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PoemsAnd Pints

Come along and read your favourite

*poem* short story *extract *

or

be an audience to local writers

and enjoy a drink in convivial company

The Craft Centre

Elizabeille Laurenan

Saturday

March 12th @ 7.30

Info: Freda: 02 96 56 17 85 vickbateman@hotmail.com

or Elizabeille: 02 96 25 18 69

Comp

Weird thing after the letter to Mslexia. The Printemps de Livres - Literature Fest is running a comp. If female write as if you are male and vice versa!!!
I don't think I can do it.

It Happens Every Time

My head was swimming with ideas, and I was raring to go then it happened again. I was laid low with a bug. I spent a couple of days lying around listening to the radio and wishing I was out in the garden but i did hear some good stuff in With Great Pleasure I must check up on the net for the references. I have the go ahead to read at NPN AGM. I am looking forward to that. I have also done more research for the Canal Magazine and was quite absorbed with Philip Leese's writing. It is a pity that his work is not available on Amazon. I bought a copy of my book from French amazon and found it was cheaper than Amazon.UK!

PS Philip Leese is a local historian who has published a couple of books on local history. He also facilitates a group for the U3A on Local History.

New Thoughts

I decided that my writing was limited to two mags and a few comps. I bought a new writing mag in UK and a Living in France mag.
 It has given me new impetus but there is so much reading in the new mags that I have no time to write but feel inspired.
 I have been intending to write something both about living here and also about my gardening experience or lack of..

Another letter to Mslexia

Dear Mslexia,

I open my emails and I find an email from Mslexia. Hurray! Ooh maybe my writing has been accepted. Oh no. Not this time. Still it is nice to get a letter with the judges comments. Or is it?
Comment: the writing was about suicide, adultery, murder, desertion and divorce.
Me: Isn’t that not only sad and depressing but also a tragedy? But the first step in changing is recognising the truth and we have to keep telling it like it is until it changes. Do you want us to write the same old Fairy Stories  about Princesses and Frogs?
Comment: The majority of submissions were written from a woman’s point of view! (‘I don’t believe it!’ said Victor Meldrew.)
Comment: She (the judge) would have preferred to have read about a broader selection of protagonists including men and children. Why not try writing from a different point of view say a male.
Is this really from Mslexia? Better check the website. So I re-read the mission statement which informs me that ‘Mslexia was created to address a difficulty, more prevalent in women, with getting into print.’
And the article, ‘Three cures for Mslexia’ by editor Debbie Taylor which ends with: ‘There’s no time to waste whingeing. Stick with Mslexia and we’ll help you all we can.’
There’s no hope for me then. Here I am whingeing and guess what? I do not tend to write from the point of view of a woman. I am a woman. So I write from a woman’s perspective. Even if I pretend that I am a man I can only write from the point of view of a woman. I do not know what it is like to be a man. I do not want to try to pretend to be a man. Not yet anyway as I am still constructing my confident woman identity after years of timidity. I subscribe to Mslexia because of all the reasons stated in Debbie Taylor’s article and your mission statement but if your advice is for me to write from a male point of view or you would like submissions which do not reflect the truth of our lives then say so in your competition guidelines.
Yours very puzzled and not a little disappointed,
Freda Bateman
La Ville Joly,
22230 Mérillac
France

Published Letter to Mslexia

I hate phrases like ' hairy feminists' and 'strident women' especially when used by women.

Come on let's tell it like it is. Look at the facts. How long did it take us to get this far in the battle
for 'equality'? Which by the way doesn't mean 'the same' and it has been and still is a battle for many women.
It has taken from the beginning of time for women to be allowed to keep their own earnings, own property and have rights over their own children.
Do you really think we have achieved equality in less than one century?
Why have women found it prudent, often necessary to write under a male nom de plume?
Of course we need all women events for women writers. Why do we have to be so apologetic about it?
I found my own voice in an all women's writing group and was drowned out in a mixed group.
My confidence has been achieved over many years with the help of all women's' groups.
When will women who think that they have never been oppressed realise that the reverse is true for most of us?
What is wrong with being called a 'woman writer'? For me that is a positive. I want to read books written by women writers.
I spent too much time when I was young reading male writers whose work, to be honest, bore no relevance to my experience.
What a relief it was to discover Doris Lessing, Virginia Woolf and Germain Greer to name a few.
And while I'm on my hobby horse what is wrong with 'misery memoirs'? How many times have I heard it said there are too many?
Well don't read them but remember that the women who do and the women who write them benefit enormously because guess what?
Thousands of women have miserable lives.
I don't like so called thrillers or detective stories. I can't find anything entertaining about the murder of a woman (and it usually is a woman) but that doesn't stop thousands being written and millions being sold. And dare I say mostly by men.
So I for one am pleased that all women events are on the increase. And of course they will be fun but not because they have to be Viv  but because all women together do have fun but oh my god they will be much much more.
I am proud to be recognised as a feminist and I never forget that women died so that I could vote.
Is this talking to the converted in Mslexia? I hope so.
Oh and by the way Viv, it was a woman who said, ‘ If there’s no dancing at the revolution I don’t want to go.’
Fleure Sauvage
La Ville Joly,
22230 Mérillac
France

From an old blog

Are any of us really free? What is freedom? What do we mean when we talk about freedom? Do we mean freedom from hunger or violence or poverty or work or worry or even ----Years ago I escaped from a violent marriage and I worked for years to free myself from poverty in old age. Now the question is what do I do with this so called freedom?I even have time to choose how to spend my time each day. But am I happy? What do you think?I agonise about my comfort. I look at the rest of the war-torn world and feel guilty. Then I agonise about what I can do about it. Do I send money to good causes, do I offer to help in a charity shop, do I offer my services as a volunteer in an old peoples home, am I too old for voluntary work overseas? Haven't I earned a peaceful retirement? Too many questions and no answers. Then reality strikes and my past catches up with me. I get a phone call from the adoption organisation who have news of my son who was adopted 30 years ago. They tell me the good news first. They have found his parents (adoptive that is). Now sit down for the bad news.He died 11 years ago. he died from AIDS and yes he was gay.Well what are you going to do when you have stopped crying? The media tells us that the evidence coming from Africa is that it is getting worse and people are dieing for lack of drugs. Babies are being left without parents. Thousands of babies are being left with no-one to care for them. So here is your answer. Make a decision and do something about it. But what can I do? One person and we talk about Africa as if it is a tiny country. It's not a country. It is an enormous continent of fifty one countries. Where on earth do I begin? You can begin by collecting information from charities and organisations already in the field. Then perhaps you will find some one who perhaps can advise you.

Posted by Jean Wild