All posts by bronwengriff

Books for Sale/Writing News

My novels and flash fiction collections can be purchased here or via my e-mail: bronwengriff@aol.com. 

Direct via Pay Pal – postage free in the UK.  Contact me for postage elsewhere.

http://paypal.me/bronwensbooks

My flash fiction and short stories have been published online and in  print anthologies, including Atlas & Alice, Bath Flash Fiction, Barren Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, Reflex Fiction, Spelk,  Trampset, Worthing Flash, 100 Word Flash, Spilling Ink, Flight Journal and others. My flash fiction has been short-listed (and long-listed) for a number of awards.  I have written two novellas-in-flash, one short-listed, and the other long-listed, for the Bath Novella-in-Flash Award.  I recently co-won the Rye News short Story Award. 

My novel, A Bird in the House  was published in 2014.  Here Casts No Shadow was published in 2018. My two published collections of flash fiction, Not Here, Not Us, Stories of Syria and  Listen with Mother, a Memoir,  came out in 2016 and 2019. 

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A Bird in the House – a novel set in Libya and an English Country Garden,  £5.00

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bird-House-Bronwen-Griffiths/dp/1910153060

Here Casts No Shadow  –  a novel of war, revenge & refuge, £5.00

‘Beautifully and powerfully written, the story captures the unique and yet ubiquitous experience of displaced people – the sense of tragedy of a country lost to madness, the aching for home.’  (Ingenue Magazine, Autumn 2018)

Not Here Not Us – Stories of Syria, a collection of flash fiction on the Syrian crisis, £4.00

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Not-Here-Us-Short-Stories/dp/1910841412

Listen With Mother – a collection of flash fiction about my childhood, £5.00

Both real and fantastical,  this collection of flashes explores my childhood in the 1960’s. These are stories both of family life and the wider community in Belbroughton, North Worcestershire but they also explore the social changes of this time. 

 

Contemporary women in fiction writing about war and conflict

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Although women have always written about conflict the majority of war writing, from ancient times until today, is by men. This is perhaps not surprising as few women have experienced combat but now, in an era when female combatants exist in greater numbers than ever before and when the number of female journalists across the world is rising, there’s still not a substantial canon of literature written by women about war.

As the number of female war reporters rises, the number of those writing books about their experiences has increased – women like Lindsey Hilsum on Libya, Janine di Giovanni on Syria and Kate Adie’s memoir about her life as a war reporterto name a few – but these are all non-fiction accounts. Non-fiction books about war by women who are not war reporters also exist –examples include Samar Yazbek’s two books on the war in Syria and Svetlana Alexievitch’s book about World War 11 – but most of the fiction lists contain men’s names –Tim O’Brien, Sebastian Faulks, Kurt Vonnegut, Khaled Husseini, etcetera.

Is the problem our definition of ‘war writing?’ When we extend how we define writing about war, the field does become larger. Most of women’s fiction writing on war is less direct – it is rarely about combat and more often on the consequences of war – dislocation, refugees, and families. And it’s necessary to use a wider definition because war isn’t only about combat. Civilians directly experience war through bombing, dislocation and loss of family members, while women are more likely to experience rape.

Yet of the women who’ve directly experienced combat, very few have fictionalised their experiences. One example is Michelle Wilmot who served in Iraq from 1998-2006. Her novel, ‘Quixote in Ramadi: An Indigenous Account of Imperialism,’ is a dark but humorous book which deals with issues of neo-colonialism, homicide, genocide, and ethnic persecution. It tells the story of an indigenous female soldier in the US Army who is deployed to Iraq at the height of the tension of the Fallujah massacre and the Abu Ghraib scandal. However this book is an exception. Why then are so few women writing of their combat experiences and turning this into fiction? Is it because women feel more comfortable writing about war from a different perspective? Are women afraid to speak out? These are not questions I can readily answer.

Writers – irrespective of gender – do not have to experience war to write about the subject. Katey Shultz’s short stories, ‘Flashes of War’ are about the effects of the War on Terror on both soldiers and civilians. Cara Hoffman’s novel, ‘Be Safe I Love You’ explores what happens to a woman after returning from combat duty in Iraq. Helen Benedict’s ‘Sand Queen’, was described by The Boston Globe as “’The Things They Carried’ for women in Iraq”. The material for ‘Sand Queen’ came from Benedict’s research for her 2009 nonfiction book, ‘The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women in Iraq.’ Roxana Robinson’s ‘Sparta’ tells the story of soldier Conrad’s first year home, interspersed with flashbacks to his time in Iraq.

American women writing about recent ‘foreign wars’ is, as evidenced above and in the link below this article, greater than one might suppose at first glance. However war writing still continues to be constructed as the domain of men – Michele Robert’s book ‘Ignorance’ about two sisters under occupation in France was described, when reviewed, as a book about women rather than war though Pat Barker’s ‘Regeneration’ series, set in the First World War, does feature in lists of war writers. When it comes to British authors today, few currently tackle the subject of war. There are a couple of novels about the Troubles in Ireland, (Edna O’Brien’s ‘The House of Splendid Isolation’ is one, another is Kate O’Riordan’s ‘Involved’) and there’s Alison Layland’s novel ‘Someone Else’s Conflict, which deals with the brutality of the Balkans War and my own novel, ‘A Bird in the House’ set partly in Libya during the fall of Gaddafi, but generally we have to travel further afield to find women writing about war – to Pakistan, Iraq, Africa and Asia.

In ‘Burnt Shadows’ Pakistani writer Kamila Shamsie writes about the shared histories of two families from the final days of the second world war in Japan, and India on the brink of partition in 1947, to Pakistan in the early 1980s, New York in the aftermath of 11 September and Afghanistan in the wake of the ensuing US bombing campaign. Maaza Mengiste’s book ‘Beneath the Lions’ Gaze’ is set during the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974 and Nayomi Munaweera writes about the Sri Lankan civil war in her book ‘Island of a Thousand Mirrors.’

On the Balkans war we have ‘S: A Novel about the Balkans’ by journalist Slavena Drakulic – the story of a Bosnian woman in exile who has just given birth to an unwanted child after being repeatedly raped by Serbian soldiers in the “women’s room” of a prison camp and there is Sara Novic’s ‘Girl at War’ – the story of a ten-year old girl in the conflict – but there are not many novels written by women about the Balkans conflict (although some books do remain untranslated, such as ‘Hotel Zagorje’ by Ivana Bodrožić).

It’s perhaps too early for many novels to have been published about the current refugee crisis although there are novels about refugees from Afghanistan – like Caroline Brothers’ novel ‘Hinterland’ about two boys escaping the war in Afghanistan and ‘Under the Persimmon Tree’ by Suzanne Fisher-Staples while Hawra al-Nadani’s ‘Under the Copenhagen Sky’ explores issues of dislocation and foreignness. Certainly on the topic of refugees, men and women writers appear to be more evenly represented.

Where you can find the most women writing about war and its effects is in the Middle East. This is perhaps not surprising given the recent history of this part of the world. Lebanon’s 15 year civil war (1975-1990) has produced Hoda Barakat’s ‘Stones of Laughter,’ Syria, Rasha Abbas’ The Gist of It (short stories), Palestine, ‘Mornings in Jenin’ by Susan Abulhawa, Iraq, Duna Ghalil (Orbits of Loneliness) – among others. However, with perhaps the exception of a short story by US-based Iraqi author Faheeha Hassan whose story ‘Mass Grave,’ is told from the point of view of a male soldier, these novels explore the effects of war rather than combat.

If I were to include poetry, short stories, flash fiction and blogs the list would widen but there’s not scope for that here.

To conclude – the more you dig, the more you find that there ARE women writing fiction about war across the world, especially if the definition of what ‘war’ means is extended. Nonetheless I would say that there appears to be more of a silence from British, European and American women writers.

For a list of other women who have written about war and conflict go to:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soniah-kamal/women-write-war_b_5662555.html

You can’t fly with your hands tied behind your back

Don’t write with your hands tied behind your back. Don’t hamper yourself. You are the one doing the tying. No one else does it for you. Untie those cords. Fly off. Don’t think, don’t worry, just write.  Editing comes later. It’s your shame, guilt, fear, anxiety, that’s stopping you. It stops me too. No good, no good, no good, it says. That voice in the head. But then I’m off again, flying. Until I come down to earth, bump, bump, bump. And then I’m off again and again. You can do it too.

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Writing & Success

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The median earnings of writers in the United Kingdom is £4,000 a year. Read that again – £4,000. Let’s face it – unless you’re EL James or JK Rowling, you’re not going to make enough to live on. Most of us who write have to rely on other work to keep us going. Yet deep down we all secretly want success: we want to hit that jack-pot. We want to be recognised, read and appreciated.

The problem is – there are so many books out there – let alone short stories, poetry and flash fiction. I’m sure neither you nor I, however much we love books,  have the time to read all we’d like. I’m also sure a substantial number of excellent books pass me by.

The publishing world is fickle one. It relies on a small number of ‘big’ names and celebrities. Dubravka Ugresic, in her book, ‘Thank you for not Reading’ describes how Joan Collins, opening the London Book Fair some years ago, swept all beside her. ‘What does this have to do with literature?’ Ugresic writes. ‘Almost nothing. Then why mention something as trivial as Joan Collins’s pink suit? Because trivia has swamped contemporary literary life and become, it seems, more important than the books. A book’s blurb is more important than the book itself, the author’s photograph on the book jacket…more important than its content….’

You get the picture. Marketing is King. Celebrity is King. Or Queen. Does this matter? Yes and no. I mean, you’re not going to get anyone to read your book if readers don’t know it exists and those of us far down the publishing ladder are always going to struggle to get noticed. This isn’t an article about marketing so I won’t give you suggestions on how to market your book. Anyway I’m lousy at marketing but it is necessary, even if it bores you to tears and you feel you’re no good at it. (You do get better at it with practice – I promise). No, this is an article about writing. As for that elusive ‘success’ – if you’ve completed a story, a novel or a poem, that’s success. Making it as perfect as you can – that’s success. Getting it out there via a blog, or in print – however – that’s success.

Annie Lamott writes about publication in her excellent book, ‘Bird by Bird.’ ‘I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises.’

Many of us are so caught up in the idea of success in our culture that we fail to appreciate our successes. Like a new dress, or a new car, the lure is always there of more and better. It’s a snare and a delusion.

Natalie Goldberg in her book, ‘Writing down the Bones’ says, ‘Trust in what you love, continue to do it and it will take you where you need to go. And don’t worry too much about security. You will eventually have a deep security when you begin to do what you want. How many of us with big salaries are actually secure anyway?’

We need to pay our bills of course, and many people don’t have the luxury to be creative. They are busy working as cleaners, nurses, care workers….You can be creative in your job, for sure and anyone can write, sketch or pen a song. It doesn’t have to be a project that keeps us away from earning a living.

For those of us who are lucky and/or determined enough to work as writers, aim for success, yes but do understand that there’s always another mountain to be climbed – always. Or even a mountain to fall down. The secret is to pick yourself up and climb the mountain again, even if you need a walking stick or a lift part way. And please enjoy the view while you’re up there.

Writing a first draft

The first draft of a novel is like life. The ups and downs. The oscillation between elation, depression and sheer boredom. How do any of us keep going, us authors. I think it’s a combination of will-power and of love for the written word, mixed in with a need for recognition in our lives. Let’s be honest. We all want to be read and get good reviews, we’re human, after all. However, there are many times when we feel like giving up and I often ask myself the question: ‘Does the world actually need another book?’ And, ‘does it need this book?’

The answer to the first question is that humans will always tell and listen to stories. It’s in our DNA. Stories are as old as humankind itself. As to the answer to the second question, that has to be left up to others. If my book is good enough and I have something interesting to say, perhaps, yes. That’s certainly what I strive for – to make what a write worthwhile – not only in terms of the quality of the writing, but in the characters I create and the world I create around them.

The trick of writing that first draft is to keep going even through the bad patches when boredom and lack of confidence seep in. It helps to connect with other writers, or to write in a café with others around, or to join a course as I just did, although that many not be affordable to everyone. It’s easy to get stale and so connecting with other authors, or even books you enjoy reading, can help. On the other hand reading a brilliant and well-written book can be a downer. ‘I can never write like that’, the critic on your shoulder squawks. ‘Never in a million years.’ Just remind yourself that YOU are writing your book. No-one else is. You may admire a particular author and his or her style and of course you can learn from this. But this author is not you. You have your own style, your own way of looking at the world. Stay with this.

It is scary showing your writing to others but it’s important to do so, although only to those whose judgement you really trust. Each person will have their own take on your work but if everyone says the same thing, then listen and take note. In my present working novel, almost everyone who read it questioned why I addressed the sister in the second person, rather than using her name. I stuck fast. For a while. But in the end I realised this wasn’t working. I’ve changed it. However, there are times when you must also stick to your guns. The topics I write about are serious ones – conflict, death and exile. I love reading witty books, funny books but I can’t write them. I don’t want to write them either. Don’t let anyone tell you that you must write this or that. You know why you want to write and what you want to write about.

The first draft is just the first draft. After that comes the editing process but that’s something else. Try not to get stuck at the beginning of your book. It’s easy to do. You want to perfect it so you go over and over and you never get further than the first 10,000 words. I’ve done it. I still do it. Perfect it at the editing stage. Now just go for it. Take the plunge and leap.

 

Reeds

Reeds

The reeds are talking whispers along the path. They speak of creatures in the blue sky and the movement of stars. Perhaps they also talk of us, our slow-gait, how we spoil the land.

Reeds rustle and pretend to be the sea. Reeds are woven into baskets and roofs. Baskets and roofs do not rustle or pretend to be waves. They are staid creatures, not prone to flights of fancy.

Reeds like rivers but do rivers like reeds? Reeds bend and speak like rivers but reeds are rooted and rivers are not.

On the walk are many reeds so many they perhaps match the numbers of people who have left Syria and gone elsewhere but of course there is no resemblance between these reeds and the Syrian refugees.
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My Village

BB hawthorn hedge

 

My Village

This village was once known for the making of scythes. In the place of scythes are smart cars, burnished carriage lamps and hanging baskets of garishly coloured flowers.

I know all the paths in this place – the one that leads to the narrow dark lane and the old oak tree, the one that skirts the edge of the recreation ground and passes the small hill, the one that edges the mill pond and breaks into two and the path that takes my steps to the churchyard. All these paths lead to somewhere – the oak, the pond, the church – but these paths also lead me to places no longer visible to the eye. A cricket pavilion. A field of elms. The brick scythe works. The gypsy caravans. An icy pond with skaters. A lake with a floating raft constructed out of barrels and rope. Plus two weddings, two funerals and a kiss behind a shed. I see these things as clearly as the path in front of me with its patches of drying mud, its thistles and nettle clumps, the tall grass. But perhaps you do not.

Bestiary

A bestiary
Antelope, ant and aardvark
Bear, butterfly and bee
Cougar, cat and coot
Dolphin, dove, doe, deer                                                                                                                  Two gulping fish 2012
Elephant
Flying fish
Giraffe and gnu
Hare, hornet and horns
Ibex
Jaguar, jay, jackdaw, jackal
Kangaroo
Llama, lamb and lamprey
Moose
Newt
Owl
Parrot, porpoise, peregrine,
Quail
A raven, a rook
Snake, spider
Tick, toucan and tiger
Ursus
Vole
Woodpecker, wasp, widgeon, wolf and woodlouse
Yellow-hammer
A zoo

Voice

Some people like the sound of their own voice to such a degree that they will not stop talking, even in sleep, while others are so quiet you can hear their hearts beating and the small, soft sound of their lungs. blue sand 07