Greetings, gorgeous ones. How has your week been?

I’ve been visited by the Lady Covidia; throat scarred with razor blades, mind numbing fatigue and muscle aches that have left me winded. After a long weekend in bed, I was feeling if not better then less ill, but then my sense of taste disappeared, I felt as if I’d been run over by a bus and the muscle aches and fatigue returned for the comeback tour.

I’ve been trying to write. Well, I say write, mostly I have been sucking Worthers Originals while rewatching Gilmore Girls, feeling guilty because I’m not writing.  Writing this is writing, so that counts, doesn’t it?

I was wondering what you’ve been listening to or reading? Anything good? (I hate that there’s still snobbery in listening to talking books, but that’s for another day)

As ever, my reading and listening has been eclectic. I’ve loved the voice of Richard Benson’s The Farm and been blown away by Joanne Limburg’s Letters to My Weird Sisters. A friend recommended By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult, so I’ve grabbed it from the library and I’m trying to enjoy it but I’m not sure.

It’s funny when people recommend books, isn’t it? Especially friends. I mean, you like this person, you have things in common, but that doesn’t always mean you want to read their weird shit.

Not that Jodi Picoult is weird shit, but you get my meaning Other people recommendations are fraught with meaning that I sometime struggle to grasp. Personally,  I don’t care if you didn’t love the book I loved, we’re all different. Others however become offended at my dismissal of their recommendations or more weirdly, are offended when they really didn’t like a book I’d suggested.

There’s too much subtext and confusion in all of this for my addled brain and anyway I think I have that thing, you know, when everyone is raving about a book, but that just puts you off. What’s that called? Being contrary? Being annoying?  Being Maya?

I never did read the Salt Path. All that raving makes me belligerent.

Tell me what you are reading? Do you love or loathe recomendations?

There are times, however when being asked to read something is an absolute joy. Having been invited to be on a writers panel with Wild Women Salons to discuss all things Crone, Wild and Witchy, it was a pleasure to read the work of my fellow panellists, Cathyrn Kemp and Helen Ivory.

I am a little scared of poetry. I sometimes struggle to find the meaning hidden in disjointed sentences and strange syncopated rhythms but I was safe in Helen Ivory’s hands. Her book Constructing a Witch is an exploration of women, witches, crones and menopause. At times it stopped me in my tracks with its power, strength and heartbreak. Beautiful writing, it is one to read and read again. I took it with me to lunch to share with girlfriends who all nodded and sighed at the wisdom of Helen’s wild words.

Cathryn Kemps novel, A Poisoner’s Tale, is also about women, witches and power, in a fictional retelling of the real-life Giulia Tofana.  A seventeenth-century woman living in Palermo, Naples and Rome, it is said that she poisoned a thousand men. The book explores the relationships between the women in Tofana’s circle and the women that they ‘help’, all while under threat from the Inquisition. Exploring witchcraft, power, and political resistance, it was not always an easy read, but it was absolutely compelling

So, there will be a poet, a novelist, and me talking about my memoir CHOPSY.

My book is full of stories, some short, some longer, exploring what it’s like to live as a working-class woman in the late 20^th/early 21^st Century Britain. It’s about class and feminism, mothering and shame, medical misogyny and chronic ill-health and the power of re-writing the stories told about women like me. Sometimes funny, sometimes not funny at all, it is fired with the rage of proudly becoming a Crone.

With a sneak preview, I will be giving my first-ever reading of Chopsy.

We gather online at 7.30 on the 30^th of October for an evening’s conversation on power, resistance and women’s voices.

Pay what you can.

Hosted by the incomparable Vik Bennett, these evenings are always fabulous, and I come away nourished and inspired. There are opportunities to ask questions and interact with the writers.

It would be an honour to meet some of you there

Right, I’d best get back to the Gilmore Girls…. Sorry. Erm, I mean writing…that is what I do after all, what with me being a fancy lady writer.

Pass me a Worthers Original

You can book a ticket here

Wild Women Writers’ Salon 18 – Crone Witch, Wild Woman (BSL SupportRied)