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