Beauty in decay - by Lu Hersey

This year has spun by, despite the never-ending cold, wet January and the bake-us-all-alive summer - and here we are at the autumn equinox already. A brief point of balance in the year, when night and day are of equal length. It always makes me think of TS Eliot's Four Quartets (even though I never really understood them) and a few lines of Burnt Norton that resonate:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

 I find it a good time of year to reflect and gather in ideas, create a store of projects to ponder and to work on during the darker days of winter. Outside, there's already the smell of fermenting apples under the trees, and the dawn Avalon mist has started forming over the Levels. The leaves are turning and soon will be in full autumn display, a swan song before they shut down for winter. 

There's a haunting beauty in decay. Something new always comes from it. At the recent twenty-five year memorial for 9/11, I revisited a programme I'd first heard on the radio when I went to register my father's death last year. An episode called Momento Mori on Radio 4's Sideways. 

The programme introduced me to the extraordinary sounds of the Disintegration Loops, a series of albums made by musican William Basinski. He'd been trying to transfer tape recordings he'd made earlier onto CD - only the initial magnetic recording tape he'd used had decayed. Instead of giving up in despair, he found beauty in the remaining sounds, and from the tapes created the Disintegration Loops - one of the most haunting soundscapes you're likely to come across. 

The part of the programme that really sticks in my mind is about half way through - when Basinski talks about playing the Disintegration Loops, which he'd just finished recording, through loud speakers on his NY warehouse apartment roof, while watching the cloud of dust that followed the collapse of the twin towers. A totally surreal experience. He later dedicated the entire four albums to the victims, and the Disintegration Loops hold something of the haunting sadness of life passing. You can get a flavour of it here - not to everyone's taste, but extraordinary none the less:

Autumn brings an acute awareness of the year passing, with hints of that haunting feeling of decay. Here in Glastonbury, people gather on the tor to celebrate the equinox (the autumn equinox is one of eight fire festivals in the wheel of the year), and the bongo drums play on well into the night. While I appreciate the importance of community celebration (honest!), I prefer to go the coast to find a beach away from it all. If possible, timing the visit to coincide with either high tide or low tide (depending on daylight hours and the journey time it takes to get there). When the tide is either right out, or right in, there's often a patch of relative calm, like a breathing space when the world stops for a moment, before the tide turns. When you can catch a sense of that still point in the turning world. 

It doesn't really matter what I'm writing, or trying to write back home - or what I will write in future or have written previously. For a precious hour or so, I don't worry about any of it. 

Then it's time to go back and prepare for the winter to come.

Lu Hersey

https://www.lu-hersey.com/

The signs are there By Steve Way

 Hi, I hope all is good with all of you. It's been that crazy beginning of term time again, so I haven't made time to write something more substantial (presuming I ever write anything substantial!) so I'm sharing some more sill signs and limericks that I doodled down in amongst tasks. I hope you enjoy them!

BATH Can you take a hint? A shower would do…	Now you’ve been to STONEHENGE Why not visit BEATLEHENGE?
DORSET So we can’t get in or out, unfortunately…	CHESTER Somewhere great to buy furniture.
MEDWAY A great place to rest on a long journey.	DORCHESTER Even more stock available than in Chester!
COVENTRY Visit the tree popular with witches.	MANCHESTER For all your specifically masculine furniture requirements.
COVENTRY Where you’ll always find someone to talk to. (If you’re already here, no one can send you here.)	WINCHESTER Wardrobes to be won every week!
Coventry Riding School Yes, we’ve heard that suggestion hundreds of times…	Welcome to the city of EN-SUITE ‘Even posher than Bath’.
Welcome to CIRENCESTER A noisy place	Welcome to SWAFHAM A town largely free of flies.
Welcome to the city of BILBOA A magnificent city with much to offer but with absolutely no connection with ‘The Hobbit’.	Welcome to the city of BATH Soak in the sights.
Godalming v. a harmless but pointless activity involving turnips (M.Eng) ‘Verily we went a Godalming amongst the turnip fields’ Shakespeare The lost plays
There was a daft fellow from York, Who travelled to Leeds on a stork, The problem he found, When reaching the ground, Was losing the power to walk.	There was a young man from Leeds, Perpetrator of nefarious deeds, Pleading ‘not guilty’ at court, The witnesses thought, He’s done for however he pleads.
There once was a girl from Dunblane, Who hiccupped again and again, Her mum tried a scare, By releasing a bear, Before realising her idea insane.	There once was a huge man from Maine, Who suffered a curious pain, When asked where it hurt, He pulled up his shirt, Where he’d clearly been hit by – a train!
An inept inventor from Rhyl, ‘Invented’ a curative  pill, He went on to say, ‘forget RNA’, For my cure-all is here to stay’. But doctors use RNA still.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Surprising things happen to 'Bongo the Armadillo', usually when he is sitting in his garden having a cup of tea. The 'Bongo the Armadillo' children's stories are short narrative cartoons where anything can happen, no matter how surreal. In this volume Bongo is visited by two flags, with the wrong nationality inside them, the British Army (who have had all their tea stolen), all the snails in the world, a squirrel-shaped elephant, himself five minutes ahead and behind himself and the three brass monkeys, who don't think they portray enough senses. After that some very strange things happen. The stories are particularly designed to grab the interest of reluctant readers who would be put off by lengthy texts but who enjoy the ridiculous and quirky. The stories all have a reassuring repeat structure, which also supports reluctant readers. I have also used the stories to support reluctant writers who can lean on the stable format in which to inject their own ideas. (I can provide templates if required.) 

As Bongo often says, "That didn't happen yesterday." Enjoy Bongo's unique and unusual world!

Liliana the Strong, written by Quentin Blake, illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart

What a delight of a book! No earnest message imparted, just the joyful idea of a small child able lift and toss a whale, bend iron girders, stop a steamroller about to squash a crowd of people, simply told and beautifully, joyfully illustrated. A book to release both laughs and imaginations. A book that I'm giving to a particularly determined very small person in my own life!

New ways with old dead things - Anne Rooney

 

Card index and cake — back to the 90s!

The very best stage of a new book is when the idea arrives, flaunting its pretty possibilities. It's full of shiny promise that hasn't yet been tarnished by reality. And then as you start to work it up, it's still exciting and you keep thinking 'and I'll add this; and this!' piling on more insights and tricks until the idea truly sparkles.

And then you get down to work. You bump into reality. The book as you exactly want it comes to a number of pages that can't be accommodated, like 77 or 109. Do you pad it out to 96 or 128 or cut it down to 64 or 96? And your book is a new concept. Publishers prefer things which are a familiar concept even though they say they are looking for the next new thing. They're really looking for the next new take on an old thing. How are you going to explain it without rambling on for longer than their attention span? I'm obviously getting old and jaded as these issues occur to me earlier in the process than is healthy. I don't want them to kill my enthusiasm for the shiny new thing. I try to ignore them and hope the page extent will somehow fix itself further down the line and I will suddenly be blessed with astonishing explanatory and marketing skills.

Wiwaxia, 520 million years ago, stained glass 2026

This is actually my second time with this New Thing. No sooner had I started it in spring when I had a couple of new commissions which took over that bit of time and headspace. But now I'm back with my old dead things, and my book that spans 500 million years. And back with my paper database that is part of the I-didn't-use-AI paper trail, should it be necessary to show that [sigh]. Autumn is a good time for a new project.  The black squirrels squabble outside, and often on top of, my garden office, the rain (at last!) drums on the roof, and escaping to the house would mean getting wet so I'll stay a bit longer. The light filters through the trees and then through the stained glass hanging in the windows, and as the stained glass is all of extinct animals it's just further encouragement. Give these old dead guys their moment in the sun again. Or the rain. I add 'rain' to the artwork notes. 

 

Anne Rooney

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Out now: Science Museum 2027 Space Annual

 

Members' News September Special Edition

 Hot on the heels of the last September round-up, come two more pieces of celebratory book news. Do check them out.

SOMETHING IN THE DARKNESS by John Doherty, illustrated by Matt Schu, is a spine-tingling treat for 3-5 year-olds. Packed with suspense, this unputdownable story will keep young readers on the edge of their seats, eventually revealing that some things are more frightening in the darkness than they are in the light.  

Published 17th September from Post Wave Children's Books.

SPOOKY STREET by Jonathan Emmet with illustrations by Ingela P Arrhenius is a spooktacular, rhyming lift-the-flap alphabet book that is also a play scene and a Halloween frieze to decorate your room! 

Published by Nosy Crow on September 10th.

Congratulations, both!

Members' News September

The long, hot summer is finally over and we can look forward to huddling under blankets to write, and the Scattered Authors winter retreat in January - there are still places available so get in touch if you're interested.

This month we're celebrating the publication of three books and a special edition. Please do take a look at them and give them a shout-out on your social media. If you have anything you'd like included in October's round-up, send the details to Claire Fayers.

Congratulations, Michelle Lovric, whose new adult novel comes out on October 8th, from Salt Publishing. 

Michelle is the much-loved author of The Book of Human Skin and a former Women’s Prize nominee. Known for her lyrical prose, dark wit and impeccable historical detail, she now turns her gaze to Venice in 1817 – a city of intrigue, revolution and romance.

In The Puffin, a disfigured traitor, a revolutionary milliner, a sadistic assassin – and, yes, a puffin – become entangled in a plot to ransom a Habsburg princess. The result is a heady mix of radical lovers, poets, smugglers and spies. By turns thrilling, tender and gloriously eccentric, it is historical fiction at its most seductive.

Full details here

Sue Purkiss's first novel for adults has just been released by Writers' Review Publishing. An Ordinary War, is loosely based on her father's experiences as a prisoner of war, after being captured on the way to Dunkirk. Our hero Harry Pilgrim encounters cruelty, near starvation and betrayal - but also lasting friendship and even love. 

Publisher link

Next, a book for younger readers. Yvonne Banham's third book for young adults, Delores Mackenzie and the Dead of Winter, will be published by Firefly Press on October 8th.

The third in the Delores MacKenzie series sees Delores facing her greatest challenge yet, chasing beyond the Arctic Circle in search of a mysterious book, a legend and a killer.

Publisher link

Cover: Nathan Collins

Finally, my own Welsh Giants, Ghosts and Goblins from Firefly Press is getting a special limited edition for Christmas. The larger format hardback has a bonus Christmas goblins story, ribbon bookmark, and every story has a new illustration by Becka Moor. 

Publisher link

Cover: Becka Moor

Congratulations to everyone celebrating this month.

Claire

Book Launch - Joan Lennon

Book launches are a worry. Will anybody come? Will the venue sell enough books? Will I forget everything I know about my book and quite possibly my own name?

Despite the worrying, the book launch for Revolution! went ahead and none of the disasters happened!

 

Big thanks for everyone who came, to Lindsey Fraser for making the conversation flow, and to my favourite bookshop The Edinburgh Bookshop for hosting the event with such warmth and charm. 

Book launches? Worth every worry!

Joan Lennon website

Joan Lennon Instagram