Tag: POC writer

I feel sick.

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I’m currently in my 10th week of lockdown, and to be honest quarantine life hasn’t really made me want to write about anything.

But yesterday, another innocent black man was murdered in America by the police. This is the third black person to have their life cruelly taken away from them in the space of a few months because of police brutality.

Because of inherent racism in a country that calls itself openly ‘the land of the free.’

Because of a systematic and biased system that is supposed to be there for the people, not just a small selection of people they deem worthy of their protection.

It is disgusting and sickening for me to see this. And I’m tired. Tired of seeing black people mercilessly black listed, oppressed and denied their human rights. How many more innocent lives will be claimed and taken before they should be? How many more families will lose loved ones? How many more children will be scared to step outside of their own homes?

Staying silent, knowing that what is happening is wrong, is just as complicit as doing nothing. We need to use of platforms to show solidarity, to show our support and to make noise loud enough the world over to show that we will not stand for these injustices. I am reminded of this poem from 1946 as I type this out and I would urge you all to read it.

Just because you are not black does not mean that you cannot empathise with their plight. You can make yourself an ally and show your support:

  • Educate yourself – don’t just take what you read and watch on TV and social media as fact. Research it for yourself.
  • Ask someone – if you don’t feel like you know enough, or you need help understanding or clarification don’t be afraid to ask.
  • Promise to listen – give people a platform and your ear. Listen to their grievances.
  • Step in – if you see racial injustice, no matter how uncomfortable you may feel, step in and help.

For too long we have sat back and watched as people from different races and backgrounds have been persecuted and killed, made to feel worthless and scared of living in the countries they’re born in and done nothing. We need to do more and we need to do it now. The time for change is here.

I am here and I am an ally. I will stand up for you and I will not back down from your fight.

George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery.

Say their names✊🏽

xo

Book subscriptions🤗

Hi😁

One of the (many) things that I love about books is that book subscriptions exist! For me, nothing beats wandering around a book store, but receiving a monthly book parcel in the post is just😌 A little gift from me to me🤗

I currently have a monthly book subscription to Reposed and did also have one with Bookishly if you would like to check them out.

What I love about the Reposed subscription is that it’s not just about the book you receive. They take the time to include handmade chocolates, teas, beauty products and/or stationary. All made independently and to the highest standards. So you dont just pay for a novel, which is great in itself, but you’re also paying to help local and independent businesses.

The novels that are sent in the Reposed subscription are modern literary fiction if that’s your jam. Or if you’d like to start reading more modern fiction then definitely give this a go! They handpick the newest, inspiring and insightful novels to send and I’ve enjoyed every single one.

February’s box of goodies!

If modern fiction isn’t your thing, not to worry, Bookishly is there for you! They will send out classic novels that they have beautifully re-created the cover to in house. And if classics aren’t your thing, there are so many different types or book subscriptions out there from Crime and Detective to YA to Women led/feminist literature to just receiving a completely random book, there’s a subscription box for you!

xo

Placement level…complete!

Hello everyone 🙂

Hope January is treating you all well. I know it can be a difficult time for a lot of people, but bigger and brighter things are around the corner for you!

What’s new with everyone?

For me, I finally completed my first placement of my teaching training course which means I’m more than halfway through! Gosh. I didn’t think this would come around so quickly. It felt like it was dragging its heels😅 but in the best way. I enjoyed it completely and gained so much from it that really cemented that teaching is the career for me.

I bawled like a baby (in private – can’t let the kids see that!) when one of my classes gave me a notebook filled with lovely comments about my teaching. Urgh😭

With teaching there’s that constant feeling that looms over you that you’re not good enough or that you’re not doing enough. And boy did I feel that on an hourly, never mind on a daily, basis. There is always something more you could be doing. Even right now, writing this, there is something that I probably could be doing to enhance my teaching career. But where is the stop sign? Where are the boundaries? There aren’t. It’s as simple as that. The main thing I learnt on my first section of this journey is the need to switch off and to separate myself from my teaching and my teaching persona. It’s hard and I’m still navigating through the currents, but I’m slowly starting to get there. Waking up in a panic at 3am most nights thinking about things I hadn’t completed, or even started, was not the one. Everything I watched or heard, or conversations I took part in made me think about how I could use it in my lessons. Pages upon pages of notes of ideas…have I used any of them? Big fat nope.

It’s definitely an all encompassing career and one that 100% will take over your life if you let it. Yet, I’m thriving and crossing everything that my next placement goes just as well.

xo

You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess. It’s a love story, baby just say yes.

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Hello 🙂

I love love. I love romance. Give me heart wrenching, tear jerking couples pushing and pulling at each other, not realising they’re made for each other only to recognise it at the last moment to love happily ever after. Give me couples who shouldn’t be together or are enemies who fall in love, along with all the other soppy clichés. I’m a sucker for it. Ahhh ❤

But that’s not to say I enjoy reading romance novels where that becomes the only plotline and everything else redundant. For me, I like to have romance in novels/literature as an added bonus rather than being the main plot. I don’t want characters to be reduced to being love interests, I want their love to add to a story, to enhance it further, to be a driving force. More often than not however, that’s the case. Whether it be women thrown into a narrative, reduced to being nothing more than a one dimensional sexual character, or a male character being written purely to enhance a female’s story – to give her story purpose – because she can’t have a purpose without a man surely(!) I want flawed characters. I want them to fall in love with the person and the not the idea of romance. I know that it might be a little hypocritical to say that given that the first thing I said was I love romance. I mean the whole idea of romance is to sell an idyllic version of it right? To allow us to fulfil our fantasies and escape to a world where everything is easier and simpler, where a boy would come in and sweep you off your feet or a girl would give everything up for you in a heartbeat, you take one look at the movie industry in the 90’s and you can see that, it distorts or perceptions and our ideas of what love and romance should be and more often than not, the reality never lives up to the fantasy.

But. When you think of the best fictional couples, or when I think of my favourites, the ones that instantly spring to mind aren’t the perfect couples where everything goes right. My favourite literary couples are the ones where actually, everything goes pretty wrong. Where they butt heads and clash. Where they have a difference of opinions but compliment each other, making each other whole. Love is imperfect so why shouldn’t the couples be imperfect with it? Love is blind and romance is a fantasy, but what I love about my favourite fictional couples is their resilience, their strength and their fight for one another. Give me Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy with their different stances on pretty much everything. Give me Ron and Hermione who are imperfectly perfect for each other (no matter what JK says!) and give me Oliver and Jennifer who show that romance will never die.

“The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays.

xo

Gotta love a bit of Shakespeare 

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Hi!

Look at me writing two blogs within 2 days😊 Fingers crossed this streak continues!

Today I want to talk about Shakespeare…I mean, it’s not as if no-one’s given the man enough of a spotlight right?

I was disillusioned with Shakespeare for so long – mainly because it had been improperly taught to me and forced down my throat from the age of 7 when I couldn’t really comprehend the complexity of his writing. It wasn’t until I was in my final year of University (doing a Shakespeare module I might add) where I fell in love with good ol’ William. My lecturer was so passionate and taught his work in a way that was digestible, understandable and most of all, enjoyable. I finally understood why he was a big deal in the literary world – his prose, poetry, descriptions and language are just sublime.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a few plays I don’t like ***controversial opinion upcoming*** like Romeo and Juliet (🤤). Why this one you ask? Again I’ve been forced to read, react and perform this since the age of about 10 over and over and over again. I think by the time I was 14 I was so sick of it. I mean once again, don’t get me wrong, I’ll watch Leonardo DiCaprio in all his 90’s cute glory at any given point in the day, but the play itself I just can’t bring myself to enjoy reading. Maybe I need to bite the bullet and give it another go…maybe.

But I will say this about Shakespeare. All his plays are strongly rooted in terms of genre – whether it be tragedy, comedy or history – and his characters are widely flawed, human, and real. That’s what makes his play so memorable and so contemporary at the same time. There’s a reason why he’s stuck in the public mind for over 400 years. His plays, while written in the Elizabethan era, are so adaptable and transferable for any time period or actor.

Coriolanus

Coriolanus is my favourite play of his. It’s classed as a tragedy, but like so many of Shakespeare’s plays there’s overlaps with other genres. It’s so witty (I think anyway), and relatable especially in these recent times. I was lucky enough to see Tom Hiddleston’s performance at the NT which was incredible (and he’s super hot too🙊). Please give it a read if you haven’t!

Ah Shakespeare, you keep on doing your thing❤

xo