Celebrating Julia on International Women's Day

Chris , Liz,   Kris,  Sue,  Eleanor,  Linda, Rachel, Amanda, Rosie,   Hilary, Eileen, Rachel (2) Avril, Gillian and Wendy – all  eager writers at Lafkaido Centre in Durham,  anticipating International Women’s Day with this celebratory playwriting workshop hosted by  RoomtoWrite.  

This workshop was offered by our friend playwright Anne Ousby, to honour the

memory of the multi-talented Julia Darling. We began by talking a little about our various memories of meeting Julia – of learning from and  being inspired by  this charismatic writer.

As for me, I first met her when I presented her with the money prize for a competition which I had judged, I did not know or know of her then her at all then, Today I quoted  from a blog post I wrote in 2009 in which I recalled our association through the years. This post is printed in full after below here..

This  great group of interested and variously experienced writers, encouraged by Anne, we  set about writing our fragmentary plays. Based on the idea of the Rendezvous Café – a favourite place of Julia’s in Whitley Bay.

For my contribution I adapted a scene from Writing at the Maison Bleue *
into a playlet. (I did this in tribute  to Julia who always took the risk of participating in her own workshops. (You will note this from the original blogposr which I have printed in full at the end of this one.)  
*HERE as en eBook ** HERE as a book

Joe, 19, just out of care meets his friend streetwise friend Lolla in a café, He comes in holding a big envelope

Lolla What’s this?

Joe  I jusr won this prize, like. Worth a grand.

Lolla: A thousand quid! Y—yum. Something to celebrate with, Joe..

(Joe knows that Lolla’s idea od celebrating os something up her nose, or down her throat.)

Joe. Nah you can’t do that.

Lolla. What can you do then?

Joe: You’ve gotta go to this place.

Lolla. What place?

Joe. This hot place by a canal.

Lolla  My Grandma lived by the Grand Union Canal over in Manchester, There, is it?

Joe: Nah this is in a hot place, There’s a picture of it. By a canal.  In  France.

Lolla. In France? Bloody Mike! You need a passport for France.

Joe. I gotta passport.

Lolla. Passport? You? You got no passport, Joe.

Joe Yes I do. They got is them once for this trip to Paris..Some charity gig. Help the poor.

Lolla: So this prize is to go to Paris?

Joe., Nah. Like I say it’s by this canal. Much further. Down by the Mediterratian Sea, it says..

Lolla: So you gotta go there?  To get this prize?

Joe: Aye. I gotta go there. This is the prize.’

Lolla; Not fair that, Joey, You should be seeing some cash. That’s what prizes are. for  Cash ….  

Outcomes

Based in the idea of the Rendezvous Cafe the dramas and plays that emerged from Ann's workshop were various in style and eclectic in subject matter. They all buzzed with life – and that difficult thing – laughter. They all had virtue. 

Our best hope was that  these enthusiastic writers moved on a step on their long writer’s odyssey. Their  work certainly paid homage to café culture and the inspiration of the unique Julia Darling.

                                        *********************************

From my blog 24^th July 2009Café Culture, Julia Darling and things Overheard.

I relish the fact that writer Natalie Goldberg and my late, great, very lamented, friend Julia Darling have both, in their times, been great advocates of writing in cafes.

While I was in Agde in France I posted here a eulogistic piece about scribbling in the Cafe Plazza and the cafe on la Place de La Marine. In fact my delight in getting away from the desk, out into the street, into the inspiring neutrality of a cafe did not start in France. It is an old habit that I found I shared with Julia.

Julia was not just a great tutor, poet and playwright, she was a novelist and lyrical poet who wrung every last drop of joy and delight, love and affection, out of her writer’s life, before her tragically early death.

For several years she came here to give wildly popular workshops on her own and sometimes alongside me. Despite her great gifts she was modest and comradely - as well as merry, enabling and respectful of others’ talent. She always worked alongside the work-shoppers, never sat on a pedestal above them. She risked herself alongside them in the read-around, saying, ‘Well this is mad, but…’

Julia was the mistress of original, telling, firecracker metaphors and knew the magic of the right word in the right place. The work-shoppers would go off inspired to write closer, to do better.

When lunchtime came around she’d rush off, either to swim, or go to the nuts and bolts cafe near the old Post Office. She did this for rest, for refreshment, and inevitably, for inspiration from the other tables, where bin men and office workers would stoke themselves up with cake or a good fry-up for the afternoon’s work. Things overheard there would be filed away in that considerable intelligence and become natural resource for her in her writing. She had a sympathetic and an empathetic ear for the natural dialogue of so called ordinary people.

This is interesting, as although she was a bit of a maverick, she came from a distinctive upper class intellectual background. But she was uniquely classless in her apprehension of the life and people around her - so very refreshing in writing circles that can be riddled with all kinds of snobbery.

Much has been made of the graceful and poetic way in which she tackled the process of dying - writing of its challenges with frighteningly forensic insight and luminous grace. To be honest, though I prefer to think of her in terms of the way she lived. She was a joy to be with, wryly witty and always kind. She was inspirational and prepared to be inspired. She lit up any room she was in with her broad smile and wide eyes.

In my own cafe sojourns eavesdropping is of secondary importance to a clear table not far from the window and staff who will both take care of me and ignore me. Mostly I sit here and fill my diary with plans; make both creative and practical lists; draft these posts for my blog; scribble the next chapter for At The Villa d’Estella; read a heavy tome about ‘Gaul in Antiquity’ for said novel. And so on.

These times away from the desk are essential for someone who works from home. Surrounded by strangers, I work very quickly, get a great deal done. (I’ve been thinking that this perpetual desire to get away has something to do with my Pisces star sign, which I wrote about recently…)

But yesterday as I was walking to the cafe I passed two men talking. One man was saying to the other. ‘…and as well as that I’ve got this cancer ripping away at my insides…’ This so perfectly expressed a combination of anger and stoicism that it made me want to cry.

And it made me think again about the exceptional and radiant Julia Darling

.

WX

(AFTERNOTE I see now that Julia’s star sign was Leo - Generous and warm-hearted - Creative and enthusiastic - Broad-minded and expansive - Faithful and loving. But her sign tipped into Virgo - Modest and shy - Meticulous and reliable - Practical and diligent -Intelligent and analytical. I am thinking about all this because my mind if full of Stella, the astrologer in my new novel. But thinking now about Julia, all this fits…)

Writing, Talking and Ghosthunting on Holy Island

A few days away with like-minded friends can be very refreshing. I remember a very fruitful time at Annamackerig on the Irish border, (where I saw a ghost...) While I was there  I drafted many of the short stories that later, transformed in some ways, were welded together in Paulie’s Web (see sidebar) now on Kindle and being enjoyed by those of you who like something different. You couldn’t get much farther away from prison than that idyllic place beside the lake full of merry musicians and inspired, surreal writers,

Then there was that time on the Scottish borders with the late great Julia Darling and the mistress of MsLexia Debbie Taylor. Julia was working out what proved to be her last novel The Taxi Driver's Daughter.  That was a funny, very female sojourn with lots of writing talk and (if I remember rightly)  a bit of reflexology.

Anne's Photograph

And now I have just come back from a very refreshing few days with writers Anne Ousby, Erica Yeoman, Gillian Wales and Avril Joy - first on the coast by Dunstanburgh Castle, then an afternoon, a night and a day on Holy Island.

This involved much inspired writing-talk and inspiration, active photographing and even writing. Erica was researching her new historical novel which is partly set on Holy Island. (She and we were disappointed at not hearing the seals singing. But we writers can always use our imagination.)

Gillian's Photograph of Gertrude Jekyll's Garden

The other three – very informed gardeners - visited Howick Gardens and the exquisite Gertrude Jekyll garden on Holy Island.  I looked and looked at the bright sky and and the glittering tourquoise sea and thought about ghosts – but they were as rare on these days as seals singing.


But over lunch Erica told us a true ghostly experience which winged its way right into to my notebook. We talked about Anne’s new website and urged her to love doing it. We also brainstormed with her a very original idea for a specialized blog which might come off. It is about gardening – and judging from the popularity of Gillian’s website it should be very well appreciated. We talked of Avril’s new newsletter which is full of great writing advice and also gives writers a range of competitions which can enhance their audience.

It’s always illuminating fun and joyful inspiration to meet, talk and work with writer friends of this quality. Of course it can also be physically and psychologically dangerous – which is the theme of my forthcoming novel The Art of Retreating. (See earlier posts here &   here &;  here,     But that novel is set in the Languedoc. Of course …er ….that is fiction. But it could never have been written without my wide and varied experience of going away with people to write, talk and think

Have you, like Erica, any experiences of (not neccessily  belief in…) ghosts that you’d like to share? Email me if it’s just too weird to comment here email me (wenrob73@hotmail.com)

Four Books on My Mind in Newcastle.

Talking about your work to numbers of strangers is not for the weak- kneed. On Tuesday night I was booked to talk to a group of readers at the new Palace of Books, Newcastle City’s six storey’d glass fronted multi-million pound library. G. who dropped me off for the train (and eats girders for breakfast), told me he thought I was very brave.

To be honest, no matter how many times I do this, it’s never easy. It’s like cabaret. You put on your make-up. You wish you looked like Gwyneth Paltrow. You choose your outfit. (Black ,with that favourite pleated tourquoise scarf that falls around all the time.) You wait in vain for someone to wish you to ‘break a leg’ as you go on.

I am especially early, to see this wonderful new facility and also to gather my wits before ‘going on’. In the neat little cafe where I have home-made lemonade and coffee, I bump into Carole McGuigan, a talented playwright and actress, and we talk about Julia(Darling), whom we both miss. Carole is now revising her first novel so we have lots to talk about.

Sheila Naughton, services manager at The City Library who comes to find me, reminds me that Newcastle is a hotbed of writing talent, nurtured by New Writing North, under the indefatigable Claire Malcolm and figure-headed by internationally esteemed Mslexia Magazine, edited by a quiet Americam, Daneet Steffans. Lots of wild writers up there.

In the room is a very nice crowd of people. Beside me is a table full of my books – mainly Sandie Shaw and the Millionth Marvell Cooker (about which I am to talk as it’s is out now in paperback); a sprinkling of The Woman Who Drew Buildings (new in hardback) and a few of my back list including Family Ties and The Lavender House. Borders have done me proud.

I look at the bright, interested faces and read passages from Sandie Shaw and the Millionth Marvell Cooker – an easy novel to talk about, as (although it is fiction), it has an unusually close connection to my personal and family history. I go on then to share with them fascinating inspiration for my new - very different - The Woman Who Drew Buildings which is launched in hardback this week.

The first smile of appreciation and the first spurt of laughter are like bulbs going on in my head. Now I no longer need to feel brave.

The questions they ask are penetrating: life experiences are shared. Then among the very good questions one lady asks a very familiar one, ‘When did you first start Writing?’

This is my opportunity to produce from my bag a small book protected by cling film. This is my very first published book – a children’s novel, written in 1972, called Theft. It was published by Corgi Transworld and the editor who bought it was a great woman called Anne Wood, the first Children’s Editor for the Transworld’s Carousel imprint. Anne went on to invent the Teletubbies and become a great force on children’s media.

I went on to write a lot more novels.

I thought I owned the only copy in the world, of this little, thirty odd year old paperback. But this very morning a new copy came through the post, courtesy of Amazon world wide second-hand market. (Odd when your own books become collectibles) Amazing! The people here in Newcastle share my pleasure at this surprise.

I know they have enjoyed it. There is a real buzz in the room at the end. One woman comes up to talk about fate, and how things are pre-ordained. Others come up to say thank you, how much they enjoyed it. One woman says it was great. Best yet! (In a programme of talks.) Her friend nods vigorously. Great endorsement.

I have talked here before about how I love and treasure libraries and now I love Newcastle City Library. Thank you Sheila and your colleagues. Your library has style. That’s confirmed for me when the driver actually opens his taxi door for me as Sheila waves me off.

After the train, another taxi! (No G or B for a lift – both on rugby duty…) Sitting here in the taxi it dawns on me that I’ve had four novels on my mind today: 1) Sandie Shaw and the Millionth Marvel Cooker, 2) The Woman Who Drew Buildings, 3) Theft, and my exciting new one (4) which is now in process and always on my mind, The Miracle of The Maison d’Estella.

As we draw away from Durham I realise this taxi driver is talking a lot - about adjusting to his father’s new girlfriend, and all the problems in his life. How he lives alone. How his father at 74 is going off with his girlfriend to another part of the country to live. He rambles on about the family house which, to his regret, is being sold.

I ask how he gets on with his father’s new girlfriend. ‘That’s immaterial!’ he barks. I am silenced. He asks if I have family at home. ‘Yes,’ I say, stretching the truth a bit, ‘a very large husband and a very large son.’

I make sure he drops me at the end of my road, not outside my house. As I walk along I can see (with my peripheral vision) that the taxi hasn’t moved on. Luckily there is a large van and two cars in the road, which will obscure just which house I enter. When I get inside my darkened empty house I double lock the doors, front and back. (Now there’s a fifth story when you think of it…)

And maybe G’s right. It is brave to be doing what I’m doing.

wx

Hope you’re enjoying the novels.

Cafe Culture, Julia Darling & Things Overheard

 

I relish the fact that writer Natalie Goldberg and my late, great, very lamented, friend Julia Darling have both, in their times, been great advocates of writing in cafes.

While I was in Agde in France I posted here a eulogistic piece about scribbling in the Cafe Plazza and the cafe on la Place de La Marine. In fact my delight in getting away from the desk, out into the street, into the inspiring neutrality of a cafe did not start in France. It is an old habit that I found I shared with Julia.

Julia was not just a great tutor, poet and playwright, she was a novelist and lyrical poet who wrung every last drop of joy and delight, love and affection, out of her writer’s life, before her tragically early death.

For several years she came here to give wildly popular workshops on her own and sometimes alongside me. Despite her great gifts she was modest and comradely - as well as merry, enabling and respectful of others’ talent. She always worked alongside the work-shoppers, never sat on a pedestal above them. She risked herself alongside them in the read-around, saying, ‘Well this is mad, but…’

Julia was the mistress of original, telling, firecracker metaphors and knew the magic of the right word in the right place. The work-shoppers would go off inspired to write closer, to do better.

When lunchtime came around she’d rush off, either to swim, or go to the nuts and bolts cafe near the old Post Office. She did this for rest, for refreshment, and inevitably, for inspiration from the other tables, where bin men and office workers would stoke themselves up with cake or a good fry-up for the afternoon’s work. Things overheard there would be filed away in that considerable intelligence and become natural resource for her in her writing. She had a sympathetic and an empathetic ear for the natural dialogue of so called ordinary people.

This is interesting, as although she was a bit of a maverick, she came from a distinctive upper class intellectual background. But she was uniquely classless in her apprehension of the life and people around her - so very refreshing in writing circles that can be riddled with all kinds of snobbery.

Much has been made of the graceful and poetic way in which she tackled the process of dying - writing of its challenges with frighteningly forensic insight and luminous grace. To be honest, though I prefer to think of her in terms of the way she lived. She was a joy to be with, wryly witty and always kind. She was inspirational and prepared to be inspired. She lit up any room she was in with her broad smile and wide eyes.

In my own cafe sojourns eavesdropping is of secondary importance to a clear table not far from the window and staff who will both take care of me and ignore me. Mostly I sit here and fill my diary with plans; make both creative and practical lists; draft these posts for my blog; scribble the next chapter for At The Villa d’Estella; read a heavy tome about ‘Gaul in Antiquity’ for said novel. And so on.

These times away from the desk are essential for someone who works from home. Surrounded by strangers, I work very quickly, get a great deal done. (I’ve been thinking that this perpetual desire to get away has something to do with my Pisces star sign, which I wrote about recently…)

But yesterday as I was walking to the cafe I passed two men talking. One man was saying to the other. ‘…and as well as that I’ve got this cancer ripping away at my insides…’ This so perfectly expressed a combination of anger and stoicism that it made me want to cry.

And it made me think again about the exceptional and radiant Julia Darling.

WX

(AFTERNOTE I see now that Julia’s star sign was Leo - Generous and warm-hearted - Creative and enthusiastic - Broad-minded and expansive - Faithful and loving. But her sign tipped into Virgo - Modest and shy - Meticulous and reliable - Practical and diligent -Intelligent and analytical. I am thinking about all this because my mind if full of Stella, the astrologer in my new novel. But thinking now about Julia, all this fits…)

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