Stories all around

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We understand our world in stories.  We tell stories to inform each other of events, to explain circumstances, to reflect on history, to investigate our thinking and explore concepts.  Some stories are make-believe and some are real, but what we do know, is that as human beings, our understanding and knowledge is based on the stories that we create and tell.

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, 

stories are the thing we need most in the world.”

 
― Philip Pullman

March in Gibraltar was very much the month of the story.  It all started right at the beginning of the month with World Book Day.  I joined a number of local authors at the John Mackintosh Hall where we set out our publications in the gallery overlooked by the exhibited works of young local artists. The focus of my day was the mini-workshops that I ran, aimed at encouraging local writers, or anyone who wants to write but won't go as far as calling himself a writer, to join a writers' group.

Christiana Fagan talking to a group of school children about her beautiful Nature Diary which she wrote and illustrated with water colours.

It was very much a day where we all focused on stories, local authors told the stories of their books and the school kids listened to the story telling session laid on by the Gibraltar Cultural Services department in the theatre upstairs.  At the workshops we looked at where we can find inspiration for stories, and how we can create a beginning to make reader's mouths water with anticipation, a middle filled with unexpected delights and an ending to savour. We are now looking forward to getting together later in April to see if we really can get a writers' group off the ground and create a home for all those stories in the making.


My review of World Book Day for Mum on The Rock

The month continued with the Drama Festival, and an absolute feast of dramatised stories it was.  I was lucky to attend almost every performance, missing only some of the junior ones because these were staged earlier in the day and clashed with work. I was hugely impressed with the Drama Festival, mainly because some of the theatre groups took on the challenge of some very difficult plays and pulled these off brilliantly well.  Notable to me were the polished performances of Jean-Paul Lugaro and Samantha Barrass in "Constellations" by Nick Payne, which won Samantha the Best Actress award, and the ensemble of young players from the Bayside and Westside Drama Group in Berkoff's "The Trial".  This latter play was mesmerizing from beginning to end and won the brilliant young Billy Snell as Joseph K the Best Actor award.  Super stories well told, it was a hugely enjoyable week of theatre for me.

My review of the Gibraltar Drama Festival 2016 for Mum on The Rock

We also had the deadline for the Gibraltar Spring Short Story competition in March.  Now, much as I love stories, I find these hard to write, especially with a 1000 word limit.  I did submit one, dubiously, and I shall wait and see how it fares, which is one of the things I like about submitting work: the anticipation.  Of course, the deep gloom that then descends on me after rejection or failure is something else.  I hope lots of other writers submitted too.  The short story competition is one of the very few local outlets for writers to showcase their work.

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For me, the story moved on and at the end of the month during the Easter weekend, I volunteered my writing skills to keeping the media and the world of pool updated during the International Pool Association's Gibraltar leg of the World Series tournament.  I have never been a writer of anything sporty before, so it was a first for me, but I think I've found a new skill.  I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and getting to grips with something very out of my comfort zone, and I kept Facebook sites and Twitter feeds busy with reports on the matches.  A new way for me to look at and tell a story.

IPA Professional World Series Gibraltar 2016 page

From the month of stories to a month in which I am working on a new piece of fiction...because I just love stories. 

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