In this week’s post, I’m pleased to share an interview with my author friend Helen Hollick, who during lockdown took to crime! Cosy crime, that is (or cozy, if you’re on the other side of the Atlantic from us).
Also new this week: an interview with me has just gone live on the website of Saga Egmont, the award-winning audiobook publisher currently in the throes of publishing audiobooks of the first seven Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries. Click here to read my interview on Saga Egmont’s website.(Link will open in a separate window.)
The first satisfied borrower of the day: my husband, with Liz Howard, volunteer librarian
I was delighted to be invited to launch the new Hawkesbury Upton Village Library yesterday, and I wrote a short speech to mark the occasion. A number of people afterwards asked me for a copy of it, so here it is for anyone who would like it.
After I’d spoken, local councillor Sue Hope added her thanks on behalf of the community to the Hawkesbury Village Hall Committee, the Parish Council and the Hawkesbury Writers for their support and funding for the new facilities, for which the books and services will be provided by South Gloucestershire Libraries. A team of eight wonderful village volunteers will staff the library and open it for two hours every fortnight.
My Opening Address
It’s a pleasure and an honour to be invited to open what is going to be a wonderful new resource for our community. It feels like we’re at a little bit of Hawkesbury history in the making.
Like many of you, I was sad that funding cuts led to the closure of the mobile library that had served us so well for so long. It brought great comfort and interest to many villages and hamlets beside ours, and it was always a heartwarming sight to see it trundling down our lanes. It was like a tardis full of books, manned by kind, friendly and knowledgeable staff always willing to help us, no matter how obscure our questions, even when we forget our library cards. I don’t know whether the mobile staff realised how much we loved and appreciated them, but on behalf of our community, I’d like to thank them for the pleasure they have brought us – and to congratulate them for their driving skills to manoeuvre that great bus down the lanes to us, time after time.
So a sad loss, but, like a phoenix from the ashes, this new and different kind of library, with its permanent base in our community, is the start of a whole new chapter (groan) in our bookish lives. In a way it will bring us the best of both worlds: access to the entire stock from South Gloucestershire Libraries, not only from Yate’s stocks but from anywhere in the south west. All we need to do is request them online from the comfort of our own homes, and they’ll be served up to us by our fantastic team of volunteers, all trained to give us the help we need at a local level.
Smart new mobile shelving allows the librarians to create a pop-up library every fortnight in the village hall
You can of course still use the other South Gloucestershire libraries of your choice – in Yate when you’re shopping, or the library nearest your workplace – but just as the mobile library brought resources to those who couldn’t get to those, so will the community library. But choosing books from the Community Library will help you save fuel and time – just as the Hawkesbury Stores makes it possible for us to buy groceries close to home.
For any cynics who are wondering whether public libraries are still relevant to us in the digital age, think again. Studies show that a large proportion of library users are also regular buyers of books. Libraries are for everyone – and not just for those who can’t afford to buy books.
Why do affluent book buyers use libraries too? Library books should not be considered as second-best to buying books. The quality of books in libraries is always high, mostly as new or nearly new condition, and it’s a joy to touch and hold them – these days, with the high production values of modern books, they are an aesthetic treat as well as a literary one. You can get as much of a buzz out of walking home with an armload of library books as from buying them in shops – and you don’t have to worry about running out shelf space at home, either.
Libraries also offer a low-risk strategy to expand your choice of reading matter. Well, I like to think of a library as a tasting menu in a restaurant. Like a tasting menu, a visit to the library offers you the chance to try new things. When you haven’t paid for a book, it doesn’t matter if you don’t much like it or finish it – but at the same time, you might discover new passions and interests in the process.
A library is also like a smorgasbord because it’s an all-you-can-eat menu – only in this restaurant of reading, you don’t end your visit by paying a bill. The only money you will spend here is if you treat yourself to some tea and cake, which you can do with a clear conscience because the takings for refreshments are what will cover the hall hire costs for each session.
But that’s fine too because libraries aren’t only about books on shelves. They are also an important social meeting point, accessible and affordable to all, where everyone may meet on an equal footing. They are hugely democratic and an enormously valuable anchor in our society for all sorts of reasons unrelated to books – the books might even be considered a bonus. What matters is that we connect.
Recommended reading for everyone who loves libraries
I’ve just finished reading a fascinating fly-on-the-wall memoir by a librarian, Chris Paling, called Reading Allowed. He points out that public libraries can also be study centres, play areas, A&E departments, refuges for the homeless and much more – Hawkesbury librarians, you have been warned! I’m sure our library will serve as a brilliant coffee shop too – a safe, warm place to socialise with friends. Fortunately libraries no longer have a silence rule!
I realise not everyone may be instantly persuaded that the library is for them. “I’m not much of a reader,” they might say, or “I don’t have time to read”. I bet they still find time to watch television. In that case, I say they just haven’t met the right book yet.
The book stock has been carefully curated to match the needs and interests of our community, and it will be constantly refreshed to keep it interesting for us.
Celebratory cake – we don’t do much in Hawkesbury that doesn’t include cake
Who watches “Game of Thrones”? Of course, that hugely popular series is based on books by a very wise man, George R R Martin, who famously said about books and reading:
“He who reads lives a thousand lives. He who does not read lives only once.”
Our new community library gives us all the chance to live a thousand lives. So please do take advantage of this wonderful gift to our village, today and every time it opens, once a fortnight, in future. I’m delighted to declare it now officially open.
If you love libraries, you might enjoy these other posts from my blog archives:
Both of the stories about libraries featured in those last two posts are included in Quick Change, my collection of flash fiction, available in paperback and ebook. Click the image to buy online or quote ISBN 978-0993087967 to order at your local bookshop.
A post about writing fiction and finding inspiration in public libraries
In the blue corner, my business desk
For the first time today, I decided to take a mini writing retreat in my local public library, and I’m jolly glad I did.
I’m lucky enough to have my own study at home, in which I’ve squeezed both a business desk for my freelance work and, for my fiction writing, a tiny upright bureau that used to be my grandfather’s. Even though it’s currently in a relatively tidy state, I needed some cooler air in which to write. My study’s upstairs, and all the heat in the house seems to gravitate towards it and stay there.
In the red corner, my fiction writing desk
As I had to go into our nearest town anyway to run an errand, I decided to take my notebook with me and sit in the calm, open-plan space of the Yate Public Library, where it might not be much cooler, but at least the air would circulate better.
Like a human thermometer, I roved around our large, single-story modern library, trying to decide the best place to settle. It’s a new, light and airy building, thanks to a National Lottery grant a few years ago. Easily the coolest spot was the children’s section. This was also one of the quietest, as I was there during school hours.
Always inspiring: a new spiral-bound notebook
After I’d been scribbling away happily in my new notebook for half an hour, a small girl aged about 3 arrived with her mum. She made a beeline for the open boxes of picture books and quickly made her choice. “But you’ve had that one before!” complained her mum. Undeterred, the little girl curled up in a chair to read it, or at least, to read the pictures – a great way to develop future reading skills, by the way, as is enjoying the same books over and over again.
Seeing how much pleasure this little girl was gaining from her favourite story gave me a real filip. It reminded me that writing stories isn’t really about the author getting words on the paper, to satisfy his or her own compulsion to write, but about filling the reader with pleasure. What better incentive could there be to any writer? I carried on writing…
Further Encouragement
On arriving home, satisfiedwith my morning’s work, I was torn between whether to close my eyes for a few minutes (gosh, this heat is enervating!) or to plough on with writing my story. While deliberating, I had the urge to check whether I’d received any new reviews lately. (Yes, authors do this a LOT.) To my delight, there was a new one against my Christmas collection of short stories, Stocking Fillers. Though the review was brief, it said enough to make me happy:
As promised in my last post, today I’m sharing the second of the two stories that I read aloud at the Indie Author Fair in Chorleywood last Sunday.
Both stories have been published in anthologies this year. The one I posted here earlier this week was included in National Flash Fiction Day’s 2014 anthology Eating My Words.
I was invited to write the second story, below, to appear in an interesting and unusual project that used flash fiction to promote positive expectations of local government services. Gosh!
I chose to celebrate the mobile library service in my story, because the village in which I live is fortunate to have a visit from one every fortnight. Mobile libraries are invaluable resources, storing an extraordinary assortment of fiction, non-fiction, CDs, DVDs and even jigsaw puzzles in their limited space, for the benefit of remote communities, free of charge. They are especially valuable to those who have no independent transport to reach their nearest public library, but they’re also welcome to those who can’t otherwise get out very much, such as parents with small children at home, or those caring for housebound relatives who do not have the freedom to leave the village often.
My preamble is in danger of being longer than my story (the required word count for submissions was 350 words), so without more ado, here we go….
Upwardly Mobile
Every other Tuesday, half way through my shift in the village shop, I’d watch the white mobile library bus trundle past on its way to park by the village school. On its return trip twenty minutes later, the lady driver would wave cheerfully to me. In our narrow lane, the giant books painted on the side of the van almost touched the shop window, making me feel the size of a Borrower, which was ironic, because I’d never borrowed any of its books.
Then at the start of October, my hours at the shop were cut. Our takings had been falling since the new superstore popped up a few miles away. After that, I was always at home on Tuesdays, alone in my cottage opposite the school. I’d watch the library van park outside my house.
As soon as its doors swung open, school children bearing books would bound up its steps. Older folk followed more slowly, cautiously gripping the handrail with their book-free hand. When they’d emerge one by one, they’d all be smiling, large print books a common bond between the very old and very young.
As the days shortened, I grew weary of daytime television. I wished I could afford more bus trips into town, or to anywhere that would make my life less dull. Then last Tuesday afternoon I finally found my courage. Once its regular visitors had dispersed, I slowly mounted the mobile library’s steps.
“Can I help you, dear?” asked the lady driver, now standing behind the counter. It seemed odd to hear her voice at last.
“I don’t know,” I faltered. “You see, I’m not much of a reader.”
When she ducked behind the counter, I thought it was to hide her scorn. But she popped up again with a library card application form and a pen.
“Ooh, everyone’s a reader, dear!”she exclaimed kindly. “You just haven’t found the right books yet. We’ve got something here for everyone. I’ll help you choose.”
But that’s all I have time to tell you now, because I want to get back to my book.
Self-satisfied selfie, snapped on the day that my paperback arrived in the post!
Change the Ending is an intriguing anthology which includes the work not only of seasoned authors but also of local government workers who had never written fiction before, but were persuaded to by the project’s creator Dawn Reeves, a powerhouse of energy and inspiration. It’s now available to buy here.
To read more of my short stories, you might like to try either of my single-author collections:
Quick Change, published in the summer to mark National Flash Fiction Day, featuring 20 flash fictions on the theme of change
Stocking Fillers, just published this month, to celebrate Christmas with 12 humorous short stories
Both are now available as ebooks on Kindle, but if you’re ereader-averse, you’ll be able to buy them in paperback very shortly!
Also new this week: an interview with me has just gone live on the website of Saga Egmont, the award-winning audiobook publisher currently in the throes of publishing audiobooks of the first seven Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries. Click here to read my interview on Saga Egmont’s website. (Link will open in a separate window.)
