Today I am in Brixham, in the super-friendly Bay Coffee Company cafe on the quayside. Through the open door I can see the harbour and passers-by. It’s a glorious day, unexpectedly warm and blessed with spring sunshine. I am here for the week, enjoying a Journey Through Womanhood residency. Today’s workshop is right here, in […]
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My second piece from Kyiv, written during the summer of 2017. The Sisterhood of Sewing On St Andrew’s descent, I found a woman selling soft toys: cats, cockerels and gloriously curvy satin horses with flowing woollen manes and tails. ‘Did you make these?’ I asked. She nodded and smiled. ‘All my work.’ I bought a […]
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In 2017, I travelled to the glorious city of Kyiv with a group of British writers: Jonathan Coe, Kit de Waal, Stuart Maconie, Jonathan Davidson and Alan ‘Kurly’ McGeachie. Our trip was funded by the British Arts Council. While we were there, we spoke at a fabulous book fair held in the city Arsenal and […]
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What is the best advice you have ever been given? I asked some friends this question the other day, and one friend replied: Whatever you do, wait for the silence. She said she had been told this when she was a newly qualified teacher, and subsequent experience in front of classes had shown it was […]
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‘Do you have something you have kept through the years? Something small, like a photo or a piece of jewellery? A letter? Or maybe something else?’ A Feather In My Wallet My latest Arts Council project invites people to bring personal possessions to a special workshop and share the stories behind them. So far, the […]
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When he told me, later, that he felt invisible, I believed him. I had nearly walked past him too. I don’t recall him asking me for money, like all the others beggars did that day. But maybe I was too far away, on the far side of that wide pavement. Maybe my stride was too […]
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