My Language and I

I was leafing through The Haw Lantern by Seamus Heaney again this morning over breakfast. Yes, I read poetry over breakfast sometimes and it beats checking my phone and getting caught up with emails and the utter rubbish spewed out on social media. 

Anyway, back to Heaney, I read A Peacock's Feather which Heaney wrote for his niece, Daisy Garnett, in 1972. In it he talks about her christening in Gloucestershire and ponders his background and hers being so different; hers orderly, almost courtly, and his, in another country, rougher, and he talks of how he has modified himself to fit into her world:

I come from scraggy farm and moss,

Old patchwork that the pitch and toss

Of history have left dishevelled.

But here, for your sake, I have levelled

My cart-track voice to garden tones,

Cobbled the bog with Cotswold stones.

(from The Haw Lantern by Seamus Heaney, Faber and Faber (London) 1987)

It is rare I read Heaney without something resonating and this passage has been hanging around in my head all day. In Gibraltar, we have just celebrated another National Day and the city and its people have been festooned in red and white - clothes, bunting, flag, banners, shop window displays, you name it, there's a red and white version of it - but this poem got me thinking: where do we come from, when we say we are from Gibraltar?

As a people, Gibraltarians talk proudly, and rightly so, of the Rock, of its centuries' old fame for impregnability in the face of conflict, of holding fast, physically and metaphorically, to its values. We are proud of much of our history although this is more often than not the white-washed version passed down to us by our British imperial masters, written in their language, using their terms, their memories. It has only been in relatively recent years, that a Gibraltarian culture and identity has begun to emerge. Even then, it is still seen by many people outside of Gibraltar as "Britain in the sun" because we cling onto our Britishness as if that was the only thing worth holding on to, or we are looked at as Spanish but trying to be British, or as nothing of any importance at all, some kind of mongrel race that is neither here nor there, or this or that.

So, having pondered that passage by Heaney and having spent a couple of days at the University of Basel immersed in matters of language and Gibraltarian literature with acadmics and writers from across Europe (link to information below), I took to thinking about what we do as Gibraltarians with our voices.

 Language and speech is how we communicate with others and how we speak, the sound of our words, the tone of voice, in fact, everything about speech is as revealing about us as individuals and as a culture as our flag and our British post boxes and our delight in churros in the morning and calamares fritos en el bar en Eastern Beach por la tarde. We know that regional accents tell us about where people are from in a country and if in England, then whether the person speaks with received pronunciation tells us a lot about their social class, or their aspirations to a higher class (this is a very British thing, class) or even their level of education.

Gibraltarians and their Language

Gibraltar International Conference 3 in Basel

Do we make changes when we speak when we encounter people from other cultures, I wonder? In Gibraltar, do we 'cobble the bog' of our speech? I think the answer is 'yes, we do.' I have listened to Gibraltarians in Spain trying to pronounce the ends of the words (we don't do that in Gib that much and nor do Andalucians). It sounds awkward. I find myself trying to do it, especially hardening the 'r' and putting the 'th' (I do not have a clue about phonetics, so any linguists reading this, please forgive me) in the right place in a word. I end up battling with my own tongue and giving up. Or not speaking at all, which is a poor option - every attempt at speaking someone's language is a sign of respect for them. Much better to speak in Llanito and explain the odd, errant word that is unique to Llanito (I spell it with a 'll" and am not going to argue about it!) than get into a muddle trying to be something that I'm not.

Same with the speaking of English. I have an English accent having lost my llanito accent as a child growing up in England. It was jolly handy because the racist bullies were mercilessly picking on me because I had a sing-song intonation to my voice and added 'bueno' at the start of most sentences and ended them with 'no'. I double-cobbled my own bog with south-east England tarmac.

Then there's also the matter of tone and pitch. I find Gibraltarians are loud. Seriously, if excited, we are endearingly but 'hurt-the-ears' loud. I missed that effervescence of speech when I lived in England but I made sure that I toned down my propensity to arm waving and volume increase when overly enthusiastic about a conversation; in a girls' grammar school of the seventies, all that continental passion simply 'would not do'. 

I wonder if I should have just been myself. I'm neither English in England, and, after over thirty years away, I am not particularly Gibraltarian in Gibraltar, and it is through language and the way I speak that my identity, or lack of it, generates assumptions in others. This is why I found the linguistic biographies collected in Gibraltarians and their Language published by the University of Vigo last year so enthralling and instructive. Language and how we use it in Gibraltar is fascinating, in particular the cultural and sociological connotations that are exposed when we speak it, and it is hugely reveealing about us as a people and about how we are evolving as a culture. 

These days, the attempt at rescuing our language from oblivion is gathering pace. There is a good deal of information online and the push for accepting greater use of llanito, of using it to write and produce literature is gathering pace. Just check out the work of poets Gabriel Moreno, Giordano Durante and Jonathan Teuma just for starters, and others, such as Rebecca Calderon with her landmark introduction of 'Bloomsday' in Gibraltar, are showing the world that small as we are, we do have a place in the world of literature. 

I do not come from a 'scraggy farm and moss', I come from a 'craggy land of rock, battlefield that the pitch and toss of stormy sea has left dishevelled, but here, for your sake, I have levelled my fish-wife voice to subtler tones, smothered the self, betrayed my bones'.

Not having a clear identity, not having a sense of complete belonging is odd. But perhaps it is ideal for creativity, for writing, for poetry.

Durante's essay on written Llanito

Calderon on Bloomsday

Gabriel Moreno

Jonathan Teuma

Pondering Poetry

Pondering Poetry

Pondering poetry is something I do from time to time: I like to read poetry, I like to read about poetry, think about it, play about with the sound and feel of poetry. I sometimes even have a go at writing poetry, but all too frequently emerge from my scribbling and pondering feeling at worst frustrated at my pathetic effort, and at best flat, staring at my attempt much as a fishing enthusiast will gaze at a tiddler with a sense of emptiness after an eight hour stint by the water.

This feeling of inadequacy at my own clumsy attempt at stringing words together was heightened this weekend, when, browsing my bookshelves, I found a copy of Seamus Heaney's The Haw Lantern and decided to indulge myself to an afternoon of poetry in a shady corner, away from the hullabaloo of the beaches and the scorch of the August sun. By the time I had read to page 3 and the closing line of the first poem, "Alphabets", I was close to tears: tears of joy at experiencing again the genius of Heaney, and of melancholy that try as I might, I know I will never have the skill to even come close to displaying a fraction of similar talent. What an imposter you are, Anderson, I chastised myself at the presumption that I, too, could even attempt to call myself a poet. Not even a modest writer of poetry (is that different to a poet? Does the reordering of those words add a subtle layer of meaning that distinguishes the true poet from the writer of poetry - something to be discussed at length over several bottles of fine wine, perhaps?).

Besides sheer pleasure, reading poetry also serves to help a poet learn; how to build an image, how to express emotion, how to use rhyme, rhythm, pace, line length, enjambement and other techniques. A good poem stops you in your tracks, gives you a hitherto unknown insight into the world, into humanity. It makes you question, it makes you think, it ignites emotion. A great poem will leave you breathless. It may even inspire you, which is how I felt at the close of The Haw Lantern.

Inspired, because, of course, my poetry will never equal Heaney's in standard. Nor will it reach the beauty of Lorca's images, the wisdom of Neruda, the poignancy of Yeats, the passion of Byron. But every clumsy attempt at shaping up a set of words, at moulding meaning into them, at distilling down an image, or an emotion or a moment in time into its pure essence and conveying it with precision and music and beauty, takes me a step closer to producing something that might be worth reading.

Knowing my shortcomings is what makes it so difficult to decide to submit a poem for publication, or for peer review, or to collect and publish my own work. Who do you think you are, Anderson, yells my imposter syndrome voice at me (she's far louder than the quiet muse of inspiration that gently nudges me into persisting).

This is why I was quietly delighted at reading The Crooked Timber by Giordano Durante and Gabriel Moreno, two writers whose poems I read, enjoy and admire. In this slim book, the two Gibraltarian poets discuss not just the craft of poetry, but what it means to be a poet in Gibraltar, a place where there is not yet a tradition of poetry, where the Gibraltarian poem has not quite emerged but is being birthed slowly, laboriously under the pens of those Gibraltarians who study and write it and who dare to consider themselves poets. There is a good deal of material in The Crooked Timber to spark discussion, but this section resonated with me. Moreno is writing about feelings of frustration at what he calls "the limitations of our genius" and how easy it is to feel diminished in the presence of the great poets and he says:

"It is on these occasions that I repeat to myself, like a mantra: they felt the same awkwardness in respect to their masters. The were equally ashamed and terrified even if they would not admit it!

"And it is with this exercise in self-delusion that I am enticed to continue to type and thread words on my computer screen hoping that, one day, they might reach someone who actually needs them." (Durante and Moreno, Pg 13).

En serio, Durante and Moreno, with their musings on poetry, have managed to rescue me from the depths of a despair so deep that I almost burned pages and pages of poetry that I deemed worthless. (Actually, that's a bit extreme; I probably would only have deleted them off my laptop, not actually chucked my MacBook on a bonfire).

And maybe, just maybe, when I get my breath back from the brilliance that is Heaney, I might just start pushing and pulling words around my computer screen to see if I can shape a half-decent poem out of them.

The Crooked Timber, annotated and tabulated and highly recommended

References:

Heaney, Seamus, The Haw Lantern (1987), Faber and Faber Limited, London.

Durante, Giordano and Moreno, Gabriel, The Crooked Timber: Letters between two Middle-Aged Poets (2025) Patuka Press.

Gibraltar's short stories 2025

I've been slowly (very slowly) reading the winning entries in this year's Gibraltar Spring Festival short story competition. No excuses, I am busy, but I also like to take my time with these matters, savour the stories slowly, a good while after the publicity machine has lauded the writers, the judges, the event, the government and everyone else that played a part in it. Taking my time and above all, ignoring commentary and social media, means that I can make my own mind up about the stories I read.

As in other years, this year's batch of entries was numerous and that is a positive; it shows that there is an eagerness in the local community to write, to read and to take part in this initiative. After over a decade either taking part myself or generally just enjoying the fruits of others' story telling, I still think that it is a good thing that there is a local competition that arouses in the community the will to write down their stories, whatever those might be. It is still the case that there are few stories in the world that are Gibraltarian stories, by Gibraltarian authors. By this, I don't mean stories about, or set in Gibraltar, but those works of fiction or poetry that open a window to a place, a time, a zeitgeist. 

What is encouraging, however, is that this small number of works is growing year on year. Not just because of the short story competition - a short story competition is a small element in helping focus attention on literature as part of a community's culture - but because every year there seems to be another flurry of publishing by local authors and therefore a greater number of works available to build up that picture of a place. Whether a thriller by a Gibraltarian author is set locally or set in a far off country, in another time, or place or galaxy or dimension, that novel will still say something about the writer and their provenance, about the place where it was written, or the place that influenced the write. That is one of the joys of indulging in reading; the discovery of the other: the other place, the other perspective, the other world of imagination. 

Back to this year's batch of winning entries, which I very much enjoyed reading. The link to the Gibraltar Cultural Services website page is below and I would encourage everyone to drop by and read at least some of them. Firstly, they are worth those five or ten minutes each, perfect coffee break reads. Secondly, it is wonderful for writers to know that their work is being read. Sometimes it doesn't even matter if the reader doesn't like it - just the knowledge that someone has taken the time to read your work and respond to it is good enough. No-one is going to like everything anyway.

2025 Gibraltar Spring Festival Short Story Competition Winners.pdf      

I love that these days there is a Llanito category. It is a difficult language to write. Given that it is mainly oral, there is a tendency to need to 'hear' it and so the written version must somehow 'sound' true. That is a tough call and I am not entirely sure that this year's winners quite mastered this aspect of it. But they gave it a good go and in many ways, that is good enough for me, because it means that there is more Llanito out there written and published and therefore skills in writing it will only improve. No apologies for being critical - criticism is much needed in the literary sphere - and no apologies for not writing in Llanito myself. I speak it but writing it is just not my bag. At least, not for now.

I also loved the variety of themes and settings. Sometimes writing to a theme is a great discipline and perhaps the competition organisers might give that some thought for a future competition, or create a themed competition for a special event. It helps focus writers and it makes them hone their writing far more carefully than an open theme. What I do like about an open theme is the variety of stories that it produces. This means that this year's batch included work on mental health, on memory and migration, on desire and danger, on family and loss among other themes, some are set in Gibraltar, in the present, in the past, in Tangiers, in La Linea, in the upper town, at the border...you get my point.

My favourite...so hard to choose. The overall winner, I think, was a great story: The Rock in my Tea Cup by Daniel Francis Brancato. It caught me up in the first sentence and held me to the end. Loved it. I also really enjoyed Stephen Perera's Shining a Light on the 70s...I loved the humour and the language and it took me right back to familiar days of the 70s (el gordito siempre acababa de portero...bueno, y la gordita igual!). But all the stories are worth a read and they open a window on Gibraltar and its writers in 2025. 

A brief word about the entries by the school children. This is a category that I particularly enjoy because it gives us a glimpse into the future. I haven't done any research but I do wonder if any of the finalists of previous competitions have gone on to be writers. I think Louis Emmitt-Stern stands out; I remember him winning at least one poetry competition and he may well have won more - Louis, if you read this, let us know in the comments! I hope this year's entrants keep writing; there is talent lurking there.

If you haven't already read this year's short stories, please do. It is not enough just to read Instagram and Facebook and what these say about who won with what story. It is important to support local writing and the best way this is done is by reading local writers.

In the Ascendant

 

By the Christmas fireside

A few years ago, someone, somewhere not too far from where I now sit typing these lines, declared that there was no such thing as Gibraltarian literature. Well, that sparked off an outpouring of well-argued and well-written remonstration. If I recall correctly, and my powers of recollection are not great these days, I chipped in to this local debate. Of course there was a Gibraltarian literature. Young, and not particularly voluminous, but it was there, and just waiting for the talent lurking in the shadows of this unique city to feel confident enough to emerge. It wasn't even nascent, as someone sought to deem it. It simply was.

Fast forward to December 7th 2024, to City Hall, where Christmas festivities included a story telling session for kids, a writing workshop and a fireside chat with a panel of three, two of whom (myself included) were published writers and one of whom really should go ahead and write her own book (preferably including some of her recipes for mouth-watering cakes). 

"Haven't we come a long way in terms of writing?" said one person at the writing workshop.

"Definitely," said another, "I get the feeling we're standing at the brink of a huge...resurgence I was going to say, but it's not a come-back, it's a starting point."

"You can sense the rocket boosters have been lit and the take off has begun," said another, "it will just accelerate into orbit from here."

I guess in a roomful of writers we were going to get all manner of analogies and metaphors.

There is definitely a sense of uplift when it comes to the art and craft of writing in Gibraltar. The past couple of years have seen an increasing number of publications, including poetry anthologies and the remarkable Patuka Press literary journals, there have taken place several well-attended and constructive writing workshops, the prize funds for the annual short story and poetry competitions have been increased and the government-sponsored writers' initiative to support a young writer through to publication of a piece of work is going strong. Gibraltarian playwrights are having their plays performed abroad, this year's Literary Festival included a day-long workshop given by Dr Sarah Burton and Prof. Jem Poster, both published authors from Cambridge University, and there is a rumour that a link has been made between the Government and a publishing company to help Gibraltar writers submit work through the traditional publishing route.

There is a growth in confidence among Gibraltar writers, a sense that it is worth the long hours of mulling and scribbling, deleting and starting again, frustration and elation that is all part of producing a reasonable piece of writing. There is also the added element of a newly-found sense of release that writing in llanito is also part of our culture and just as valid as literature as writing in either English or Spanish, and we have had works, including two poetry collections by Jonathan Teuma, published in the past year or two. As I have said in previous posts, there is still much more to be done, and there needs to be effort by everyone who wants to see writing elevated to stand shoulder to shoulder with other art forms. Writers need the support of government at times, but can and should also work together at independent initiatives at others, just as Patuka Press has done.

"The Upper Town" is the latest issue of Gibraltar's first literary journal by Patuka Press

"The Upper Town" is available from Amazon - treat yourself to a copy by following the link below:

The Upper Town

I find this all very heartening. As a writer, my greatest boost and still my source of support and inspiration is a writers' group, the Medway Mermaids, that I first joined in 2006. I am still a mermaid, much to my grandchildren's bewilderment, and I meet my fellow mermaids online once a month. We share and critique each other's work, we offer help and support and gentle tips for improvement, and we organise (or rather, our wonderful head mermaid, Sue, organises online workshops given by experienced writers, from published poets, to novelists, to creative non-fiction writers. I love attending workshops. These are my perfect excuse to exit the day to day world that distracts me far too much from writing, and focusing on doing what I love. It's also a way for this introvert to get out and meet people with a similar interest. One day it will bear fruit, I tell myself.

This weekend's workshop at City Hall was run by Melissa Bossano and was attended by some lovely people, some of whom I know and whose work I admire and some I have never met before but felt privileged to meet. I hope to be reading some of their incredible writing soon. Melissa helped us tap into our sensory perceptions of winter, and to link this as much to character as to setting. We all know from English lessons how Dickens used the depths of winter to introduce the harshness of Scrooge's character, but these techniques are harder to put into practice than they are to read and it is these small moments in a workshop that go such a long way to improve your own writing.

We also worked on memories, finding ways to recall moments in our own lives that would inform, colour or inspire new work, from poems and pieces of fiction to writing of memoir and adding colour to non-fiction. I don't think I was the only one to leave City Hall with the seed of a story idea that had been sown in that workshop, so thank you Mel!

The current project, because I've become a bit of a seasonal writer, is to add to my collection of short Christmas stories. But don't fear, I will be back to writing ghost stories again shortly after New Year - I wouldn't want to be away from ruminating on the dark and terrifying for too long.

As for the fireside chat, it was plain fun, chatting about Christmas traditions with Sharon Garcia, the talent behind 'Piece of Cake' bakery (their cups of tea and slice of apple pie are just the best afternoon treats) and Manolo Galliano of the Gibraltar Heritage Trust, who has just released his latest book "Pan Dulce and Mince Pies". Afterwards we tucked into Sharon's pan dulce (que bueno!) and some mulled wine. 

A lovely start to a weekend that has continued with my dipping into the latest Patuka Press journal, "The Upper Town" which has just arrived at the bookshops and ordering "Luciano", Humbert Hernandez' novel, launched just a few days ago. As I said at the start of this post, Gibraltarian literature has switched up a couple of gears. As the year comes to a close, the future of writing in Gibraltar is looking brighter than ever. 

"Pan Dulces and Mince Pies" by Manolo Galliano and photography by Victor Hermida

Getting ready for Ghostly Tales - Creative Writing Workshop

 

Ghostly Tales Creative Writing workshop

Today has been a good writing day, because, despite a broken tooth leaving my mouth a state utter carnage, I have spent the afternoon writing.

Not just any old writing, but drafting up notes for a workshop I am delivering on behalf of Gibraltar Cultural Services next week, and given its autumnal theme heralding the spooky season, I am thoroughly enjoying prepping.

I love autumn with all its flaming colours and cool bite to the breeze and the hints of purple on the horizon as winter closes in. And along with autumn, in a flurry of commercialism that throws environmental concerns to the winds of climate change, comes Halloween. Which, because I ignore all the 'stuff' lining the shop shelves, is also one of my favourite features of the season.

I've loved ghost stories since I was a child. I found them utterly terrifying and they induced many a nightmare because my imagination was riotous and uncontrollable, and I simply could not laugh off the concept of the dead returning to strike fear into the hearts of the living, or, maybe slightly worse, the undead emerging from the crypt to feast on the blood of innocent young women, and I happened to be one of those. But, my goodness, ghost stories, chilling tales of the unexplained, that tap into primal fears, are just so compelling.

My interest in ghost stories had bubbled under the surface for years. I used to like closing the curtains on a cold winter night, lighting the fire, and telling 'creepy' stories around halloween time, and my kids would clamour for these. And sometimes I would take them to old ruins, preferably one of those ruined abbeys with a smattering of ancient gravestones, where I'd make up the stories as we wondered about. They used to moan at being dragged around old ruins and now they do the same to their kids! They are all perfectly well-adjusted and successful adults, in case you were wondering, and they still love ghost stories, and these days, horror movies too. Perhaps that is because ghost stories aren't told so much to frighten the listener other than enough to warn them that the unknown can harbour danger, but to let us explore a range of deep emotions in a place of safety - by the fire, in our homes, between the covers of a book.

Safety between the covers of a book

Some years ago, I returned to giving more attention to ghost stories and other chilling and creepy tales. Other than entertaining the family with them at Halloween, I had overlooked them for years, following my grandmother's advice that we all have far more to fear from the living than from the dead. I focused instead on raising my family and keeping food on the table rather than on wondering whether there is an afterlife, and if there is, why some spirits chose to stay here...

But as the kids grew up and left home, my fascination returned, and I started a writing project which involved looking into what ghost stories in particular places can tell us about the history and culture of that place. Of course, that place was Gibraltar and, with it's rather turbulent history and its fair share of nasty happenings, there are some fascinating ghost stories told here, and better still, there are some even more fascinating ones that are waiting to be written. The lovely Lindsay Weston of the "Making Stitches" podcast (link below) was living in Gibraltar at the time and she interviewed me as part of her "Gibraltar Stories" podcast. I've put the link to this below too, in case you fancied listening in.

Making Stitches podcast

Gibraltar Stories: Ghost Stories with Jackie Anderson

As happens with many writing projects, this one has been sitting around for a while, with me adding to it in fits and starts as best I could around my day job and being distracted with other projects. But I have resurrected it recently and, rubbing the rust off my pen nib and  dipping this in ink, have started penning some words together. 

By sheer coincidence, Gibraltar Cultural Services contacted me and asked me to deliver the Ghostly Tales workshop and I've spent the past week wallowing in Edgar Allen Poe, Bram Stoker, H P Lovecraft, M R James, Susan Hill, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King and others. And I'm loving it.

Joyfully immersing myself in some great ghost stories

So please do me a favour and book yourself in to the workshop. We're going to share our love for things fearful and work together to hopefully get the bones of a good ghost story going. We'll be at Bookgem on 1st November at 6pm. It'll be getting dark. We'll be touching on that most basic of human emotions, fear, and how to generate as much of it in your reader as possible. All good stuff for dark autumn nights.

Llanito: en mi language

 

I have taken a hiatus from this blog for nigh on three years, maybe slightly longer. Life sometimes gets in the way - work, the dullness of routine that serves to numb creativity, the grind of getting each day done that stifles so many of those who might want, wish, would and should write their stories and tell their tales. Myself included, clearly.

But I've not been away entirely.

Since my last blog post, I have published a non-fiction book, co-written with my eldest daughter, Ciara Wild. Myth Monster Murder explored the story of Jack the Ripper, how the gruesome Whitechapel murders were, and are, mythologised by the media, how at least five women became the victims of his blood-happy knife, and of the gore-addicted press, victims themselves, perhaps, of rampant commercialism. Why did the murders take place and could they happen again, we ask ourselves in the book. I won't tell you the answer. The book is readily available on Kindle or on paperback through Amazon, Blackwells, Waterstones, Foyles....so treat yourselves!

Myth Monster Murderer by Jackie Anderson and Ciara Wild

That feat wore me out a little, so my writing became more of a dabbling, an early morning pre-breakfast gathering of thoughts and toying with the keys of my laptop, or the occasional scribbling in a notebook of disparate ideas, sentences and phrases that appear irrationally and unannounced into my mind and that occasionally drift together into a coherent whole.

But during that rather barren period, something has emerged in Gibraltar that is worthy of dusting down this blog and reawakening it. And that thing - or phenomenon is more approrpriate a word - is Patuka Press and its literary journal, the third issue being entitled: Llanito.

My copy of Llanito from Patuka Press

Here's where you can get your copy of LLanito

I spoke on GBC Breakfast about this back in July. It was a brief interview too early in the morning for me to be fully coherent so apologies to listeners, but in it I spoke not just about my writing and my book and the story I wrote that was published in 'Llanito', but also about the journal. 

I remember having conversations with fellow Gibraltarian Writers some years ago, shortly after a group of us worked on publishing an Anthology of Gibraltarian Poets (the first anthology of its kind), that centred around the vital importance of having a local outlet that would publish local writing - that is, writing that is not just produced locally, but by writers that have a strong connection with Gibraltar, who may be Gibraltarians living abroad, or people who had spent time in Gibraltar and had stories to tell. 

Writers might well love their craft, they might well be brilliantly skilled storytellers, wordsmiths, playwrights, poets, but if they cannot reach out to readers through some form of publishing, then their words are lost to the rest of us. And that is a literary tragedy, especially in Gibraltar, where there are so many tales to be told and its writers are bursting to tell them.

More than that; we want to tell them in our language, in Llanito, in the words that shape who and what we are as a people, and as an individual person.

In the past few years, there have been an increasing number of initiatives that have started to provide recognition for Gibraltar's writers, and outlets for their work. Among many other features, Gibraltar now has a Literature Week which this year is going to form part of the Gibraltar Literary Festival; there is a local book shop at last, which stocks works by local writers and about Gibraltar; there is increasing recognition, academically and among Gibraltarians, that our language is a clear and valid language that is part of our cultural identity. Social media and interest from GBC through various programmes such as Between the Lines, has helped tremendously. Young writers are daring to write and publish and not worry about whether what they have written is 'literature' or not; they do not care about meeting some vague and undefined standard of what is literature and don't question whether they can stand up to comparison with Dickens, Byron, Orwell or Rowling. Who wants to be like all the others anyway? We are who we are and say what we say and from what I'm reading of Gibraltarian writers, some can proudly stand shoulder to shoulder with other writers from other countries, or spine to spine on the shelves of any bookshop or library anywhere.

The joy of seeing this growth in local writing is immeasurable, more so when seeing that so much is now written in Llanito. Despite the decriers and nay-sayers, and I am not going to waste any energy wading into that argument, we are finally openly exploring what it means to be 'us', to speak in our own language, to write our own stories. What Patuka Press has achieved with Llanito is to put a stamp of approval, a public accreditation if you like, on writing in llanito. And that goes a long way to saving our dwindling language. As Charles Durante put it in his essay 'Llanito: Grammar, Etymology and Identity' in LLanito:

    "It would be a very sad day if Llanito were to disappear, as some have gleefully            predicted. It would be like losing a limb, a form of spiritual emasculation."

I can't help but agree. It would be a tragedy with far-reaching effects; the loss would be far more visceral than the loss of a gathering of words.

So the impact of Patuka Press and its collections of stories, poems and essays should not be understated. To local readers it provides an affirmation of who and what we are culturally; we laugh and nod our heads in recognition of ourselves and our community, we marvel at the novel and the new that is being created day to day by talented Gibraltarians, we gasp at the variety of imaginative skill on show between the pages. That this third issue explores and celebrates Llanito, hablando de mi people en mi language, is testament to the surfacing of our love for Gibraltarian culture, our willingness to explore talk about what makes us us, the sunshine and the rain, the beautiful and the ugly, the whole gamut of Gibraltarianness, warts and all. The journal is both an achievement in itself, and I hope, it is also the soil in which our literary growth as a people will take root and find succour.

The next steps for Gibraltarian literature? It is, despite the decriers and nay-sayers among us, a growing, living thing but it is still young, it still needs a helping hand from those that can and from the whole community. Here are some ideas:

• Another publishing house. Patuka Press and Calpe Press and self-publishing may be wonderful things but we need the competitiveness of alteranative publishers to hone our skills and thrust our writing output into the realms of quality and not just quantity.
• Setting a high bar. Again, quality. It isn't just about work being published because it's been written or even because it's good. It's got to be good enough.
• A writing residency, where the writer in residence (perhaps selected from numerous applications to the National Book Council) works for 1 - 2 years as a writer, running workshops, producing work, organising readings, running writing groups, attending seminars, book and literary events in other countries, mentoring writers and so on.

Our literature is being read and analysed across the world. It's got to reach globally high standards and all those editors and publishers working with Gibraltarian writing, whether a news channel or a freebie magazine, a publisher of books or a literary journal, or a competition judge have to start to apply a bar. It is not enough for a writer to submit work and be published, it has to be quality work.

And while all that is going on, get yourself a copy of Llanito. I picked one up from Amazon because I happened to be in UK when it came out, but Bookgem sells it. And then get the other two issues: Shit Jobs and Borders and Boundaries. You'll find one of my stories published in each of the three editions, and I'm not just proud that my submissions were selected for publication; I am privileged.

Shit Jobs by Patuka Press

Borders and Boundaries by Patuka Press

Books, Glorious Books!

 

As this first week of March slips away, a week when we usually celebrate World Book Day - this year on 4th - I finally got back to a little bit of writing. Other than some entries in my journal, and the day job, I have actively avoided any kind of writing, especially creative writing, and including this blog. But I couldn't resist it. Reading tends to make me reach for my pen, and, as I have mentioned in previous posts, is something in which I wanted to indulge what snippets of spare time I have.

A browse through the internet and especially my own social media showed the usual flurry of activity for World Book Day. Despite the drawbacks of the pandemic and the lockdown which is still only slowly lifting, it did my weary soul a good deal of good to see kids heading for school dressed up as their favourite characters and many of them with the associated book in their bags. 

What I did find rather churlish was some snarky comments on social media, from somewhat sour adults mostly, decrying the youngsters for dressing up as characters from films, notably as Harry Potter and his many chums. What is their issue? Maybe these are people who, aware of their own shortcomings in the literary department, are all too quick to criticise others. As a mother of six who has spent most of her life skint and bringing the kids up on a hard-earned shoestring, Harry Potter was a glorious relief; throw a length of black cloth over their shoulders, borrow Grandma's specs, hand each a twig from the garden and voila, World Book Day dressing up sorted.

The Harry Potter films, like many others that are based on books, like Matilda and Four Children and It, are wonderful examples of skillful storytelling. They have a narrative with pace and drama, with humour and darkness, with flights of fantasy and yet are believable. They touch human themes such as bullying, lack of self-confidence, courage, fear, the search for love, and, most importantly, of the struggle between good and evil. Why would immersing yourself in the movies be anything other than a superb way of helping kids explore narrative, character development, dialogue, scene construction and so much more. Let's bear in mind that scripts are written, and that scriptwriting is as much a form of writing as a Jacobean tome. Consider the tight dialogue of Pulp Fiction, or Casablanca, or Taxi Driver or One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest...I could go on and on. All hail those scriptwriters - what talent, and what art!

And if the kids haven't read those books yet, they probably will. And they will probably read more. The work their teachers put into World Book Day will often bear fruit, if not immediately, then often in years to come. Don't knock it. Far better to immerse yourself in a good movie and the story it tells than in scrolling and trolling.

But back to books. Bookshops have had a pretty hard time over the past decade or two, especially with the advent of Amazon and other commercial problems like the general demise of the High Street. Not least in Gib, where I still mourn for the loss of even the small book shops we had. And yet, when the world closed in on itself in the face of Covid19 and locked down, our isolation was assuaged by books and by reading. Online sales have soared. Booksellers found themselves working harder than ever to get orders of print books out to their customers and their customers were now from all over the world, and not just those from the nearby streets. Readers turned to e-books but found renewed pleasure in print books. With more time on their hands through furlough schemes, many people turned to old classics...you know, the ones where they watched the movie and now thought they'd try the original in book form.

I set out this year to read more Gibraltarian writers, to immerse myself in Gibraltarian literature and try to understand it a little. I might love reading - would love to read all day everyday if I could - but sadly I need to earn a crust and the day job takes exactly that, all darned day. But I have manage to read some, starting with Gooseman, by Mark Sanchez. 

What a great start to my reading year. Brilliant. Funny. Dark. Shocking. And he tackles some great themes, like mental health and racism and Brexit and how the Brits treat their former colonials, and how we, the former colonials, still try to be their lap dogs. Also, as a Gibraltarian and with the novel set partly in Gibraltar and partly in London with the odd llanito comment thrown in, I found there was a familiarity about the characters and the places that drew me in straight away. More than that, there is an almost intangible Gibraltarian quality about the book. Perhaps it's the rhythm of the sentences, or perhaps it's that there is a sense that the lead character, Johann Guzman, is laughing at himself at times, just like we, in Gibraltar, readily laugh at ourselves too.

I've also got through a Giselle Green - also Gibraltarian in my eyes even if she has lived in UK for many years. She writes beautiful stories that touch on some of our deepest emotions. The Girl you Forgot speaks about memory and about relationships and about truth. Some parts of it are almost lyrical and yet it flows and undulates as do the hills of England where Giselle lives. It is a satisfying and emotional journey of a story.

Humbert Hernandez' El Agente Aleman was just perfect for grey winter days; it cheered me up no end. The stories are so funny in places, I laughed out loud, which was disconcerting to passers by as I perched on a low wall waiting for my cab to work one morning (some of us would have loved to lock down fully but couldn't). These stories are told in our tongue, the language of my early childhood in the old town of Gibraltar and are populated by people that are recognisable, although dwindling in numbers as they age and pass on, just as the patio culture of the middle of last century is dwindling and disappearing into apartment block living. But Hernandez has kept those stories alive, and those characters live on, at least in these fictional works.

I've also managed a thriller and am currently making my way through Greek myths in Stephen Fry's Mythos. Next up on my e-reader is a Joanne Harris, Peaches for M. le Cure, and on my bedside table is a Mary Chiappe novel, Shaking the Dandelions.

As for my writing? It's simmering. I've sketched out some ideas, pottered with some research. Oh, and I've just signed a publishing contract no less. But more about that in another post. For now, I am wallowing in books, glorious books, and always wanting more!