Write to Live or… Live to Write? by Louise Boland
Late one evening, some time ago, after the millennials of
our group had taken themselves off to bed, an old friend and I decided upon one
for the road. The only option left at that hour was an underground nightclub.
The Fairlight Short website (www.fairlightbooks.com) finally
launched two days after my last blog. We now have 14 short stories from 10
authors and more on the way. And we seem
to have gone global (in a locational sense) without necessarily meaning to. Our
latest contributor is from Oklahoma but lives in Paris and the website stats
show readers are visiting from all over the world. Goodness knows how they have
found us (which reminds me I need to have a chat with our Creative Web Design
Professional about SEO..) but it’s fantastic to see so many lovers of the short
story out there, enjoying this wonderful form of literary art.
***
All of the short stories featured on Fairlight Shorts can be found at www.Fairlightbooks.com
Helen Stancey's collection of short stories, The Madonna of the Pool was launched on 27th July.
It can be purchased in UK bookstores and online in the usual places, including Blackwell's bookstore online: Blackwell’s
A bouncer stood before the doorway, his bulky frame breaking
the sound of the drum and bass pounding up from below; a queue of young kids snaked
around the building. I looked down at my beige cardigan and at my friend’s
summer wedges, and suggested we might not fit in.
She looked at me aghast.
‘Nonsense,’ she snapped. ‘We’re
writers!’ and taking me by the elbow, she whisked me under the arm of the bemused
bouncer and away, down into the throbbing darkness.
What a great philosophy it is, that being a writer is an excuse
(no, an actual reason!) for living – for doing things and being in the world
and meeting people. As we all know, without it writing can too easily become a
regurgitation of other people’s written visions or worst yet, a vessel for Hollywood
to pour onto the page.
This last month I haven’t written a jot. My list of excuses
to my writing group grows long and ever more extravagant, despite their polite
reminders that the point of a writing group is that members should write occasionally.
But it has been busy, perhaps a bit too much living and not enough writing.
 |
| Fairlight Shorts opened in July |
Helen Stancey, author of The
Madonna of the Pool – Fairlight Books’ first publication of a short stories
anthology – certainly seems to have found the knack of living to write. Sarah
Morgan of On Magazine, said it better than I can. She said, ‘Stancey writes as
if she is one of us – an ordinary person, an observer of life who is well
briefed in the populace’s little foibles.’
 |
| Shall we Dance? |
Each of the stories in The
Madonna of the Pool is told from the viewpoint of a different character,
and yet each rings true with enormous veracity. One of the stories, Shall We Dance, is available for
reading on the Fairlight Short website.
Helen first published a couple of novels in the ‘80s and
then took a long gap from writing. When I asked her why, she spoke of marriage,
of children, and a career. Finally she stopped talking, and shrugged. ‘I suppose
what got in the way..’ she said, ‘Was Life, dear boy. Life!’
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