April 2021 – OUTSIDER

In support of the Creative Commons

April 30, 2021

When we were at Worm’s Head, South Wales, recently we witnessed a huge sand dredger hauling its cumbersome body forwards and backwards through the water, dragging up sand for all the new buildings. This level of extraction causes endless untold stresses on the local ecosystem, and yet we just see this as a natural element of human progress. Why is this? By sending my book out into the world as copyleft/ under the Creative Commons I wanted to put myself…

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Jumping off

April 29, 2021

Sending new words out into the world can feel like jumping off a cliff. You don’t know how it’s going to land, or if people will connect. There’s that lurch in the stomach as your feet recognise thin air, the last-second terror that maybe you should just forget all about it and go hide in bed. And yet we do it don’t we? We scramble up, stride forward; step off. Over and over: crafting the narrative, reshaping the vision, reconfiguring…

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Writing characters I love

April 28, 2021

One of my favourite characters to write in The Madness of Sara Mansfield is Sara’s life-partner, Nneka Adesina. I am in love with Nneka’s brilliance – she has worked her way to the pinnacle of success as a biotech scientist in the sovereign state of Mont Blanc – the world is at her feet, and she knows it. And yet, beneath the surface of her immensely successful and meticulously shaped Amortal life, difficult questions begin to surface about the true…

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On fiction, dystopia and connection to the poetic soul

April 27, 2021

I’ve avoided using the word ‘dystopia’ when talking about the new book because I don’t believe it’s a dystopian novel. It is darkly realist at times and I don’t shy away from shining a bright light of truth on characters and events so that the shadows are revealed.But in addition to this, there’s many beautiful moments of connection, with the land, with other people, and with technology. You just have to be prepared to look. It’s also the first book…

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Celebrating MayDay

April 24, 2021

Eeep! Tiny bit more book spam. ONE WEEK TO GO! The Madness of Sara Mansfield is out on 1st May 2021. I chose this date because it speaks of the wonderfully fecund, creativity of nature. It’s the day the May Queen & King meet to give birth to all of summer. This MayDay of anarchy, magic and tree worship is also special in my heart as it’s the day Andy and I met.My online shop will be open super early…

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Where the wild lives

April 23, 2021

This poem was gifted to me by the land at San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, northern Spain, over a magical hunters full moon weekend back in October 2019. We parked on the cliff tops then walked and dreamed. A truly magical place in time. This is also the opening poem to the new novel The Madness of Sara Mansfield as I felt directed by the land to stitch as much of her into the book as posible. The Madness of Sara…

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In need of a rant

April 22, 2021

The Senedd elections are next month and I’ve never felt so disillusioned with the entire political process. Democracy feels like fake news. Voting these days feels very much focussed on divisions instead of a beautiful cocreated future of inclusivity. Emerging from Covid, many of us are thinking about how we can actively create the world we want to live in instead of accepting what we’ve been given, but how does that translate in real life?Did you know that British nationals…

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An international book

April 21, 2021

My work has always been political. How can an artist create and not speak to the wider context of community or land? One of the (many) reasons we moved into the van was in protest at Britain’s Brexit vote. We still very much feel European, and in times like these I believe we should be opening our borders to help those in need, not locking ourselves away to fight it out on this tiny island. I wanted The MthR Trilogy…

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On characters and shapeshifting

April 19, 2021

The most elaborate character development I undertook for the new novel, The Madness of Sara Mansfield, was with Alex/Crow. They began life as an hour-long sound/spoken word performance piece, CRØWOMAN. I only performed this twice before realising that this character is Trans and that they need to live in the novel, not on stage. As I’ve written before, the titular character has my initials because all of the characters in the novel are potential reflections of my Self: I am…

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Learning to be okay with being misunderstood

April 17, 2021

My new novel, The Madness of Sara Mansfield, is out on 1st May 2021. It’s a strange feeling sending this book out into the world. Especially as I’ve never spent so long on a single piece of writing in the past. Over six years I’ve agonised over endless lines as if it were an 88,000 word poem. One of the elements I‘ve struggle with is worrying how people might perceive some of the political themes. Perhaps because in the past…

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