Where did the idea of The Selkie come from?

The Selkie founders all met while studying postgraduate degrees in Creative Writing at The University of Edinburgh. It turned out that they shared goals: all wanted more representation in the arts and decided that they would start The Selkie as a way of helping underrepresented artists and writers. The Selkie was then created, in 2018, to be a magazine with ‘representation’ as its core value that would extend across the boundaries of academia, culture, gender and race, and offer the works of underrepresented writers year-round to its readers.

Why the name?

Searching for what connects us in purpose, place and time, we were drawn to the image of a wild, untamed being emerging from the unseen depths of the ocean – the selkie, whose myth has been passed down through generations in Scotland – the place where we met and decided to create a literary website together.

Selkies are creatures of ancient lore, who swim in water as seals yet have the ability to transform into humans and walk on land, and thus reveal their dual nature. By shedding their skins, selkies give in to the joy and freedom of expression by singing and dancing on the coarse sand beneath their feet, underneath a full moon. However, when selkies first emerge from the waves, they make sure to hide their pelts in order to protect them – for without their seal skins, they would never be able to return to their native home.

Their story resonates today, for it is these ‘skins’ that underrepresented individuals wear and shed as our circumstances change – at times a burden, but mostly a gift that unfortunately is not always recognised. And this is how we must live, out in the world, every single day – attempting to express our dual natures and being careful not to lose an essential part of ourselves in the process.

What makes The Selkie different to other publications?

The Selkie not only publishes and promotes underrepresented voices exclusively, but we support them in endeavours such as free in-person writing workshops, and our New Voices Workshop which is a mentorship program that is offered by members of our editorial team to aspiring writers. There is no cost to apply or participate. Indeed, we never charge for submissions and all of our content is completely free to read and view, including our previous anthology Transformation. Additionally, our team are from all walks of life, and from all over the world.

It’s an international project – is that important to you?

It’s an international project – is that important to you? The fact that this an international project is incredibly important to us: we are always seeking the greatest breadth of stories, but it is especially prescient given the theme. What a ‘home’ is, from (in its basest interpretation) the building you grow up in to the people who mould and shape you, from the expectations and histories to the rejection and escape; all of this is so inextricably entwined with the various geographical, political and cultural contexts that make them that interrogating the notion of ‘home’ must be an international project, in order to fully appreciate the complexity and difference of our experiences. It is at the heart of the project, not least because a number of our stories explore explore the challenges of belonging and remaking home across international borders, and the effect on individual, familial and communal myth-making. It also presents a unifying lens across borders, drawing lines of similarity across what makes people feel at home, no matter where they are in the world: family, loved ones, and the safety to be who we are.

How do you choose what makes it into the magazine?

For this project, I think we were struck by the emotional rawness of the work. This was a theme that prompted such an outpouring of vulnerability and honesty that that became a guiding proponent of forming ‘The Same Havoc’. We were looking not only for nostalgic renderings of ‘how things were’, but for voices and experiences of difference, that complicated the notion of ‘home’ as simply an origin, or a static ideal, or of presumed safety. We were looking for stories of change and self-making, for viewpoints we hadn’t considered. We were astonished and touched by the responses we had.

For more information head to The Selkie.

Leaf Arbuthnot’s Looking for Eliza is a beautifully tender story that has human connection at its core. The universality of the importance of relationships is the thread that runs through it, whether it’s the warm hearted Ada or open minded Eliza, both are looking for something.

I found the read pacy, exciting, and fascinating. A delicate touch on deep psychological yearnings and the human condition.

I spoke to Leaf to learn more.

Where did the idea for Looking For Eliza come from?

Japan, strangely enough. A few years ago I heard that people there were making money from pretending to be someone’s girlfriend, wife, friend, dad. It struck a chord. While materially a lot of us aren’t lacking, I think many of us are suffering from emotional deficits. We’re lonely. I wanted to explore how it might feel to sell your time and personality and attention, in an intimate way that doesn’t involve sex. I didn’t want to set my story in Japan as I’ve not been and I also wanted to probe Englishness. So I came up with the idea of an older woman who lives in Oxford and decides to set up a business where she rents herself out as a gran, after her husband dies. Once Ada had come to me (more or less wholesale as she is in the book) other characters slinked up too, most notably Eliza.

Who is looking for Eliza? Is it Ada trying to find friendship? Eliza trying to find herself?

For readers who’ve not read the book: Eliza is my younger character, who’s 25 and doing a PhD. She lives opposite Ada, who’s a poet in her seventies and who starts the ‘rent-a-gran’ business after her husband dies. Both characters are quietly questing, as I see it. Eliza’s had her heart trashed by a former girlfriend. She and Ruby had a long relationship, and Eliza is now having to find out how to be alone as an adult. It’s something I’ve had to do in my life: when you de-extricate from someone you love, you can find that the muscles you once relied on to stand up straight by yourself have weakened. So Eliza is trying to work out who she is, or who she can be, in her own right. There’s a chapter I loved writing in which she basically tries everything: casual sex, art, religion, whatever to make herself feel whole. 

As for Ada, I see her as not realising, for quite some time after the death of her husband, that she needs to continue to develop as a person. She has had the most magnificent marriage, and quite a rich life though not one full of achievements. But she learns after Michael’s death that she can’t just lead the same life she was leading before minus him. She needs to take charge and act to enrich her life again. She needs friends, basically. I’ve been interested for a long time in how friendships multiply or die off – too many older people I know have failed to keep friendships alive, often for legit reasons (they were busy having kids for instance). Ada eventually realises she needs other people; solitude isn’t feasible forever. 

What do you think intergenerational friendships offer that friendships of people of a similar age don’t?

Perspective mainly. Older people tend to take a longer view and can encourage younger friends to see the wood for the trees. My grandmother is 100 and I’ve found talking to her over the years to be immensely reassuring. For someone who has lived since 1919, as she has, there are few problems you can take to her that she views as insurmountable or even significant. Generally I also think that friendships across generations are often less encumbered by envy, rivalry, longing and judgement. You’re at different stages in your life. One of my closest friends is a man in his mid sixties – my parents’ age – and while we don’t see eye to eye on almost anything (particularly politics) there’s a shared sense of humour there that’s precious to me. 

Obviously friendships with people of a similar age are important. I would be nowhere without my cohort of friends; the pandemic has underlined that over and over. But I don’t think we invest in intergenerational friendships enough in Britain, or take them seriously. In fact often young people are shown boating in to telephone vulnerable lonely oldies, which I understand is important, but can underemphasise how much they stand to gain from that connection.

There’s some beautifully romantic – and sensual – passages as Eliza falls in love, sleeps with people, and discovers women she fancies. You don’t often read about lesbian or bisexual relationships, even in our enlightened times. Why do you think this is?

Thank you, I’m slightly bemused to report that the “sex scenes” in the book – if you can call them that – were among my favourite bits to write. I’ve tried to work out why, and I think it’s because sex is such a strange and dramatic experience that it was therapeutic to try to work it out on the page. I could have made it more explicit but I didn’t think the passages needed that. 

It’s true that lesbian and bisexual love and sex still doesn’t get much of a showing in mainstream novels. Too often I think same-sex love is ushered into the rainbow corner. I think authors who are straight are probably now a little wary of writing same-sex relationships for fear of appropriation. There’s also a deficit of experience that they probably baulk at. And other challenges arise with it. If you’re writing say a story about a family, by making the parents two women or two men, you might as a writer feel the need to address the unusualness of that dynamic. The book could be dismissed as some LGBTQ+ story. I can see writers not wanting to clutter up their tale with those questions and concerns.

But for me, Eliza meandered over as a bisexual young woman so that’s how she stayed in the book. I didn’t feel the need to get too entangled in a discussion about her sexuality. It does come up though, because Ada, in her seventies, can’t help but be fascinated by Eliza’s sexuality. I think it’s normal for people of an older generation to be gripped by the sexual proclivities of the young, to stress about them choosing their own gender, etc, and I wanted to probe that. 

You’re a literary critic. Does close reading of other books help inform your writing?

Absolutely. There are two strands to this question, I guess. Firstly there’s my work as a book critic, which is vital to my writing because I’ve been reading contemporary stuff forensically for years now, and have been able to work out what I like and what I don’t. But the more important strand here is my reading generally. I read pretty widely (novels and poetry, I have to force myself to read non-fiction). I find there is a horrifyingly direct relationship between what I read and what I write. If I’m not reading interesting nourishing books, I’m not writing anything worth the word doc it’s typed on. Reading novels and poetry is the foundation of my work as a writer. I am baffled by novelists who don’t read. If you’re a non-fiction author it’s a slightly different thing.

Set between 1900 and 1919 in picturesque Cornwall and war-blasted London, Maggie Humm’s Talland House takes Lily Briscoe from the pages of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and tells her story outside the confines of Woolf’s novel—as a student in 1900, as a young woman becoming a professional artist, her loves and friendships, mourning her dead mother, and solving the mystery of her friend Mrs. Ramsay’s sudden death.

It’s evocative and engaging, sweeping landscapes simmering next to psychological interior exploration. Picturesque Cornwall and busy London are the backdrop for a young woman growing up, and an older woman reflecting back. We’re treated to details about the captivating Lily Briscoe and her relationship with herself, her art, and the women and men in her life. It’s a great read, from a clearly very knowledgeable writer.

I caught up with Maggie to find out more.

Why did you decide to write Talland House?

Everyone has a novel inside themselves somewhere. I wrote my first ‘novel’ aged eight, told from the point of view of an encyclopaedia who dropped on the head of a burglar to save a library. I didn’t get a gold star because the teacher said it was unrealistic ‘no-one burgles libraries Margaret.’ But libraries were my world and so I’ve always written books – before Talland House academic books. They say write about what you know and as an academic specialist in Woolf, I know about Woolf and about myself (all debut novels are autobiographical in some way).

Virginia Woolf has a very distinctive style – were you trying to echo this at all?

Initially, and almost subconsciously, I wrote with Woolf’s indirect discourse and use of multiple viewpoints. At my first reading in my Diploma of Creative Writing course the tutor Gillian Slovo quite rightly advised me to choose a less confusing style so that readers could identify with Lily. But Talland House is full of events, people and places Woolf knew and some vocabulary (‘granite and rainbow’ feature!).

Why are you interested in Virginia Woolf?

My first book Feminist Criticism: Women as Contemporary Critics has a chapter on Woolf and my interest grew from there. Like many people, I identify with Woolf’s politics: feminism, pacifism, socialism and her ideas about democratic education and living in touch with each other and with nature. In addition the Woolf societies around the world are very welcoming and sustaining with annual conferences which trigger further interest. This year even the fashion world loves Woolf with the 2020 Met Gala and Givenchy’s collection devoted to her novel Orlando.

Why did you take To the Lighthouse as your starting point, rather than another novel?

I first read To the Lighthouse as an adolescent after the death of my mother and fell in love with the mother-figure Mrs Ramsay. Later I discovered that Woolf’s mother Julia Stephen was 49 when she died and Virginia 13 – the exact ages of my mother and me when my mother died. There’s something so extraordinarily moving about mothering in To the Lighthouse, but Mrs. Ramsay dies suddenly and in parentheses (apologies to those who haven’t yet read the book!) and I knew I had to write a novel discovering how Mrs. Ramsay dies.

The book centres around Lily Briscoe’s painting – what interests you about this art form, as well as writing?

Although not trained as an art historian, I have long been a devotee of the arts in particular Bloomsbury’s dedication to different genres: murals, textiles, pottery, book design, as well as paintings, and to collaborative, decorative projects. Lily Briscoe paints Mrs. Ramsay’s portrait twice in the novel with the final version a more abstract painting, described by Woolf in terms of shapes, mass and colours, rather than only representational figures, much like her sister Vanessa Bell’s approach to art for example, Bell’s 1912 portrait of Woolf – Virginia Woolf. As Vanessa Bell said “artists, in the opinion of many are little better than lunatics [but] besides being rather mad, artists are apt to be revolutionaries”.

Did you have to do lots of historical research?

The research was huge but so enjoyable. As a Woolf scholar (my last three books focus on Woolf and the arts) I’d read all Woolf’s writings and writings by her family and friends. For Talland House I read Cornish newspapers for the times Lily is in St. Ives for weather, incidents, and atmosphere. I loved being in the airy map room at the top of the British Library looking at old photos of St. Ives for housing types and street scenes. I read artists’ memoirs, turn of the twentieth century art journals for a sense of artists’ lives and studios. I read everything on-line about World War I in London and how it felt to be there, for example, when the Germans suddenly switched from Zeppelins to Gotha bombers in 1917. Virginia Woolf herself experienced Gothas in Richmond December 1917. She wrote in her diary: “discussed the raid, which, according to the Star I bought, was the work of 25 Gothas, attacking in 5 squadrons & 2 were brought down”. I googled about music halls, other leisure pursuits, clothes, transport, and the accurate names of buildings. St. Ives and London became characters in my novel.

The most difficult task was keeping the research to a discreet underpinning not, as academics often do, glorifying it in long footnotes. Also difficult was that Lily gradually took over my life, my feelings, even my physical characteristics. She’s always early for appointments, she’s an only child herself with a dead mother, and her fingers are the shape of mine. Sometimes I wondered if I existed outside the novel.

But what the research did do was to bring me much closer than ever before, to a fuller sensation of Woolf’s worlds—the smell and feel of Talland House’s escallonia hedge, an almost bodily sense of the impact of bombs on London’s buildings, streets and inhabitants. This feeling for history and sensory experiences hopefully continues in my second novel, Rodin’s Mistress, about the tumultuous love affair of the sculptor Auguste Rodin and the painter Gwen John.

Why do writers need to join critique or writing groups?

The answer is simple. Some writers are natural-born writers; however, most of us need a lot of help.

Critique partners help you learn and grow. They ponder over your manuscript for character weaknesses, gaps in the plot, and grammar errors. Their work is invaluable. They push you to be a better writer.

The ideal critique group is made up of writers who are on the same writing level and write in the same genre. Constructive criticism and positive feedback should be the rule of the day. Be kind, but be honest. You should never gloss over poor writing. This is unfair to the other writer. Respect your critique partners. Respect is a two-way street.

Benefits of critique groups:  accountability, bonding, brainstorming, craft, editing, grammar, encouragement, listening skills, inspiration, motivation, learning, and friendship.

Like any relationship, critique groups take on their own character. Select your critique partners with care. Pick a group you’re comfortable with. Set guidelines and stick to them. Be accountable to the process and each other. Everyone has an opinion. You should not change your style of writing, because someone else thinks they know better. It is your story.

Critique groups evolve over time. You can outgrow each other. Perhaps it is time to move on. Be grateful for what you’ve learned. You may decide on a writing partner rather than a group next time. Choose a writing partner whose skills and schedule work well for you.

Writing groups are essential for all levels of writing. A writing group or chapter is networking at its best. A small writing group may foster closer friendships, while a large writing chapter may have more advanced writers for role models. Bottom line–We learn the craft, and we help each other.

Presentations, classes, workshops, and conferences help us learn the craft. Veteran writers who have achieved recognition far and wide can show us how they accomplished their writing goals. We are inspired by their success.

Writing chapters offer classes and workshops that teach us how to improve our craft. We learn by doing. A writer can never take too many classes or attend too many workshops. We can never learn enough about writing.

Writing conferences are great sources of education and networking. Whatever your weakness—characterization, dialogue, point of view, or plot—you can find a program to improve your skills.

Networking at a conference helps make new friends. Be bold. Smile and speak to other attendees. Spending time with other writers can make us better writers.

I attend writing conferences as often as I can. I enjoy meeting new authors, agents, and editors. I hope to see you at a writing conference and talk about that jewel of a book you want to polish and publish soon.

Georgia Stories on My Mind

Come visit Georgia within these pages as you read heartwarming stories shaped by local traditions and legends. The characters live life to the fullest through joys and hardships. Inhale the essence of Georgia’s revitalized small town squares while eating hand- scooped ice cream on a park bench. Each town has its own magic. Sometimes the most real things in life are things we cannot see but those that deeply touch us, as the folks in these tales learn. Share smiles and shed tears as you travel the curving road of life with these Georgia characters. Are you ready for an unforgettable experience of hope, faith, trust, reconciliation, and love?

Out now on Touch Not the Cat Books.

About the Author, Jackie Rod

Jackie Rod is a fiction writer, loving wife of a legal beagle, and mother of three children who has blessed her with seven fantastic grandchildren. After Jackie retired from teaching, her love of words and stories led her to begin writing fiction. Reading and traveling enrich her life and she jumps at the opportunity to teach a workshop or attend a writing conference. She belongs to five writing chapters/groups. Jackie’s work can be found in twelve published books on Amazon, in several Metro Atlanta libraries, and independent bookstores.

It’s all about working out which moments make a life, and how we get to where we are – and crucially, who we are. The controlled yet stream of consciousness style evokes the feeling that you are thinking through the issues with the narrator, who may or may not be Popkey herself (both are Californian natives in their early thirties). ‘I, at twenty-one, did not, had not yet settled on the governing narrative of my life. Had not yet realized the folly of governing narratives,’ she says, and embarks on trying to figure that out. She acknowledges that, like so many women, ‘I have been, that I continue to be, best at being a vessel for the desire of others.’

It’s a biting dissection, and the self consciousness that gleams onto the page sometimes feels selfish, but you get the feeling that’s what she’s aiming for. We are all living our own lives, and it shouldn’t be shocking that sometimes what we want comes first (even when it’s a case of disliking your own child, as one woman reveals). There’s a brilliant line that rings true yet makes the reader feel slightly uncomfortable in its veracity – ‘Isn’t that the test of love? The test of intimacy? The willingness to be cruel and the belief that, the moment of cruelty passed, the love, the intimacy, remains, undamaged.’

Each chapter could stand alone, as it’s more a selection of reflective pieces rather than pacey plot driven novel. Coming of age and discovering yourself can be lonely and difficult, but this brilliant first step from Popkey is a handbook to have onside.

Bart Lambert plays Jonathan Harker and Sophie Greenham plays Mina, with the duo also taking on other roles and flitting between characters including Dr Seward, Professor Van Helsing and Renfield. It’s a tricky thing to pull off when the novel has so many narrators, and it did feel a bit disjointed at times. Having not read the book, I found it hard to follow the story, although I guess that most people paying for the privilege of seeing the first play staged in the London Library’s 178 year history are familiar with the novel.

Creation Theatre, Oxford’s largest producing theatre, (read an interview with Lucy Askew, the head of and creative producer at Creation Theatre), has for the last 22 years established a growing reputation for their innovative theatrical adaptations of famous books with performances taking place in dramatic and unexpected locations. Kate Kerrow wrote this play, which has been directed by Helen Tennison. Design by Ryan Dawson Laight was great, as usual, and Eva Auster’s visuals  and Matt Eaton’s audio track conveying the sense of looming dread.

Surprisingly, whilst humour would never be the right word to describe what we see on stage, there are a few smiles raised. There’s no vampires, but quite a lot of sex. Mostly, however, it’s dark, and macabre and sinister – exactly what you want from Stoker’s story. I just wish it had been a bit more comprehensible.

Of the track, they tell us ‘true romance’ takes influence from classic romantic literature, drawing a line between love affairs throughout the ages, and channeling them through our own gothic perspective. It’s a mixture of the intertwining stories of Cleopatra and Caesar, Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe, Clarence and Alabama, and The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. We were also inspired by this quote from Wide Sargasso Sea – ‘Blot out the moon, Pull down the stars. Love in the dark, for we’re for the dark. So soon, so soon.’ true romance is about unrequited love, and all the unusual and intricate ways we express ourselves. We’re all different, we’re all strange, and that’s a beautiful thing.’

Lale is comes ffrom Slovakia to Auschwitz in 1942, and immediately stands out to both the guards and fellow prisoners. Given the privileged position of Tätowierer– the tattooist – his role is to mark his fellow prisoners with an identification number. One of them is a young woman, Gita, who Lale falls in love with immediately. The book follows their romance and relationship through the hardest of circumstances, and the warmth they have for one another radiates through the prose.

Lale is a compelling character who raised morale of those he was with as  Prisoner Number 32407 at Auschwitz II–Birkenau and provides a lightbeam of humanity to the reader. Despite its setting, the focus is not on atrocities committed in the concentration camps, although murder, gassing and rape are alluded to.

Instead this is a book about hope and a fierce desire for life that can keep pulling people through even the darkest of times.

Prolific author Tracy Chevalier will be discussing the many places and periods that she writes about, literary biographer Hilary Spurling turns her attention to Anthony Powell, an iconic figure of English letters, and writer and TED speaker Ann Morgan talks about her project to read a book from every country in the world in one calendar year.

Brian Clegg discusses big data and how the information revolution is changing our lives, whilst Steve Richards explores why conventional politicians are failing to adapt to the challenge of today, whilst Jamie Bartlett looks at radical alternatives.

We seek inspiration from outside the literary world as social and cultural historian Carol Dyhouse draws upon literature, cinema, and popular romance to show how the changing position of women has shaped their dreams about men, Pen Vogler tells us how she recreated recipes inspired by the novels and letters of Jane Austen and Alex Preston and Nicholas Ryle talk about how they were inspired by birds.

You can learn how to change the world through gentle protest with Sarah Corbitt and Craftivism, discuss gender with Juno Dawson, and delve into the world of therapy with Susie Orbach.

These are only a few of the highlights from the 2017 programme. For more information, head here.