn’t everyone thinking the same things already? Doesn’t it reduce an issue to confine it to the page?

But we are vain as humans. We like to see our reflection. We also like to shrink things a bit so we can come to grips with it. If we find the words to resize something small enough that lots of people can access it, we’ve ended up multiplying it. A bit like if we take a trillion dollar relief package and divide it between millions of people.

Creating the Magic

To effectively do this, we have to acknowledge, within ourselves, the enormity of what we want to convey. There have to be moments when our message, when our feeling for our characters and what they’ve been through, bring us to our knees. This may take the form of us crying over our laptops, or wandering in a shell-shocked haze through our day jobs and household routines. It may be sleepless nights or nightmares. Even our for-fun stories will consume us—another paradox of writing is that by trying to portray one aspect of reality, we distance ourselves from our current one.

*Magic. Part of the Window Wanderland display in Wotton-Under-Edge*

Then we negotiate. We try different terms and exchanges and sequences, see which ones are most succinct yet impactful. Lay out everything you want people to know, then chisel it to a sharp point.

Part of this carving out will include an examination from every angle: have we smoothed a surface that should remain rough and challenging? Are there facets we have left too splintery? This is the part of the process where we bring in new sets of eyes to look at our work, and we check that the representation of humanity we’re offering doesn’t inadvertently exclude or minimise any marginalised groups.

It’s a tricky process but each step is essential, and when it comes together, it’s so worth it.

Ready for the Close-Up

During one long period when my husband was Far Away, we did a webcam call. Our son’s face lit up when he saw his father’s appear on the screen of my chunky monitor. “THERE’S Daddy,” he cried, as if finally things made sense. Daddy may not be where he was expected to be, but he was at last visible.

That’s the sort of recognition we want our stories to bring. Not an exact replica of a particular human being, but a sudden proximity if not familiarity. We want to stop people in their tracks, momentarily, with a Eureka moment where everything fits together and the distant becomes immediate.

In this time of prolonged isolation and separation, have you used your writing to draw closer to the far away?

2020 Reading Round-Up

I read thirty books this last year. You’d think, given lockdown and whatnot, that I’d have managed to read more than before, but I’m probably not alone in experiencing a continued dearth of leisure time. I suspect the hours previously spent commuting got absorbed by actually working more hours while at home, plus just, you know, trying to make life go on through the upheaval. Here are my very top ten out of a lot of good, transporting reads.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

In this partly historical, partly speculative story about pursuing freedom, Mr. Whitehead laid nearly all the eras of American racist atrocities out concurrently. It’s a rough look in the mirror but essential. He also tried to illuminate the inner life of a person born and raised in enslavement, and how it might limit one’s focus. I found the protagonist Cora compelling for her determination and understandable cynicism, and it was deeply irritating to see some Goodreads reviews complaining that she wasn’t sunny enough.

“A small freedom was the worst punishment of all, presenting the bounty of true freedom in painful relief.”

The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge

A fun and thrilling novel about exploring natural history in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and women’s roles in such discoveries. Set in an old mansion by often violent seas, it turns into a murder mystery with small-town treachery, solved by a really clever 14-year-old girl protagonist. This was my Christmas holiday feast following my own fossil-digging expedition the week before.

“It must be very relaxing being Mr. Jacklers, deaf to the crunch of other people’s feelings beneath his well-intentioned boots.”

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante

*I happened to be reading this one during World Book Day, which also happens to be St. David’s Day. Nothing like warm Welsh cakes and a great book!*

I read the whole Neapolitan series at the start of this year, starting while we were actually in Sorrento, about an hour’s train ride south of Naples. They’re all intriguing, with intimate portrayals yet surprising turns. Elena’s educational journey, though, and the defiance of Lila’s first marriage including the perspective of her confused and brutal husband, made this possibly my favourite in the series.

“She deserved Nino, in other words, because she thought that to have him meant to try to have him, not to hope that he would want her.”

Smash All the Windows by Jane Davis

An award-winning, self-published novel about families coping with the aftermath of a disaster and the inquiry into its causes. Jane Davis created such beautifully nuanced characters in this, it’s hard to believe it was fiction, and I loved the added angle of using art to cope with grief. She also showed impeccable timing in revealing the different pieces and perspectives of the original event. You can read more about the writer’s process and her other (also acclaimed) work in this interview with author Sarah Tinsley.

“‘Artists have to make choices. We can make a small noise about a lot of things or a lot of noise about one thing.’”

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Another superbly crafted book with an enormous cast. It delved into so many different lives, spanning race and sexuality, making each person believable and sympathetic. I loved the ending, when every character was quite perfectly brought together. For me, the narrative style of line-by line rather than in standard paragraph form really worked, as if reading thought fragments, pulse by pulse. I found myself conducting my own observations in the same rhythm for a couple of weeks, it was so transfixing.

“the house breathes differently when Yazz isn’t there
waiting for her to return and create some more noise and chaos
she hopes she comes home after university
most of them do these days, don’t they?
they can’t afford otherwise
Yazz can stay forever
really”

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler

I hadn’t read any Anne Tyler yet, and I loved this first taste, the idea of the Homesick Restaurant, where diverse chefs cook a favourite home meal different each night, plus of course the distinct characterisations of the whole family in the story. It reminds me of John Irving’s work, which I usually love—but a little more concise and sort of snarky, too. I mean, check out this sample which says so much about the family:

“His mother told Jenny not to slouch, told Cody not to swear, asked Ezra why he wouldn’t stand up to the neighbourhood bully. ‘I’m trying to get through life as a liquid,’ Ezra had said, and Cody (trying to get through life as a rock) had laughed.”

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

A family story and a plague story, this was stunningly immersive. It spins the normal, patriarch-oriented history on its head by never referring to England’s most famous writer by name. He is merely The Tutor, or Agnes’s husband, or Susanna’s or Hamnet’s father. This twist comes off as perfectly natural amidst the insightful re-imaginings of Agnes Shakespeare (Anne Hathaway), and her three children. The smart, strong, grieving mother will stay in my thoughts at least as long as any of her husband’s characters.

*A couple of these volumes were procured from Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, Bath*

“Why would she ever want to behold anything else, when she could be taking in the sight of Susanna’s ears, like the pale folds of roses, the winglike sweep of her tiny eyebrows, the dark hair, which clings to her crown as if painted there by a brush? There is nothing more exquisite than her child.”

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

In a year with minimal travel, more than ever I love a book that can transport me. This one balances two storylines, doubling the mileage. There’s the story of 16-year-old Nao in Tokyo, her suicidal father, her Buddhist nun great-grandmother Old Jiko, and Jiko’s son who was killed fighting (or appearing to fight) in WWII. There’s also Ruth’s story, as she finds Nao’s diary washed up on a remote Canadian Pacific island. This was a great epic about life and death and purpose, while being warm and cheekily authentic.

“Does the half-life of information correlate with the decay of our attention? Is the Internet a kind of temporal gyre, sucking up stories, like geodrift, into its orbit?”

Circe by Madeline Miller

Having written my own book from the perspective of Eve, I was eager to read another female-perspective story about an oft-maligned mythological character. Circe the witch, as portrayed here, tells her story in a way I really connected to; she’s empathetic to all others and unassuming about her own power. I preferred hearing about her with the gods and heroes as mere cameos rather than reading their often similarly told stories, and I appreciated the world-building more from this less entitled narrator.

“The darkness around us shimmered with clouds of the Trygon’s gilded blood. Beneath my feet were the bones of a thousand years. I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer.
“‘Then, child, make another.’”

Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

Another epic—a bit more serious, a bit more dense, yet truly rewarding and beautiful. We have Marie in Vancouver, seeking her beloved sort-of-cousin Ai-Ming in China. Much of the book is recounting Ai-Ming’s stories about her grandmother, Big Mother Knife, in WWII China, then her father Sparrow adjusting to the fluctuating restrictions and demands of Communism, up to Ai-Ming’s own survival of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. We’re treated to examples of how love and creativity manifest themselves through oppression and separation. There’s so much in this book, maybe it best speaks for itself with this quote:

“‘Don’t ever try to be only a single thing, an unbroken human being. If so many people love you, can you honestly be just one thing?’”

Looking at this list, 9 of my top 10 reads last year were written by women. Not surprising as I only read 7 books by men in 2020. This wasn’t planned or anything, these were just the books I really wanted to read, and through a pandemic, and painful separations, they made me feel I was in the best possible hands.

What were your favourite reads in 2020? Did you have different or similar reactions to the books I’ve read? Do you think current events coloured your choices and your interpretations?

Choosing a Bubble

This Week’s Piece of String: Adolescents in a Hospital Ward, 1993

What’s the most diverse group of people you’ve ever been part of? Not just racially or politically, but in terms of experience and beliefs. For me it was hospitalisation when I was 12, in a unit later shut down after a surprise inspection. It wasn’t a nice place, but I quickly learned to like the people I was with.

We were aged 12 to 17, representing all colours, with heritage from Puerto Rico, Greece, and Jamaica. There were teens left there by the state for over a year. Runaways brought in from the street, kids stopping off on their way to longer detention, and private school students whose rich parents didn’t know how to handle them.

One boy, a few months younger than I was, had stolen a gun from Walmart. One girl’s entire family were in detox. There was a virulently anti-racist boy who suffered from muscular dystrophy, a junior KKK member, and a powerful African-American girl who didn’t hesitate to enlighten him. My roommate loved vinegar, Aerosmith, and her little foster brother who had spina bifida.

*This puzzle fit together especially well thanks to its oddly shaped pieces…Must get my cheesiest metaphors out of the way before actually writing the next book.*

We kept count of the times we heard The Bodyguard soundtrack on the radio (“Run to You:” 9 times in 2 weeks), and lived for the pizza bagels we were given on Friday nights. We were united against tyrannical psychiatrists and shared affection for the handful of kindlier workers. We jostled for shaving slots, during the one daily hour when we could access “sharps.” Through major personal crises, we cared for each other, and accepted our quirks.

In the midst of a new global crisis, as the government allows us to form “bubbles” of safety, I fear this will result in further entrenching us in homogenous opinions. Every book or TV series I love (and that seem to particularly resonate with readers and audiences) has a motley, diverse cast who beat the odds to save the day. And that’s how my next writing project will be, even if real life isn’t turning out that way.

Weirdos Assemble!

From The Baby-Sitters Club to last year’s joint Booker Prize winner Girl, Woman, Other, from Star Trek to The Good Place, our hallmarks of fiction showcase diversity. There’s always room to include more ethnicities and sexualities, but it’s also important to celebrate different personalities.

I love how Brooklyn 99 features not just multiple people of colour, but also two characters who are particularly emotionally guarded. Guardians of the Galaxy could be a descendant of Catch-22, in which a group of people with various bizarre passions and tendencies are thrown together to fight a common enemy. Isn’t every iconic friendship a pairing of opposites, an appreciation of certain foibles the rest of the world has rejected?

Scout, Jem, Dill and Boo in To Kill a Mockingbird. The Scoobies in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Huckleberry Finn and his travel buddy Jim, the alliances Oskar builds in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Owen Meany and… you know, his best mate who tells his story.

You’ve probably got some favourite examples, too. As the pandemic shrinks our spheres of existence, makes every day similar to the next, and seems to embitter divisions, contemplating variance is refreshing. Have you found that?

Even now that activities are opening up, I still feel trapped in a waiting game. Wondering when I can see all my family in America. Waiting for results from competitions I’ve entered stories in, and still over a month from A-Levels Results Day, when our son finds out his grades and can then know which university he’s able to go to. In the COVID era, this also means that until his results come, we won’t know whether he’ll be able to visit home during university termtime or whether he’ll have to stay there in an allotted “bubble” of people on his course. So after emigrating from my whole family, I might now have to say goodbye to my child, my best buddy, for months on end… Yes, it’s high time to retreat into fiction and plan the next writing project.

World-Building

Starting a new novel is like designing your own plague-bubble. You’re not considering who to allow in the club, but who’s needed for the mission. I’m preparing to bring characters on board, I’m designing a set for them, and I’m coming up with plot points that ideally I’d like them to hit, but whatever, I trust their judgement.

*Inspired partly by a hike past this unfinished mansion, which seemed to have a couple of young squatters…*

It’s going to be somewhat apocalyptic; it’s more cathartic to imagine a better way through them than to imagine they don’t exist. Here’s my wishlist, because as writers we get to Write the Book We Want to See in the World:

A gothic-style setting, probably an abandoned manor house
A hint of the supernatural, because my last novel was about Eve and once you get to incorporate dragons and talking animals, there’s no going back.
Six main characters thrown together surprisingly, from very different walks of life
- The enigmatic older caretakers of the estate
- A spoiled but charming heir
- His girlfriend, an immigrant who’s sacrificed parts of herself to assimilate
- A recovering alcoholic who’d been homeless for months
- A runaway nurse who just can’t take the front lines anymore
Certain personality traits to share around:
- Someone obsessed with jigsaw puzzles, because that is one of my favourite Lockdown activities and why not use it?
- Someone tuned in to religious iconography and symbols, you know, to heighten the drama
- An element of uncertainty as to who’s REALLY in charge here. Which ones are the manipulators, which are the manipulated? Could they possibly, in some way, all be equally obligated to and fearful of each other? Does that mean they all need each other equally?
Art or music or poetry or exotic plants… the estate is bound to have some unique collections which could become significant. I’ll research obscure artefacts and see what I like.

What kind of reading and writing makes you feel better about the world? May your bubbles be safe but exciting, your books and your life studded with colourful characters.