In this blog I will be looking at a writer’s social media profile.  A perfect example is Anna Beecher. Anna is a former University of Westminster Creative Writing and English Literature student who Matt Morrison organised to talk with us in year one.

Anna’s website is easy to navigate, the ‘Home’ section talks about her debut novel ‘Here Comes the Miracle’ and includes what other writers and newspapers have had to say about the book. It also notes the fact she has been nominated for the ‘Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award’. She then starts a section about herself with the personable phase ‘Hello, I’m Anna’ and details what she does now, including writing, making theatre and teaching. She tells us about where her theatre work has been performed, what she teaches and where she has studied.

In the ‘Writing’ section of her blog, she tells what her debut novel ‘Here comes the Miracle’ is about and where you can find her other writing work and also an option to subscribe to ‘Peachy’ which she describes as her ‘irregular email letter’ in which she states you will find ‘thoughts from me, reading recommendations and creative prompts.’ It is informative and I like the almost ‘scatty’ way she describes her ‘irregular email letter’.

In the ‘Performance’ section she describes the company ‘Akin’ she has co-founded with Rachel Lincoln in 2015 which creates ‘theatrical, sensory experiences for families’. We really get a feel for the show as she provides details of the shows and recommendations and reviews it has received from newspapers and Theatre guides. She goes on to detail other plays she has written, with reviews and details of her ‘Solo Performance and Storytelling’. It is an interesting mix of images and text which really ‘grabs’ the readers interest.

The next section is titled ‘Teaching’. What I really like about this section is includes where Anna has taught, awards she has achieved and what her students have to say about her including one comment in which a student says “This class was phenomenal. Anna is one of the most caring, insightful, and engaging professors I’ve had in my three years at UVA”. Although I have not met Anna in person and only via an online setting, I am inclined to agree. I found her very engaging, captivating and someone that could really get the best out of her students and the people she works with.

Anna’s section on Voice & Presence Coaching is a similar mix of what she offers, a review from a student but also what you would experience in a session with her. I found the last section very informative as it gives you an insight as to what it would be like to work with Anna.

Anna’s Instagram is a mix of personal and professional content, incorporating photographs of her partner, random beautiful flamingos, an image of Anna and a snowman, recommendations of other writer’s work and also details of her book and content about subscribing to ‘Peachy’. I enjoy viewing Anna’s content as you get to view her personal life, it is not just relentless content about her work. You get a sense as of her as a person. From what I can gather Anna is a ‘foodie’ as there are many images of home baking including, biscuits, pastries and pizza. The latter being a nod to the Italian translation of her novel with Edizione di AtlantideE

by Sarah Tooke

A favourite movie franchise of mine is Alien (Ridley Scott) which imagines the creatures in outer space and the possible dangers of messing with them. The suspense and moral aspects of the film excite me a lot. Ripley is a strong female protagonist who embodies the kick-ass attitude we all know and love. It’s both scary and fun to imagine aliens. Saying this, my reading preferences are typically realistic fiction. I enjoy being in the head of a character and watching a pretend situation play out and wondering what I would do in that situation. For example, Jane Fallon’s books let me be in the middle of gossip and revenge without having to actually deal with the consequences. For this, I think escapism is invaluable. As human beings, we typically live through mundane and monotonous routines. For me, most days consist of eating, showering and working. 

Although, humans are complex creatures. All of us have fears and desires which can be tapped into through escapism. The word ‘escapism’  is defined as the ‘tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy.’ For me, if I’m having a rough day, switching off and diving into a film, series or book takes my mind off my own problems for a while. I’m sure most of you share my curiosity and desire to observe, learn and grow. Escaping into fiction allows us to do this. The characters live out scenarios so we don’t have to. There is of course a downside to escapism. We can hide in the comfort of our duvet, close the book, switch off the film. In real life situations, we can’t do that as easily but fiction can force us to think and be somewhat prepared.

Escapism is also a temporary cure for loneliness and boredom. In real life, relationships and connection take time but in fiction, we get through the barrier of intimacy quickly. Characters can feel relatable and like friends. Jane Eyre springs to mind for me, with her delicate strength and rebellious nature. Escapism doesn’t just have to mean fantasy. Writing realism and ordinary characters can satisfy our need to connect just as much. Getting into the heads of other people is something we all wish we could do. Another favourite of mine is Austen. Not only do we get an insight into that era and society, but can learn a lot by observing each character’s journey. We might despite such figures as Mr. Collins and therefore be asked why that is – forming our identity and morals.

Though, with genres like sci-fi and dystopia, it can be exciting to imagine what other worlds might be like. Humans are naturally curious and it is both scary and thrilling to dive into an unknown world. An example of this might be Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale which taps into our fears of the future and what a totalitarian state might look like. Our anxieties about politics and power can be trialled through fiction. 

Overall, escapism is very valuable and can fulfil many purposes. It can give a sense of connection and belonging and/or give us a break from everyday life. We might read or watch something that includes magic or monsters which is arguably a lot more exciting than someone going to work five days a week. Escapism is essentially walking in someone else’s shoes for a while or playing out the impossible. 

It picks at her brain slowly unravelling the pieces of her mind that were hidden now the darkness has come to light the putrid smell of depravity clogs her senses burning sulphur the stench so horrific she chokes on her thoughts filling her subconscious with dread and despair the mind like some vicious parasite crawling underneath the membranes of her skull unreachable constant torture her head swelling out of the confines of its straight jacket unable to decipher the origins of this disease she stumbles around in the pitch-black depths of the abyss she has created by drowning her truth unaware of who or what she is anymore lost in the depths of a raging storm she finds solace in its eye watching it all fall down and so destruction looms around her solidifying this fate this descent into desolation but her eyes are fixed on the one above who promises restitution if faith is wielded like a sword yes the breastplate of strength shall protect her and her feet are firmly planted in hope – this is not the end no she will forge a new path a new realm where the light shineth in the darkness and it comprehendeth it not, for we are all given to our choices and free will shall be the curse which leads to our undoing slowly chipping away at our humanity until there is nothing left but blood however it shall be a blessing to those who rise above the primal instincts to slay whether physically or spiritually those who are given to pursuing and inspiring light for they shall reach the promised land and prove that the sky is not the limit when you have wings.

First, I saw your hands as they floated through my door.
How I watched your watch – hands moving, as minutes followed suit,
fingers twirling so fancifully through space, they drew my regard 
and fastened it there in orbit.

A few days later, I noticed your footprints in the snow
and then toes, ankles, nipped red with the cold.
After a week your arms began to form,
arms as delicate as those kissing the shifting hours around us.

I had never seen a metaphor in flesh before.
Then as fragments descended through the eye of ticking time
your brows, half-sketched, the smoke of an ear, 
the echo of a nose, a scent of chin, an unmistakable sense 

of mouth, open and watching and wandering up my own arms, 
my own chest, I perceived your gaze,
the eyes of a wild animal, searching in each crevice of my being
The swift movement that would precipitate flight.

I felt your skin form around my fingertips, your body pooled, 
rippled, enveloped. I heard your teeth grind, 
your lungs sucked air, gasped to life 
and from your lack, your voice began

and in the cage of your ribs, I heard the violence 
of your rabbit-heart, and loved you all the more gently.
You came to me in pieces
And I, with the arrogance of a man 

thought I was putting you together 
when you were fully formed already
You appeared to me in pieces
I just had to take the time to realise

You were something bigger than I was used to comprehending.

When I write, I have to have a playlist.  This came about because I needed to block out my family – lovely though they are – I had to be able to get into my writing groove with a multi-generational LOUD family.  I needed to drown out Gardener’s World on the TV, top pitch, long-distance conversations in Yoruba and whatever the hell computer games my son was shouting at the top of his voice in the back room. Also, with my earphones in, nobody was going to approach me with requests for food, clean clothes, lost keys or any of the other interruptions which are death by a thousand cuts to creative thought.  Or any sort of thought in fact.

So I played music to drown them all out. But soon that music started to reflect the era and characters I was writing. It began to actively help me to get back to the place I needed to be without conscious thought.  I’m currently trying to write a South London trilogy and am on book two.  The first book was set during lockdown and in the seventies through flashback.  In the seventies, my characters were part of the sound system, blues party era and my playlist was Gregory Isaacs, Bob Marley, with a sprinkling of Peter Tosh, Janet Kay and Carroll Thompson. The song that was the motif for one couple was ‘Extra Classic’ by Gregory Isaacs and for the other, even though they were a different generation, it was ‘No Woman, No Cry’ by Bob Marley. 

My current book is set in the nineties and the present day. This time I intentionally started with a Nineties club classics playlist with bangers such as Show Me Love by Robin S. Missing  (Todd Terry Club Mix) by Everything but the Girl, Killer by Adamski etc and then there are multiple songs for my main couple – Lost in Space by Lighthouse Family, Angel by Shaggy, You’re No Good by Aswad and Here Comes the Hotstepper by Ini Kamoze.  Throw in M People the whole best of Lighthouse Family Album and a whole lot more Club Classics especially Ebeneezer Goode by The Shamen and You’re Not Alone by Olive and you get the aural landscape.

 
A mother this morning, no title this evening
She screamed “it’s not true, please just come home”.
 
Her father breaks down, there’s nowhere to go,
Did she ever know, she was his home.
 
Her bed lies empty, with unopened presents,
The smell of her perfume, from her last time at home.
 
Could she have seen, how much she was missed  
Would she be gone, or this time come home?
 
That frightful call, still echoes in my head,
“She passed away this morning, she’s not coming home”
 
You never think, it’ll happen to you
‘til you one day come home, to a now empty home.
 
She’ll never get to feel, what it’s like to be free,
To go off to uni and move out of home.
 
She’ll never get the chance, to walk down the aisle,
Have her own children, and build her own home.
 
The pain left behind, will never be healed,
Her separated parents try to build their new homes.
 
Why did you go? Too late to ask,
Life must go on, in a now empty home.
 
My partner in crime, my friend till the end,
I’ll miss your sweet laughter, filling my home.
 
But tonight when I see you, you’ll tell me again
I’m sorry I hurt you, but now I am home.

I remember when needles only grew from pine trees. 
When the scent of the earth was sweet 
and I could taste the dew drops on my tongue 
standing in the backyard
of another house I grew up in. 

I remember when I'd fight sleep. 
When I’d count the fireflies outside my window
begging to stay awake with them
as if i’d miss some firework show 
like the ones we’d watch on the fourth of July. 

I remember when my only scars were from scraped knees and paper cuts. 
Before I felt the bitter hands of wrath
for now I have two
and they remind me everyday
that I am not who I was. 

I remember when I felt something more than this. 

When I felt the warmth of the sun in august.
And lit the last sparklers of the summer. 
When i felt the grass under bare feet 
dancing in the darkness. 

When I felt like I could breathe 
and i didn’t have to heave every time 
I look at what I've become. 

I remember the sky  
the twilight, the dawn, the sunsets, the stars 
before colours faded to grey
to black. 

I remember when I wasn’t like this 
I remember 
when I felt there was something. 

One evening,

After a day of troubled decisions

I awoke to find myself transformed

Into a monstrous dream

I first felt my legs, as they twisted and turned underneath me

Splintering and sprinting

To form the purple nightflesh of my thoughts

A self-evading substrate, brimming with algae and dishwater

Spilling and swilling, as a drunken Danish waiter

My arms grew like roots above me,

And with the disorientating cradle of canopy for my head

I twisted backwards in my bed

And hung wishes

Like stalagmites, like dog teeth

Like swishing sprouting royalty, like floundering crowns foundered and unfound,

And from the caverns of my ears – distant cheers,

a flock of bicycle bells, a thumping heart attack, trees being felled, a traffic jam spreading on the besotted backside of a toasted heel, clapping towards a suicidal walrus with eels for sighs –

A screeching as my eyes melted to letters, posted themselves to minds they found better, and declared –

I was the son, and daughter of a king, and I, find it now appropriate to sing, and die

And from my ribcage, bursting blossoms, my soundless organs long forgotten, and dust playing the chorus to my rotting

My existence twisted and upturned within me, and time found itself rhyme-lessly irrelevant –

I spent 17 years watching through the grime of a window, the movements of a pink elephant

That I had mistaken for a mare

Whinnying and whistling, through the gaps between my hair

To later lose that language up the flaring nostrils, of a stranded, wrecked colossus,

Inhaling his own sand-hidden self-importance

And dissolve with resolute dissolution, stirring myself to a solution, that gave my sinful skin the resolve to revolve in revolution and disappear

And bursting wide, fear came sliding, an invertebrate with glowing eyes, carefully inspecting the holes in – what had been my thighs

The nib of night blinked, blotted and buried and I sank with unhurried acceptance beneath the oblivion of images and phantom senses

–

A pleasurable surrendering, to an unspeaking tide, that bides its time in twilight

–        

And will be banished and unspawned all the same

By the drowning mismemory of the dawn’s waking brain