Three Readers in Residence

Emily Dodd, Alison Miller, Magi Gibson

On Thursday last week I travelled to Glasgow to meet Magi Gibson and join her for a session at Glasgow Women's Library's new home in Bridgeton.

Adele Patrick of Glasgow Women's Library introduced us. It was a momentous moment - one of the first events GWL hosted in their new premises.


Bare at the moment, after the relocation of Bridgeton Library across the road to the new Olympia building.

Sue John, Adele Patrick and others from GWL

And it was all the more special because Emily Dodd, Reader in Residence at Leith Library happened to be in Glasgow and came to join us. Check out Emily's regular blog from Leith Library.

Magi asked me first of all to tell the audience the story of my foundling Granny, abandoned yards away from the GWL's new home. (See my blog of 22 January 2013 for the story) And it's strange the way things work out because long before anyone knew that GWL would end up in Bridgeton, I had sponsored a shelf in memory of my granny, Polly Johnston, who will now be 'coming home' to Bridgeton. The Women on the Shelf scheme allows you to commemorate a woman of your choice, while helping GWL raise vital funds.

We moved on then to talk about 'books that changed our lives'. I had been floundering in a sea of titles I could have chosen, so was grateful to Magi for narrowing it down to one each of non-fiction, fiction and poetry for us both.


And Wendy Kirk, GWL's Librarian, had brought along a selection of titles that linked to the books we'd chosen. 

Magi's choices - non-fiction: Women who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, a clear influence on Magi's writing: Her last book of poetry is called, Wild Women of a Certain Age.


For fiction, Magi chose Charlotte Perkins Gilman's classic first wave feminist novella, The Yellow Wallpaper.

                                         

And her poetry choice was 

Anna Swir: Fat Like the Sun

My choices were:

• The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer
• Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
• Ariel by Sylvia Plath

It was funny looking back on these books. I read the two prose books only once and find myself scared to re-read them in case I break the spell they cast on me the first time round. I know I'm unlikely to agree with everything in The Female Eunuch. I didn't even in my teens. But it was the first feminist book I ever read and therefore had the most impact.

My memories of Woman on the Edge of Time are of a finely realised utopian future, matched with an equally well drawn and horrific dystopian future.

It was also - I think - the first feminist novel to have as its main character a woman who was poor, mentally ill, uneducated and Mexican, rather than white, middle class, educated.

But interestingly, Magi's choice of The Yellow Wallpaper chimed in with mine in terms of the mental illness in the female protagonists that was central to both books.

And Sylvia Plath of course also struggled to hold onto her mental health and finally lost the fight fifty years ago when she committed suicide.

Magi and I will be coming up with three different books when we do the same session in Orkney Book Festival on the 13 April. She's blogged about this event too!

Aileen Robertson, Me, Ali Macdonald   

Two friends, Aileen Robertson and Ali Macdonald came to the event. We were all in the same book group many years ago and Woman on the Edge of Time was one of the books we read!

Reeling & Writhing with Orkney Reader

Alice with the Mock Turtle & the Gryphon

It's turned out a busy week for yours truly. Reeling and Writhing seems to describe it fairly accurately. As the Mock Turtle said to Alice, when she asked what he learned at school: 

'Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with ... and then the different branches of Arithmetic--Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.'

I know how he feels! 

A busy week, but all good things, I hasten to add.

Alice in Wonderland came to mind because I've been asked to take part in an event on Thursday with Glasgow Women's Library in their soon-to-be premises in Bridgeton, Glasgow, to talk along with Magi Gibson, their Reader in Residence, and Wendy Kirk, their Librarian, about books that changed our lives. 

Alice in Wonderland is one I have loved since before I could read - not perhaps for the best of reasons: I thought the book was called Alison Wonderland and was about a fellow Alison! It was influential for me though, when I eventually did read it, because it showed me how much I could identify with a character in a book; how much I could go through Alice's experiences with her, worry when she worried, feel sad when she was sad, happy and defiant when she found the courage to stand up to the strange, unsettling creatures she found around her and survive her unnerving adventures intact.

Magi and I will be speaking about one work of fiction, one of poetry and one non-fiction that have resonated strongly with us at different points in our lives.

Yesterday, Monday the 11th March, I appeared on BBC Radio Scotland's Book Cafe to talk about my involvement with Glasgow Women's Library's 21 Revolutions with authors Louise Welsh and Denise Mina. Still haven't heard it myself, but I believe it is on again on Sunday 17 March at 3.02 pm.

Louise Welsh

Denise Mina

Tomorrow we have the second meetings of the two new poetry reading groups:

The Poem's the Thing 

The afternoon one meets in Kirkwall Library from 1.00-2.00 pm and the evening one in Stromness Library from 6.00-7.00 pm.

Last month, it being the eve of Valentine's Day, we read Carol Ann Duffy's poem, Valentine; and because it was near the anniversary of the death of Sylvia Plath, we read Mad Girl's Love Song, which is also the title of the latest biography of Plath. And we read The Overhaul, the title poem of Kathleen Jamie's new collection, winner of the Costa poetry prize and shortlisted for the TS Eliot prize. You can download a PDF of it and two other poems from the collection by clicking the link in the line above.

Kathleen Jamie

Tomorrow we'll read - ah, well, come along and see!  As a clue, let me quote Winston Churchill:

'I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.'

(Just noticed that 'equals' is an anagram of 'squeal'!)

Beat the Blues Writing Group

Beat the Blues:
Got the winter blues?
Is it too much effort to get out of bed in the dark mornings?
Too cold and wet to go out for a walk?
Too easy to sit slumped in front of the TV?

Why Write

Writing is one of the tools we can use to help us feel better about ourselves and life.

Reading work by other people who have faced similar struggles and written about them can help too.

And sharing your work with the other folk in the group can build a feeling of safety and solidarity.

What is the course?

The course will be run by Rosie Alexander & Alison Miller for six Saturdays and contain lots of activities & opportunities to read and write.

You don’t need to have written before, all you need is a willingness to give it a go.

Why not come and see if you can learn to write and read your way through the Winter Blues and look towards Spring? 

Where?     The Blide Trust, 54 Victoria Street

When?      16^th February

Time?        1.30pm-4pm

What next?

If you would like to book a place on the course then please contact Rosie or Alison. Rosie and Alison are also happy to talk to people who might be interested in the course before booking a place.

Contact:

Rosie Alexander e-mail: ro_alexander@hotmail.com

                      phone: 07835250745

Alison Miller      e-mail: alisonjanemiller@gmail.com

                      phone: Kirkwall Library: 01856 873166

This course is free of charge to participants.

(We  gratefully acknowledge the support of ‘See me’, Orkney Minds, the George Mackay Brown Fellowship, the Blide Trust, Orkney Library & Archives and Scottish Book Trust)

To the World

The course has grown out of a series of workshops which Rosie Alexander ran last year along with poet John Glenday.

Out of those workshops a book was produced, called To the World.

It contains poetry, prose and images from people struggling with the various knocks life delivers.

The poem below was written by Laura Grieve on a weekend workshop aimed at people with cancer.

This is it

The moment I knew

It was happening to me

The way it happened to her

Long ago

A chance moment

A chance movement

Quite unique

Had I ever stretched

Just in that way

And probed in just that place

Before

To soothe an itch

I'm sure I hadn't

I think to myself

Oh!

This is it

Happening to me

Sylvia Plath

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Sylvia Plath aged only thirty. She left behind a powerful body of work. The story of her life with fellow poet Ted Hughes and of her suicide after they split up have become the stuff of legend - and many hundreds of academic studies. Though she didn't survive the turbulent darkness that engulfed her, she wrote till the end of her life, poems that tried desperately to comprehend and express the anguish she felt.

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” ―Sylvia Plath









This is winter, this is night, small love -
A sort of black horsehair, A rough, dumb country stuff Steeled with the sheen Of what green stars can make it to our gate ...

From By Candlelight


The Poem's the Thing

Two new poetry reading groups will start this week, one in Kirkwall and the
other in Stromness Library.

The Poem's the Thing
Wednesday 13 February
1.00-2.00 pm in Kirkwall Library
6.00-7.00 pm in Stromness Library

The groups will run on the second Wednesday of each month. 

Put the dates in your diary!