Funny, writing about oneself …
Scatty and disorganised about most things except my writing and reading I drift through life in search of the next idea, the wonderful next story. I have been living this life for the last twenty years after a career in teaching up to degree level. I embraced teaching as a creative enterprise but was always a writer who happened to teach, publishing three books while I was still working as well as some short stories and journalism. After that I surrendered to the writing goddess and published a range of novels and short stories as well as the occasional article.
Oh, and I have a Master's Degree in Education. Some of those insights thread through the novels too, I suppose.
I have
written spasmodically about my life in my short volume A Life In Short Pieces, and in The Romancer: A Writer’s Tale.
I'm
fascinated by creativity history, identity, imagination, equality and myth. Recently,
on looking through my novels I realise that – although not with any conscious purpose
– these themes seem to be threaded through my writing.
In the
middle of my writing career I spent five years as Writer in Residence in a
women’s prison. This was a life-changing experience for me - broadening my view,
deepening my empathy and my understanding of the whole of society. One outcome
of that experience was my novel Paulie’sWeb This, while fictional, tells some truths about the varied lives of many of the interesting and wise women I met in prison.
It’s a particular
pleasure to hear from readers in Britain
and further afield that they enjoy my novels: that there is a connection
between me and them.
People
sometimes ask me which novels to start on. Every one is different, (One very nice man simply
got the chronological list from the library and worked his way through them …)
I would
suggest a more random approach:
You could start with
All my books are in
your library, out in paperback and on Kindle.
From my Archive:
Writing is the Sound of the Soul Breathing
Writing is the sound of the soul breathing-
it is measured, shapely, intended
every breath out predicates every
breath in
each sentence brings forward another
one
every word is a platform for the next
jump in meaning
We breathe in lines, in paragraphs,
in pages in chapters, in volumes -
our life laid there in a trillion
words -
a million separated, well formed
page-squiggle-sounds
Writing is the notation of the quiet
soul-
not blasted out by trumpets and
clarinets -
dark smoke in the air, rising -
but the words lie there, just
waiting for your eye
They lie there in ranks and lines
waiting for you to add your world
to my notation on the
page
creating a different world
new to your soul and mine –
Writing is the sound of the soul breathing
@ Wendy Robertson 2016
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