Issue 12 - October 2021

Letter from the Editor

This month I completed the initial edits for another Worcester based author, Lenie Palor, who has written a mid-grade (8 – 12-year-old) children’s book about a young girl in the Philippines whose family adopt a buffalo from her uncle. Alipia asks her father whether she can name the buffalo and she calls her Luning-Ning, which means sparkly and shiny in her native language. The story follows Alipia and Luning-Ning as they develop a relationship and as Alipia’s father teaches her how to work with the buffalo. It is a lovely story about the bond between a child and a buffalo and I’m looking forward to seeing how the story develops from these early edits. Lenie’s story has been beautifully illustrated by a friend of hers and I hope to have the opportunity to work with them both again in the future.

In one week of October, I worked to finalise Lenie’s edits, then moved on to another edit for Candice and finished the week by beginning edits on the first story in Gordon R Clarke’s second volume of short stories. You can read more about Gordon and his first book, Someone Else’s Gods, on his author page. His second book promises to be another collection of humorous, philosophical and thought-provoking stories and I’m looking forward to working with him again in the coming months. I should also be able to provide a publishing date for Someone Else’s Gods in the next couple of months and will trumpet it in my newsletter and on Gordon’s author page – so please look out for it.

Happy writing,

Lesley

Contents: Writing prompts, book reviews

Writing Prompts

Dom bashed the horn, if only he could see past the van whose hazard lights now flashed aggressively back at him …

Ellie didn’t pay much attention to the first shoe discarded at the bottom of Cissbury Ring, but the second – a hundred metres further up – made the skin prickle on the back of her neck …

She rang impatiently on the doorbell a second time and then stood back, bouncing a little in excitement. Her plastic pumpkin was already half full of sweets and it jiggled against the nylon sateen of her witches outfit …

Book Reviews  

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

I was given this book by a friend who had more than one copy and who had bought it because it’s a book she reads every year. In the opening, Paulo Coelho talks about Harper Collins acceptance of the book for translation into English and about becoming established as an author. This passage is very moving and I felt it spoke very personally to every author who feels that sense of wonder when their book is accepted for publication and how this has the power to change their lives. 

The story follows a young shepherd who has a recurring dream about finding an immense treasure by the Egyptian pyramids. He decides to ask a fortune teller about his dreams although he can’t pay for her services. She reads his dreams in exchange for one tenth of the fortune he finds. He is very wary of her reading but then he meets a man who appears to know all about her reading and who tells him other information about himself which he couldn’t possibly know unless he had skills beyond those of the common man. The young shepherd is convinced he must follow his heart and he sells his sheep in order to raise the funds for the boat trip from Andalusia to Africa and onwards across the Sahara.

The story is deeply philosophical and there are so many profound lessons within it, learnt both from the journey the shepherd makes and also because of the people he meets along the way. He begins to search within himself and to gain greater understanding of himself and the universe and his philosophising is revolutionary to him and shows him how he might harness the powers he possesses in order to achieve his dreams. As is always the case, the course of the story doesn’t run smoothly and the young shepherd is tested again and again on his journey. So it is also a story about tenacity and hardiness.

I think this novel will appeal to readers of any age and particularly to young people who are trying to find their way in the world and who might lack self belief and the resilience to deal with life’s challenges.

It’s an easy read and I got through it in two days of beach reading and there are definitely lessons I will take from it.

The Farewell Party, by Milan Kundera

I’d heard of Milan Kundera but never read any of his work, so when I saw this battered copy of The Farewell Party on a railway station waiting room shelf, I grabbed it. I was immediately drawn in by his witty and engaging style and by the rarely used third person omniscient PoV. Hints of what is to happen are alluded to and then their outcomes whisked away by fate, so the reader constantly feels like the proverbial donkey following a carrot, and like the donkey we are keen to round the corner to see if this particular arc ending will be revealed. His writing is never frustrating and I found I constantly had a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.

So, what of the story? Kundera follows the lives of eight residents, employees and visitors at a remote spa in Czechoslovakia, whose residents have come to the spa for fertility treatment from its narcistic consultant, Dr Skreeta.

The omniscient style is brilliantly employed to give the reader a slightly detached insight into the lives and personalities of its eight focus characters. It’s an excellent novel and a great example of people watching at its very best.