Stories
I’m fascinated by stories.
They thrill and delight. Heal or soothe. They transport us to fantastical or ominous places. They show us lives both similar and vastly different to our own.
Sometimes we read a story and think: that happened to me — that person is just like me. And we’ll feel less alone.
When stories speak to us, they seem effortless, but learning to craft them is painful and takes a lifetime.
I told my first stories to myself as a child, playing with little model animals. I made houses for them out of Lego. They had love affairs, dreams and feuds. They travelled and came back again. I had my favourites.
As a teenager, I wrote a secret novel. About a girl who fell in love with a rock star and rode a horse on Hampstead Heath. My friend found it. I was mortified. She offered a bargain; an enticement to allow her to read it. An embarrassing truth about masturbation — mutually assured destruction should we betray each other. I handed it over...
She laughed, so I set fire to it in the sink and nearly burned the kitchen down.
Then I started a dystopian story about a future world where every act was under surveillance, and only same-sex relationships were allowed. I’d just read 1984. It too was a love story of sorts. I never showed that one to anybody. I was 16. I ran away from home and abandoned writing for a bit — I was too busy living.
Over the years, I’ve written poetry, stories, films. All sorts of things. I’ve been on a quest to find my voice, a mission to seek my truth.
There were times when I abandoned the quest because it became too dangerous. But it’s hard to keep my ideas to myself — they don’t like staying locked in my head. They caw and argue like crows in a cage. So I have to set them free.
Voices change, and truth is elusive, but when stories are told well, they transcend the mundane and fly high in a bright sky. They connect us to each other. They remind us what existence really means…
Names
Surnames have been mercurial creatures for me. Because they never really belonged to me, but more to men in my life.
My mum was young and unmarried when I was born; a scandal in those times. So my first surname was my grandfather’s. It was a diminutive of a longer Scandi name. No one could pronounce it before or after.
When my mother married some errant Lothario, she took the name of this new man. And so, by default, did I. When they divorced I shed it like a skin, just as she did.
When I got married, I took on Edwards. I wore it for a quarter of a century, and much of what I wrote and created wore it too. It fit me well for a while. At least people could pronounce it. But it too was another borrowed name; it wasn’t mine.
There were also times, as is often the case with women, when I gave ideas, effort and creativity to projects that had no name of mine ascribed to them at all, not even a borrowed one.
Then, as happens with life, mine shifted. Beyond recognition.
As I navigated a new path, I wanted a name that really was mine and would never change whatever my circumstance. I wanted any new work to carry it too.
The only names that have ever truly been mine were the forenames my mother gave me when I was born. She gave them with love.
They were Sam and Faith…Stories
I’m fascinated by stories.
They thrill and delight. Heal or soothe. They transport us to fantastical or ominous places. They show us lives both similar and vastly different to our own.
Sometimes we read a story and think: that happened to me — that person is just like me. And we’ll feel less alone.
When stories speak to us, they seem effortless, but learning to craft them is painful and takes a lifetime.
I told my first stories to myself as a child, playing with little model animals. I made houses for them out of Lego. They had love affairs, dreams and feuds. They travelled and came back again. I had my favourites.
As a teenager, I wrote a secret novel. About a girl who fell in love with a rock star and rode a horse on Hampstead Heath. My friend found it. I was mortified. She offered a bargain; an enticement to allow her to read it. An embarrassing truth about masturbation — mutually assured destruction should we betray each other. I handed it over...
She laughed, so I set fire to it in the sink and nearly burned the kitchen down.
Then I started a dystopian story about a future world where every act was under surveillance, and only same-sex relationships were allowed. I’d just read 1984. It too was a love story of sorts. I never showed that one to anybody. I was 16. I ran away from home and abandoned writing for a bit — I was too busy living.
Over the years, I’ve written poetry, stories, films. All sorts of things. I’ve been on a quest to find my voice, a mission to seek my truth.
There were times when I abandoned the quest because it became too dangerous. But it’s hard to keep my ideas to myself — they don’t like staying locked in my head. They caw and argue like crows in a cage. So I have to set them free.
Voices change, and truth is elusive, but when stories are told well, they transcend the mundane and fly high in a bright sky. They connect us to each other. They remind us what existence really means…
Names
Surnames have been mercurial creatures for me. Because they never really belonged to me, but more to men in my life.
My mum was young and unmarried when I was born; a scandal in those times. So my first surname was my grandfather’s. It was a diminutive of a longer Scandi name. No one could pronounce it before or after.
When my mother married some errant Lothario, she took the name of this new man. And so, by default, did I. When they divorced I shed it like a skin, just as she did.
When I got married, I took on Edwards. I wore it for a quarter of a century, and much of what I wrote and created wore it too. It fit me well for a while. At least people could pronounce it. But it too was another borrowed name; it wasn’t mine.
There were also times, as is often the case with women, when I gave ideas, effort and creativity to projects that had no name of mine ascribed to them at all, not even a borrowed one.
Then, as happens with life, mine shifted. Beyond recognition.
As I navigated a new path, I wanted a name that really was mine and would never change whatever my circumstance. I wanted any new work to carry it too.
The only names that have ever truly been mine were the forenames my mother gave me when I was born. She gave them with love.
They were Sam and Faith…