Tag Archives: Two Rivers Press

YIELD – CLAIRE DYER’S MOVING AND DEEPLY PERSONAL POETRY COLLECTION ABOUT HER CHILD’S TRANSITION FROM SON TO DAUGHTER

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Reading Claire Dyer’s latest poetry collection, Yield, is to share an intimate journey told in a way very few people – if, indeed, anyone else – could tell it.

A collection of poems that tell a recognisable story is a rare and beautiful thing, but at times this story is not beautiful, although it does have a happy ending. As a mother, how do you feel when your son comes home and tells you that they are really your daughter? What does it mean to accompany them through their transition from one to the other?

The order of poems in any collection is key and Yield is punctuated by poems with the same name, but numbered; Yield, Clinic, Coming Out. They give the book unity and rhythm, and show the reader the key elements of the transition process, the ones that I guess everyone would go through.

Some readers find poetry difficult; I think because some poets consider their role is to obfuscate, but Claire Dyer’s style is very different. There is a clear communication of ideas, through a clever use of everyday language, for example the opening lines of Abroad:

“the waiters mistake us for sisters.
No, we say, laughing.

We know they know we’re not,
but we’re more than

who we seem.”

In this poem and in others there is a real sense of storytelling; vignettes from mother and child’s life before, during and after the transition process. Fireflies is about a sleepless winter night; the stunning Doing Cartwheels at the Ritz speaks for itself; Wardrobe the heartache of a mother clearing boyhood clothes – which has a truly joyful counterpoint in Shopping:

“Let us go then, you and I, to Primark, Zara, Reiss.
The sky’ll be brilliant and,

around us, shoppers will burst into song,
dance on the up escalators and the down

as we load our arms with gorgeousness,
lacework brushing our shins.”

I do wonder if one of the reasons I love this poem so much is because I know Claire to be an expert shopper; so elegant in her own dress, and generous in her time to help those less  ‘expert’, like me. I remember once we spent hours in Reading as she guided my choice of the perfect handbag, which I would point out that was no mean feat as I detest shopping and had multiple – and not always compatible – criteria, for even this simple requirement.

There are other moments depicted in Yield that, having been alongside Claire for at least some of this journey, I recognise. To have listened as Claire talked about her son becoming her daughter, inch by painstaking inch, was a privilege and I was proud to be confided in, but not being a mother myself there was so much I could not understand.

Not least was that for a long time we called Lucy ‘L’. Having read one short poem, I now get it completely. And that is what great poetry does; it increases our understanding.

“I wrote your names

                 with a knife on my heart and voiced them
in black ink and blue ink   I typed texted

and dreamt the names you were meant to pass on
that you’ve passed on now you have names

I can’t say because try as they might they’re not in my chest like
the rest that are still holding fast to the bones

in my back and my neck and my mouth is full
of dry grasses rivers and trees”

 

Yield is Claire Dyer’s third poetry collection and is published by Two Rivers Press.

 

 

 

SISTER SCRIBES GUEST: R L FEARNLEY ON ELVES, ENCHANTMENTS AND EMANCIPATION

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Becci is a sister scribe from Reading Writers  – as well as being on the committee together and going to  the regular meetings, we like to write together in local cafés. She writes under the name R.L. Fearnley and is a fantasy poet and novelist, performing her poetry all across the country and delivering creative writing workshops in a variety of settings. Her poetry collection, ‘Octopus Medicine’ was published under ‘Becci Louise’ by Two Rivers Press in 2017. She is working on her first novel.

Lonely children love other worlds. I know this because I was a lonely child. I found solace in alternative landscapes filled with dragons, wizards and magic. The idea of riding on the back of a fire-breathing monster was one of the few things that made me feel powerful. I loved the stories of dragon-riding heroes and farm-boys-turned-champions. It made me feel that anyone, no matter how humble and invisible, could have the potential for more. I devoured these stories with gusto; Christopher Paolini’s ‘Eragon’ was a favourite, as was J.R.R. Tolkein’s ‘The Hobbit’ and C.S. Lewis’ ‘Chronicles of Narnia’. Of course, I wrote my own stories too. Looking back on them now, I see a fatal flaw that I was, perhaps, too young or too socially conditioned to see.

Where are all the women in fantasy stories?

To be fair, they are there. You see them in the flowing golden locks of Tolkein’s Galadriel, the serious and distant personality of Paolini’s Aryen and Lewis’ stuck-up, lipstick-loving Susan, where liking make-up is apparently reason enough to get you thrown out of Narnia. Women in fantasy when I was growing up all seemed to look the same. You knew you were reading a ‘strong, fantastical female’ if she:

  • Was an elf of some description
  • Had almond-shaped eyes (whatever that means)
  • Had high cheek bones
  • Had full lips
  • Had ‘ivory skin’ (looked dead or never saw sunlight)
  • Had long flowing hair, usually black or blonde.

Normally, she was tall, aloof and had no sense of humour. She was ferocious with a sword but devoid of personality. She was almost always the motive for action or the trophy at the end of it. She was, actually, quite boring.

I notice, from my early teenage attempts to write fantasy stories, that all the ones with female protagonists were unfinished. I just couldn’t seem to write them. I thought, in my youth, that it was because I liked doing ‘boy stuff’, like climbing trees and hunting insects, so of course I empathised with male characters more. Now, I think I just read very few fantasy narratives in which women were written as if they were real people.

Fortunately, a recent flurry of phenomenal female fantasy writers is challenging this trend. Jen Williams’ brilliant ‘Copper Cat’ trilogy has a fierce, humorous central female character who knows what she wants and goes out to get it. N.K. Jemisin’s stunning ‘Broken Earth’ Trilogy is populated with female characters displaying the range of human strength and vice, and her female characters are almost exclusively of colour (another thing you rarely see in fantasy!) Naomi Novik’s brilliant protagonist in ‘Uprooted’, who’s growth is joyous to witness, also pushes female-centred fantasy to new heights. And I find, suddenly, that I have plenty of inspiration. I no longer read books where I, a woman, am irrelevant. I realise that I don’t have to write ‘women’ in my stories, I just have to write ‘people’. It should not be a revelation to see that these two things are not mutually exclusive. After all, in worlds where anything is possible, why can’t the quiet, plain girl at the back of the class be the one who takes up the sword and slays the troll?

BUSINESS OF BOOKS: TAKE FOUR WRITERS – DIVIDING, EDITING, DREAMING AND TOURING

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CLAIRE DYER: DIVIDING

This month I’d like to talk about my ‘other’ life. I see myself as both a poet and a novelist and people often ask which I prefer being. My answer is always that I like them both the same. However, there are big differences in the way poetry and fiction are published and so this does inevitably alter things.

For a start a poem is a constantly changing thing. Even when it’s been in print, a poet can change elements of his/her poem when it’s republished or collated in a collection. Secondly, putting together a collection takes YEARS! Novelists think it takes an age to get a book published, but collections of poetry can take mini-lifetimes. My last one, ‘Interference Effects’ kindly published by the very wonderful Two Rivers Press took five years from being a spark in my eye to a book in my hand.

The collection I’m working on at the moment contains poems first written in 2014, the manuscript is due to be delivered to the very wonderful Two Rivers Press in June 2020 and it will be a further year or so before possible publication. And this is fine because it takes patience, love and a whole heap of courage to be a poet. However, all this fades to nothing when a line comes that sets your hairline fizzing or you stand in front of an audience and read something that makes them laugh, gasp or (even better) weep.

Poetry books may be slim, time-consuming, delicate and easily lost in the noise of mass paperback sales, but they are things of beauty nonetheless.

 

LUCY COLEMAN: COUNTING

Finally welcoming in the good news this month, as a loved one is out of intensive care. It feels like a dark shadow has been lifted and the sun can shine again. Miracles can happen!

I’ve hardly moved from my desk with line edits and a cover reveal for A Greek Affair, in preparation for its release on the 28 December 2018 by Harper Impulse. And copy edits for The Writing Retreat on the Italian Lake, due for release on 5 February 2018 by Aria Fiction.

And my first audio book, for The French Adventure, is due out on 29 November 2018.

The good news keeps on coming and there’s even more, but authors get used to sitting on things for a while. So, my lips are sealed. But after the darkest of Octobers, I feel that Christmas has come early and I’m truly counting my blessings!

 

ANGELA PETCH: DREAMING

What about a monthly report starting with:  I’ve been dozing in my hammock on the island of Zanzibar, wondering what to do next. Ha ha! More like – I’ve been wondering how on earth to tackle my to-do list.

“Mavis and Dot” are on a blog tour and I’m relieved my two ladies/babies are appealing to readers. When you read comments from complete strangers like: “I could really see this gem of a book as a fantastic movie…”; “A must read…”; “This book was a total joy from beginning to end…” your heart has to sing. It justifies hours of sitting hunched over a pc. This month has been a mine-field of formatting issues but lovely authors have helped.

But I’m a hybrid and have just come off the phone from a chat with my editor at Bookouture. No peace for the wicked: I have major edits to carry out on my re-write of “Tuscan Roots”.

Where’s that hammock?

 

JACKIE BALDWIN: TOURING

November has been fairly busy as I have been on a Deadly Intent tour around some of the many libraries in Dumfries and Galloway with my partner in crime, Lucy Cameron. It’s been a lot of fun getting out and about to meet readers and some of the libraries have totally spoiled us. In Wigtown, for example, we were all treated to freshly baked scones with jam and cream!

As part of Book Week Scotland, we’re reading along with some other authors at a gin/rum night at The Selkirk Arms in Kirkcudbright, which, coincidentally, is where my second novel, Perfect Dead, is set.

On 29th November, I’ll be on a wee jaunt to Edinburgh for Noir at the Bar which is always a fun night and a chance to discover some great new crime authors.

Finally, I’m pleased to report that my third novel is firmly back on track after all the thrashing about with it last month. I’ve now nailed down the plot which nearly got the better of me and I’m pushing on through the first draft.

See you next month!

 

 

 

BUSINESS OF BOOKS: TAKE FOUR WRITERS – INTRODUCING CLAIRE DYER

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Being a poet and a novelist I’m often asked whether I prefer one over the other and I always answer that I love them both the same – like I do my two children, obviously! Seriously though, I really do believe both mediums are two sides of the same coin; both set scenes, tell stories and are peopled by characters who I hope are vivid and compelling.

The main differences may seem mundane: in poems the lines don’t always go right across the page, whereas in novels they do and, in poetry we have fewer words to play with, so every word really does count.

That’s not to say, however, that we can’t play with format in fiction and invest our prose with the same attention to detail as we do in poetry – in fact, we should.

Also, I believe that, as in poetry, a novel should have moments of distilled emotion but, unlike with poetry, in a book we can give our readers and characters, for that matter, more instances of down time: conversations about the weather, making tea, going to the shops.

For me, a poem works if it tumbles down the page and takes me with it and I believe a novel works if it draws me in and keeps me held safe in its narrative. I sincerely hope both my poetry and prose do both of these things!

So with this thought I’ll say a few words about my publications. I’ve had two collections of poetry published by the very lovely Two Rivers Press and, although each are only 50 odd pages long, they both took years in the making – each poem, I hope, earning its place in the stories the books aspire to tell. The second book, Interference Effects, came out of my MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway and what the poems aim to chronicle is how, as colours vary in a butterfly’s wing depending on the angle at which we view it, our impressions and thoughts about subjects as varied as art, love and loss, marriage and memory, can change when we look at them through different lenses.

I’ve had two novels and a short story published by Quercus and am utterly thrilled that The Dome Press are publishing The Last Day on 15th February. This book has had an interesting genesis. It was always going to be about the three of them: Boyd, Vita and Honey, but it was only on the second rewrite that Vita pushed her way front and centre and waved at me, glasses in one hand, paintbrush in the other and said, ‘Put me in the first person,’ and as much as I loved writing about the other two, it was Vita who called to me the loudest.

Also, during the rewrites, the book changed from being a story about one thing to a story about another: it had the same people and same plot but eventually it revealed its true colours (a bit like a butterfly’s wings!) and it’s been a wonderful experience being part of this evolution.

The title came to me (bizarrely and somewhat prophetically) on the day after the EU Referendum in June 2016 and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to fit with the fact that we all will experience last days: the last day of school, of work, of love, of life. And, if after every beginning there is an ending, then after every ending is a beginning: after every last day there is a next day and it is this message I hope the book holds at its heart.

https://www.clairedyer.com

@ClaireDyer1

 

Business of Books: Claire Dyer

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the-business-of-books-interviewswithjanecableClaire Dyer is a novelist and poet from Reading, Berkshire. Her novels are published by Quercus and her poetry collections are published by Two Rivers Press. She likes love stories and cheese!

How much of your working life does the business of books take up?

I’d say all of it. Until recently I balanced my writing life with a part-time job in London and bringing up my family. However, now that my kids have grown up and left home and my husband is happily ensconced in a new business venture, I am in the very fortunate position of being able to live a full-time writing life.

It’s interesting that you use the phrase ‘business of books’ in the question though, because I do very much consider what I do as a job. My working week comprises of days when I’m at my desk by 9.00 am and finish around 5.00 pm and then two nights a week I teach Creative Writing for Bracknell & Wokingham College. I also attend a regular poetry class in London and am out most other evenings at writing-related events, including workshops, book launches, poetry readings, etc., etc.

However, if you were to ask what I do during those hours at my desk I’d struggle to give it definition because it’s so varied. There’s a lot of networking to do, of course, and lesson planning and I do try and set aside chunks of time to write, but my commitments as Chair of Reading Writers, Poets’ Café Rep for Reading’s Poets’ Café and the work I do for my Fresh Eyes clients also keep me busy. No two days are ever the same and I never quite know what will come through on email or what poem might insist on being written, and if and when I’m involved in writing, editing or rewriting a novel then that’s a whole different kettle of fish altogether!

So I hope I’ve answered the question OK because, for me, being a novelist and poet is a full-time job even though I don’t write novels or poems all the time!

What’s your business model to earn a living from writing?

I guess that unless you’re a regular best-selling author (preferably with a film deal!) or a poet whose work wins major prizes or secures lectureships at high-ranking academic institutions, it’s hard to make a living from writing as many will testify, and I’m afraid I’m not very hard-nosed when it comes to financial things.

I have been lucky enough to earn some money from my fiction, including advances, royalties and the sale of foreign rights, and poetry competition wins and fees earned from Fresh Eyes clients and running workshops have brought in some other income, but my teaching role is done more for love than money, as are the voluntary roles I have within the local writing community.

So I would say overall that my business model is very ad hoc, not thought-through and definitely would not sustain even the lowliest of writing garrets! However, I live in hope that one day I’ll become a regular best-selling author (with a film deal) AND a poet whose work wins major prizes, secures lectureships, etc. etc.!

Claire Dyer - credit Dale Strickland-Clark

Claire Dyer – credit Dale Strickland-Clark

What do you write and what do you consider to be your major successes?

I write novels which I hope would appeal to quite a wide range of readers and which are probably better defined by what they’re not, than what they are. They aren’t really light commercial women’s fiction, nor are they literary fiction but they do (I hope) tell convincing stories about emotional dilemmas in a prose style which is both succinct yet lyrical!

With regard to my poetry, again I would say I’m more of a lyric poet than anything else. I do, however, believe very strongly in the crossover between poetry and fiction; both tell stories and both need the careful placing of just the right words in the right order!

My major successes must be my published works which include (so far, she says hopefully!) 2 novels and 2 poetry collections and my academic qualifications (I have 3 degrees but alas can’t sing nor do I own a sparkly dress!)

However, success in the writing world is a strange thing to quantify. As I say above it isn’t always (and can’t be) about money; it can be about reputation though and about being supportive to other writers; it can also be about stretching yourself to write more honed and precise poems and novels which could in time prove memorable.

As a novelist and poet I feel I’m always learning and am always challenging myself and I would consider myself successful if I could become a better writer and poet, a better champion for the written word in whatever form this takes and to continue to love what I do.

Tell me about your latest project.

I have a couple of projects ongoing at the moment.

I’ve just finished rewriting a novel in concert with my wonderful agent and have had a huge amount of fun and have learned heaps during the process. I will also be putting together a new collection of poetry over the next few years (the last one took 4 years to complete) and in the meantime am working on a collaborative poetry project with two amazing poets and have started a new novel (with I’m glad to say the approval of my aforementioned wonderful agent)!

I’m not sure what 2017 will bring because the writing life is nothing but unpredictable: good news and/or bad news could be on their way, the only thing for sure is that what any writer needs is a big heart, a huge amount of courage, a thick skin and plenty of chocolate!