Real Bible Stories 2009: Disasters and Miracles: May 2009

Sally Angell

The Boatman

What the author says:

My name is Sally Angell. I write fiction and poetry for adults, and for children. In my story The Boatman’ I imagined what it would be like to be alive in times of Noah. My story is seen through the eyes of a young boy. For research I used a factual book which gave information about the way people lived then, the jobs they had, their environment etc. Also I read the actual story of Noah in the bible and in a children’s bible, as the difficult thing is to be true to the main facts.

I feel I am a writer by nature as my interests were always reading and writing and words, and was always told I had an over-fertile imagination as a child! I often used writing as a sort of therapy, to express my feelings. Later I learned the craft of fiction writing and also studied poetry. I’m always writing everything down (probably because now I might forget it!)

I have numerous favourite writers. I love Alexander Mccall Smith because his books are so joyous, and are written with such straightforward simplicity and truth, often about mundane things, yet I don’t want to miss a word. Crime is my passion and I love all the main crime writers – Rendell, James, Cornwell, Reginald Hill, Minette Walters. Recently I have become addicted to all the American thriller writers who give me nightmares! - Harlen Coben, Michael Connelly, Lee Child etc

As I am now retired from work I feel I can indulge in writing more, as well as painting and living at a slower pace. I enjoy writing so much, entering another world and trying to realize my ideas.

Anne Brooke

The Voyage

“I normally write psychological crime and fantasy novels, gritty short stories and poetry.

The Voyage tells the story of St Paul's journey as a prisoner to Rome and his shipwreck in Malta from the point of view of the Centurion in charge of him. I loved the drama and excitement of the story and I wanted to have the chance to tell it from the point of view of someone else. It's one of a range of Bible stories I've written from a minor character's viewpoint as I like to explore familiar narratives from a different perspective.

I've always made up stories in my head and some of my dreams also tell a story. In fact two of my novels started out as I dreamed the first few scenes of them and wanted to know what happened! Writing is a journey of discovery for me and I love finding out what my characters might do next.

Writers I admire are Murakami for his elegance, Patricia Duncker for her power and Jodi Picoult for her ability to grip you with a story.

For my own fiction writing I write in my spare room, where the computer is! When it comes to poetry, I write it out in longhand in the living room first. I'm not sure why, except that the living room is the best room for catching the sun and thinking poetic thoughts! As for my writing routine- I work part-time at the University of Surrey from Mondays to Wednesdays, and on those evenings I tend to stick to short story or poetry writing as there's less time to play with. For the rest of the week, I concentrate on the current novel, and tend to aim for about 3000 words of that during those remaining four days.

What I hope to achieve through my writing is to tell a good story, create characters people can care about and explore more fully what it means to be human. For me, writing is a vocation and a way of discovering more about myself and the world around me.

And what else about me?

I'm a secret birdwatcher, an ardent Star Trek fan and I also love absolutely anything to do with dinosaurs!”

Find me at: http://www.annebrooke.com

Dawn Bush

Samuel's Miracle

What do you normally write?
Mostly I write short stories, sketches and songs, however I have also written two children's novels and a comedy play for radio. I admire people who can write novels. So far I haven't had the staying power to finish many I've started; I get bored with them and then I think, if I'm bored with this myself, how on earth can I expect to interest the reader?

Tell us about the story you've had accepted and what inspired it?
The story I 've had accepted, Samuel's Miracle, was written some time ago and I can't remember exactly what inspired it. It was during a time when we had no Sunday school teacher so I did work sheets for the youngsters. I would write a story, often based on a Bible character, and then ask questions about the situation. I do remember that I didn't know who Samuel was when I started it, but you'll recognise him when you read the story.

What made you become a writer?
I've written stuff for years, on and off. I remember a teacher when I was 16 telling me he thought I could become a writer. I've never forgotten that small piece of encouragement, though I repaid him ill for it,as he lent me an anthology of short stories and I never returned it. I've felt guilty ever since...!

Which writers do you admire?
My favourite writer of all time is Jane Austen. I never tire of her characters, and see something new every time I read any of her novels. I also love C S Lewis, Tolkein, AA Milne, Conan Doyle and Georgette Heyer. More recently I've enjoyed Mark Haddon's books and my favourite chick-lit writer is Sophie Kinsella. Oh, and I think Anthony Horowitz is a brilliant scriptwriter.

Do you have a favourite place for writing?
I usually write at the computer, unless I'm writing song lyrics. I have to write those by hand.

What is your writing routine? Do you have to fit it around your day job
I don't have a routine for writing. My best time is late at night or very early in the morning. I've not written an awful lot over the last 18 months as I lost both my parents within 6 months of each other and I found I had neither the time nor the inclination to write. It felt like my emotions had been completely cauterised: I couldn't settle to anything creative, and there were mounds of paperwork to deal with that took all my time and energy. It was all I could do to keep on top of it all.I didn't think I would ever write again, but after the anniversary of Mum's death on the 18th March this year, I picked up a competition entry form and started to write something for that, then sent off Samuel's Miracle. It gave me a real boost to have it accepted.

What do you hope to achieve through your writing?
I just love the idea of writing something that someone else would like to read. I enjoy the thought that I might have captured someone's imagination, to make them laugh, or cry, or be intrigued by something. When my husband and children read my stories, I hover over them greedily to see which bits make them react. It's like reading it for the first time by proxy!

Anything else you think we ought to know about you? (Can be as silly or as relevant as you like!)
According to my husband (who hates cities) I glow like a light bulb when I go to London.

Elise Harter

Noah and the Caterpillars

Charlotte Bronte was surely my muse,
Through her books as a child did I cruise.
She shaped my world,
Through hers, mine unfurled,
Enlightened by dark Yorkshire views.

There are others, of course, I must say,
Each one shaped my mind day by day.
They made me smile,
Made me think for a while,
Raised questions, quite come what may.

If I can, each day I will write,
Expand on thoughts, night after night.
In the study I’ll ponder,
As I let my pen wander,
With concepts, I’ll wrestle and fight.

Why do I like to write?
Why do it till late in the night?
Well, it gives me freedom,
It builds my own Eden.
Quite simply, it helps shine a light.

What do I normally write?
Tales that scare you or give you a fright,
Tales that turn you quite blue,
Whether fiction or true,
Tales of love and of passion and blight.

So why Noah, I now hear you say?
He was noble - kept fears at bay.
He took care of them all -
Creatures great and quite small,
Saved the world - at least till today!

And what do I hope to achieve?
I’d like others in life to believe.
I’d like them to smile,
And to sit for a while,
As I try a new world to bequeath.

Elise's first published work, "Noah and the Caterpillars", is written from the perspective of Charlie the Caterpillar, whose adventures begin when he is carried away by a flood of creatures, convinced that they must quickly board Noah's Ark in order to survive the end of the world.

In writing this story, Elise sought to use Charlie, a small, black and yellow spotted insects' rights protester, to promote core values. Particularly in the context of the current economic climate, it seemed important to emphasise the value of the small things in life and of never judging a "book" by its cover...

http://eliseharter.weebly.com/

Gill James

The First Pot Luck Supper

Gill is the founder of Bridge House Publishing, as well as the editor and a university lecturer and a young adult novelist etc, etc! She has had numerous titles published by a large number of publishers and came up with the idea of forming her own publishing company and producing high quality anthologies.

It was Gill's idea to revisit bible stories, and what a great idea, inspired by her story about the feeding of the 5000 called The First Pot Luck Supper.

www.gilljames.co.uk

Jennifer Robertson

Day Out
It's not safe to tell
Spices from Sheba
Dungeon and the Dance
Millions of Stars

 What do you normally write?

My first published books were for children. I wrote children’s novels, stories, including Bible Stories and one biography for twenty years, then I moved into the adult market, but now, after 14 years in Russia, Poland and one year at the end in Barcelona, I’ve gone back to writing for children, my first love.

 Tell us about the story you've had accepted and what inspired it?

I wrote the stories in the anthology because I love to weave fiction around fact: in other words, to take a Bible story and into it a child character, sometimes a real one as in the case of Salome in The Dungeon and the Dance, or Miriam as in It’s Not Safe to Tell, or a made up young person as in the case of feisty young Josh in Spices from Sheba.

 What made you become a writer?

It’s in my bones, or my blood, or my genes, or something. I love stories. I have been writing since I could make words on a page. When I was little I used to switch off from the world around me and have “thinks”. “Don’t talk to me, I’m thinking,” I would say. Weaving unreality into reality became part of my life. Sometimes it’s what makes reality bearable. Yet unreality wouldn’t work without what is real. To quote a writer I love, George Mackay Brown, “the word lost in the Word” is what makes the world go round.

 Which writers do you admire?

I’ve mentioned the Orkney-man, George Mackay Brown who makes words sing; also Dostojevsky who makes sense out of un-sense and peoples the world with those larger-than-life characters. When I was a child I loved Rudyard Kipling and Rosemary Sutcliffe. It goes without saying that Shakespeare is top of the list, plus Keats. I’ve been trying to dig more deeply into Polish literature, especially the writings of Zofia Nalkowska, whose Medaliony – Medallions, or, Cameos, moulded me when I was 22 and I have carried them with me, literally and mentally ever since. Finally, not a writer but a book, indispensable: the Bible.

 Do you have a favourite place for writing?

Wherever it’s sunny and warm, but since I mostly use a lap-top I have to avoid direct sunlight, alas.

 What is your writing routine? Do you have to fit it around your day job? I don’t have a day job. I have a grand-daughter and an adult daughter with needs, but I write day and night and have done for always.

 What do you hope to achieve through your writing?

Writers need readers. Painters can put their work on walls. Writers need a publisher. I work with words to bring delight even if the topics I tackle are fraught with pain. To quote George again, “There should be dew - and greenness- in every line.”

 Anything else you think we ought to know about you? (Can be as silly or as relevant as you like!) I think, like Robert Louis Stevenson, I appear to be an idler and waster, when in fact I am about the business (to quote his phrase) of learning to write. It’s a life-long apprenticeship, but, alas, alas, it’s even harder nowadays to be published and I’m learning now to use cyberspace and to blog.

Check me out:http://www.jennifer-robertson.com/

Nicolette Rushmere

Seeing is Believing

About me:

I have been an avid reader since I was a child. I remember resorting to torch-light, after my parents twigged I was turning the dimmer light up after they said goodnight. I read fairy stories to start with, but by the time I was in secondary school I was pilfering my parent’s fiction and reading Stephen King. I have him to thank for pushing my reading age up by two years.

I guess my first hint at being a writer was at Secondary school when I got thirty percent more than anyone else for a story I did. I contemplated doing a writing course at nineteen, but fate intervened and I did a business course instead while I worked full-time. I then undertook my degree. I did at the time, however, have a short romance published by the local paper.

I have kept diaries since seventeen and this pursuit coupled with my degree course has honed my skills of analysis, to allow me to gain more insight into myself and others. I think I realised a love of writing when I wrote a non-fiction piece of coursework. I got carried away with the beauty of the words and the tutor commented that it was ‘too journalistic’.

While expecting my first child I joined a writers group. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and it made me take writing more seriously. I wrote a lot of introspective poems as a teenager, but it is only now, having joined a writer’s group again, that I have put my stew pot of ideas to work and started to conjure up completed stories.

My favourite place for writing is at the computer where sentences can change by the second.

I jot odd phrases or ideas down wherever I hear them, whether they come recycled from my own head or directly from the radio, television or real life.

I tend to write in the late morning and in the early afternoon. If I write at night I get insomnia with the words stubbornly playing in my head, so I read then instead. My favourite authors are Stephen King and Donna Tart who are brilliant at characterisation and portraying the underdog, not to forget building suspense! Books I have enjoyed reading this year include those by Kim Edwards, Alice Munro, Danny Scheinmann, Sophie Hannah, Tim Butcher and Gregory Maguire.

Through my own writing I hope to entice the reader into the story, so that they are a fly on the wall experiencing the events and locations. I want to give them an opportunity to live someone else’s life and travel without leaving their seat. I am working on short stories across several genres but would love to eventually write a novel.

All this aside, my partner, children and two guinea pigs keep me in mischief. I like the theatre and ballet if I get the chance. I attempt each spring to grow some colour for my jungle of a garden which doubles up as long term accommodation for weeds.

My story:

Believing Is Seeing is about a girl called Hannah who feels like the underdog. Her brother likes to boast of how good he is, although he isn’t all that he portrays. Hannah meets a blind lady called Rebecca who accepts her lack of sight as God’s will, as it has taught her to see things and become wise by listening more. This lady also lets Hannah know that if you believe in something you will see it. For example, Hannah’s dad believes his son is hard-working and so only sees this in him. Hannah is excluded from a trip to see Jesus but goes anyway. Rebecca’s words have instilled confidence in Hannah and she does a kind deed for an elderly man en-route. Jesus lets Hannah and her brother know that there is no need to boast and that God watches their unsung actions. Hannah visits the blind lady again to find that she has regained her sight. Is it a coincidence or a miracle? Perhaps it’s the result of God watching Hannah’s good deeds? Hannah shuts her eyes to listen to her own instincts. She concludes that in Rebecca’s case believing really is seeing.

I didn’t have any criteria for writing this story except to fit the brief of a Real Bible Story; the underlying theme just evolved. Everyone experiences unjustness in their lives, from the large to the small, and they sometimes wonder why life is so unfair. If you have something to believe in, that makes you feel better able to weather the unjustness, and don’t lose sight of it, something good usually comes from it eventually. This story tries to capture that. As it uses a belief in God and is set in the time and area Jesus performed miracles, I feel it fits well into the anthology.

I don’t know about uniqueness. I think my story can be read as simply an entertaining tale or children may identify with it further. It could give strength to a child who is being bullied for example, or even make a bully reading it think twice. It may help a child who is undergoing a transition such as divorce or move to a new school, to feel and act more positively.

SoniaSmith

A Midnight Clear

What do you normally write? All sorts: poems, plays, stories and I have written 3 novels (as yet unpublished)
Tell us about the story you've had accepted and what inspired it? I wanted to write something that reflected how some of the minor characters in the Christmas story would have felt about what was happening. The shepherds get a few lines in the Bible but it must have been a quite terrifying, life-changing experience for them.
What made you become a writer? When I was seven I wanted to be an actress but realised I was too sensitive to take the rejection at auditions (yes, even at the age of 7). So I decided to be creative in another way through writing. What was that about rejection, I hear you say? Yes, I've had plenty of rejection slips but somehow it doesn't seem so personal coming through the post. Despite acting having been my childhood passion, I do find myself transported to another world when I write and can leave all life's issues behind me even if what I have produced is clumsy and lacking in imagination so it was a good choice for me.
Which writers do you admire? I like writers who write well but can still tell a good story so amongst my favourites are Daphne Du Maurier and Wilkie Collins and no matter what age I reach I will always love Michael Bond's Paddington Bear stories.
Do you have a favourite place for writing? My house isn't big enough to have a favourite place but I tend to write in the lounge. However, I invariably dream up all my stories in the shower or the bath.
What is your writing routine? Do you have to fit it around your day job? No routine at all-shame on me! Yes, I have a very demanding day job and am currently helping to run a church so it's a real miracle I managed to revise my story in time to meet the deadline and produce something of a publishable standards
What do you hope to achieve through your writing? I would like to see at least one of my novels published.
Anything else you think we ought to know about you? (Can be as silly or as relevant as you like!) I would steal wine gums from babies!

Real Bible Stories 2009: Disasters and Miracles

About Me

About the Bible Story Anthology

Sally Angell

Anne Brooke

Anne Brooke

Dawn Bush

Dawn

Lilian Butterwick

Debz Hobbs-Wyatt

Debz

Elise Harter

Elsie Harter

Gill James

Gill

Jennifer Robertson

Jennifer

Nicolette Rushmere

Nicolette

My story:

SoniaSmith

Sonia

Submission Guidelines: click on the link

Monday, 4 May 2009

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