On writing of difficult things: N M Browne
Sometimes I wonder why I bother. No, really. What with Climate Change and Brexit and so much depressing news, sitting at home writing stories seems a very inadequate response to the challenges of this world. I have started writing poetry too, which is even more useless; it makes no money, earns me no accolades, takes a lot of creative energy and isn’t even very good. Though I’m a writer, I can’t claim I’m competent at communicating, not when the stakes are high, when someone is sick, bereaved, dying: I dry up. I am as much at a loss for words as if I were stranded in a foreign land without a dictionary, barely able to express the most basic level of concern and empathy. I was particularly useless when my friend, the broadcaster, counsellor, priest, clown-magician and all round superwoman, Ruth Scott, was diagnosed with cancer. Our friendship was hard to define. She was the kind of person who did not do small talk, so we drank a few...