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

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!

Gibraltarian Literature - or is it?

To read...or rather, what to read?

As some of you who know me will tell you, I was never going to keep away from writing for too long, despite my resolve to keep the pressure off the pen and only pick up my laptop for work writing (as opposed to writing fiction or poetry or writing for pleasure). But at the start of the month, I figured that taking a pause and reading might be a good way to ease my way through lockdown anxiety and the ensuing writer's block. 

The only thing I needed to do was decide what I was going to read. Should I do the usual thing I do of reaching for whatever is to hand, which makes my reading choices varied but not necessarily focused? Should I set out to read a genre I don't usually read? Should I avoid reading anything off the best seller lists and stick to a catch up on those classics I always meant to read but never got round to? Should I nose around books by writers from a particular country, or go non-fiction and gen up on the conversation around empire and its legacy? So many choices and thank goodness for e-readers, much though I prefer paper books (can't wait for the library to reopen after lockdown).

I opted to catch up on Gibraltarian literature. There are plenty of books about Gibraltar or set in Gibraltar, some by Gibraltarian writers, some by non-Gibraltarian writers. But which to choose? Which would fall under the banner of "Gibraltarian Literature"? Does it comprise non-fiction as well as fiction and therefore include all those history books written about Gibraltar, mainly by English writers but also by Spanish writers and some Gibraltarians too? Would I be reaching for works by Dr Joseph Garcia, Dr Clive Finnlayson, Ernle Bradford, Nicholas Rankin, Lesley and Roy Adkin, Gareth Stockey and Chris Grocott among many others? Or by "literature" do we mean fiction?

What is "literature"? 

There are all sorts of open discussions going on between academics and writers around the world about how to define a national literature. I am not remotely qualified to add anything of use to that discussion but felt I needed to define the parameters of it for myself - simply so that I could decide what books to select to read that I could comfortably call Gibraltarian lit. - you know, like you would call the subject English Lit. if you were picking it as an A level subject.

I made that my starting point, since I never did study English Lit for A level. What is English Literature? That might help me head in the right direction. 

When I think of English literature, I generally envisage William Shakespeare wielding the quill, Charles Dickens, Geoffrey Chaucer, Jane Austen, Byron, Keats and Shelley, George Orwell, Iris Murdoch, Beryl Bainbridge, A.S. Byatt, Zadie Smith, Carol Ann Duffy...so many...But I tend not to include Charles Darwin or Edward Gibbon, and much as I adore so much of his work, even Sir David Attenborough doesn't tend to feature as a literary figure.

So I have narrowed the list down to fiction - prose, poetry, short stories, novels, plays and scripts. To me, literature isn't just a body of written works, a collection of words; to be literature, the written work needs to rise above the telling or imparting of a fact to deeply engage the imagination and the emotions, which is precisely what a good poem or a good novel does.

Yes, I agree that this is simplistic and there are grey areas and blurred boundaries, but this is my thinking given voice and you are very welcome to add your thoughts (politely) in the comments section.

What is "Gibraltarian" literature?

The next step for me was to decide what would fall into this category as Gibraltarian. When we speak about "Gibraltarian literature" do we mean only work written by people born and living in Gibraltar? Or people born in Gibraltar and perhaps living and working somewhere else in the world but with family ties to Gib? Or people who are born in another part of the world to a Gibraltarian family? Or people with none of those links but who have spent some time here and have been inspired by the place and the people to let their writing be influenced somehow by Gibraltar.

In other words, I could take either a narrow view or a broader view. The latter might dilute the concept of literature that is somehow deeply linked to Gibraltar, the former might mean only being able to select from relatively few publications. Because Gibraltarian literature in its narrow sense of works written by people born and living in Gibraltar, about Gibraltar and using Gibraltar's languages is not replete with published works.

I'm not sure I have fully answered this question. To me the term "Gibraltarian literature" is as yet undefined, and maybe that is a good thing, because it means that as writers, we can fuel our writing energy with the impetus born of an urgency to add to the body of literature that is ours, our stories, our experiences, our emotions, our evolving culture and identity. 

I would, however, love to know your thoughts on this. Please engage through the comments section, on the Gibraltar Writers Facebook group, or via my email address: jackiegirl@hotmail.co.uk

In the meantime, I have just finished reading the masterful novel "Gooseman" by Mark Sanchez, am halfway through "The Girl you Forgot" by Giselle Green and have also started "El Agente Aleman" by Humbert Hernandez. All three very different, and all an indubitable pleasure to read. 

                                       

                                       "Gooseman" by M G Sanchez

"The Girl you Forgot" by Giselle Green

"El Agente Aleman" by Humbert Hernandez

Keeping it Local for Gibraltar Writers

Buying books

Keeping my chat to a minimum this week and letting this blog post from Into the Industry speak for itself. All I would add is that the best way to help support local writing in Gibraltar is to support local writers. Read their work, talk about their work, create a buzz, buy their books - for yourself and for your friends and family. Books, after all, make a timeless gift. Invest in local writers, and you are investing in Gibraltar's cultural and literary development.

Into the Industry - Spotlight on Local Authors

A huge thanks to Carmen Anderson for this piece!

If you are interested in Carmen's work, follow her on:

Instagram: @IntotheIndustry_ Into the Industry Instagram page

Facebook: Into the Industry Facebook page

Carmen Anderson

This is just a selection of Gibraltar writers and their work. Carmen is considering preparing a similar blog in the weeks to come, so if you are not in this one but you have a book to promote, then please reach out and contact her.

A reader does a writer make

The Joys of Reading

I've always been a firm believer that reading is an essential prerequisite for writing. It's through reading that you absorb ways of expressing yourself in words, that you develop the sense of plot, of character development, of setting, mood, tone, style, genre...

Yet, of course, reading is so much more than this. It provides an opening to new worlds, to new experiences, to new learning. It sheds light on the obscure. It stretches the imagination and it teaches us to see the world from someone else's perspective. Learning to read, becoming literate, is not just a means for children to pass some exams and prove themselves. It is a pathway to empathy, an enhancement of thinking, a means of relaxing and of escaping the stresses of everyday life.

This past year has been tougher than usual for most of us. I have personally struggled with writing. Writing, in particular fiction or poetry, means digging deep into your emotions, exposing thoughts and fears and feelings that, in times of greater anxiety, you might prefer to keep safely locked away. This year, I have spent more time reading than writing. I have felt the need to escape my own thoughts and find fresh landscapes in the thoughts of others.

At first I was worried about this. My pen was dry, my notebooks blank, my laptop forbidding, a symbol of the more unpleasant drudgery of work rather than inviting creativity. I fretted that I should use lockdown, as many seemed to be doing, to practice writing, to find ways of improving. Maybe even to start the novel I keep saying I'm going to write and never get round to. Then, as the year progressed, I realised that there were enough things to fret about rather than how productive I am. Staying healthy, earning enough to live on, keeping in close touch with all those family members living away from Gibraltar whom I don't see anywhere near enough, getting through new regulations and restrictions, shutting out the negativity and spillage of hatred and ignorance and confusion from social media...all these things were enough to deal with this year.

Instead, I turned to my favourite way of destressing, decompressing and of opening up my mind to new ideas: reading. These are my five favourite reads of this year (in no particular order):

                                                  The Strawberry Thief on Amazon

The Strawberry Thief by Joanne Harris

This is the fourth novel by Joanne Harris following the life of Vianne Rocher whose story she began with Chocolat. It is a story full of mystery and mysticism, about conflict and acceptance within families and between members of a tight-knit community. It is about change and how we fear change, how change challenges and how it might be accepted. Change is something that has blasted through this year of the pandemic, with one crisis after another besetting the world, and the challenges that we face will bring about changes in how we live, certainly in the short term and probably in the longer term too. This was a novel full of beautiful, resonant writing. It was thought-provoking and it was calming. Change, after all, is always inevitable.        

                                                   Testament of Youth on Amazon

Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain.

I have been meaning to read this since the late seventies when I was taking O-Level history, and my history teacher recommended it as background reading for our studies on the First World War. I wish I'd read it sooner and I may well dip into it again. Vera Brittain lived the war, was heartbroken by the war and was made by the war. A wonderful insight into that period, and in particular into how the war and the times affected women and the struggle of women to be heard and taken seriously, their battle for equality. This too, was incredibly well-written, memories crafted into an absorbing tale. And it touched on the pandemic that was then as devastating to human life as was the war itself, the Spanish Flu, something that seemed close to home this year.

                                               Queenie on Amazon

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

I loved this book and I loved Queenie. What a great character and what a real, down-to-earth voice she has. The book is about Queenie, a young woman not in a particularly good place in her life at the start, and how she negotiates what life has to throw at her. It speaks fearlessly about friendship, race, love and what it means to be a young single black woman negotiating life in the city. It is witty and it is wise and it is fierce. A great read, Queenie was critically acclaimed, with Carty-Williams the first black and female writer to win Book of the Year at the 2020 British Book Awards. I love stepping out of my life and into the lives of characters in a book and Queenie was totally absorbing.

                                                 The Forty Rules of Love on Amazon

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

This was a beautiful, lyrical book with two tantalising parallel narratives. I picked it up as a winter read to get me through February, which I tend to find a dull and dreary month at the best of times, not least as the world seemed to be plunging into a maelstrom of pandemic, misinformation and crisis. The story interweaves Ella's search for love with the poet Rumi's quest for spiritual enlightenment through his friendship with Sufi mystic Shams of Tabriz who expounds the philosophy through his forty rules of love. The story is told in a series of first person narratives by several different characters and is an enthralling exploration of faith and love.

                                                         

                                                              Solitude House on Amazon

Solitude House by M G Sanchez

This was delightfully dark and a perfect story to read in the lead up to Halloween. Set in Gibraltar and told from the point of view of a self-confessed misanthrope and a misogynistic womaniser, Dr Seracino is the perfect anti-hero, a loathsome protagonist you can't help but like. In following Seracino's descent into an alcohol-soaked retirement to a lonely house hidden in the depths of the upper rock, Sanchez leads us in a journey through the Gibraltar of the eighties and nineties with sharply observed details tinged with his characteristic dry humour. The novel deals with the duality of human nature: Seracino is supposed to care, but is self-absorbed and misanthropic; he lives in a tight-knit society and yet he craves solitude; he achieves solitude and yet is invaded by ghosts. Sanchez explores psychosis and superstition through the character of Seracino, and, not least for me as a Gibraltarian, he also explores Gibraltar through the eyes of a non-Gibraltarian. He looks into Gibraltar as he looks outwards from inside Seracino. A terrific read at the tail end of a dark year which has exposed both the best and the worst of Gibraltar.

As a writer, I am an avid reader, and I'm looking forward to a good read over Christmas. Any recommendations?

A Platform for Writing

 

Gibraltar Writers in the spotlight

I'm going to start this post by writing about Gibraltar's Literature Week. Organised in the place of the annual International Literary Festival which was cancelled this year because of the Covid19 pandemic (and just as well, I guess, given the second spike the autumn is seeing grow alarmingly throughout the world), Literature Week gave a voice, albeit small, to some of Gibraltar's writing community. 

There's nothing wrong with small, I hasten to add, and given that it was only a week long, Gibraltar Cultural Services, the government agency that organised the Week and all the events that it involved, there was plenty of ground covered. There were talks and readings for school children, Gibraltar's two most prominent playwrights shared their tips and passion for writing plays also with school children, there was story telling for kids in the park, the announcement of the poetry competition winner (well done, Rebecca Faller) and there were three 'meet the author events' per day throughout the week. These were filmed within the constraints of Covid19 regulations, which meant we couldn't actually meet the authors. Instead the sessions were live streamed on Facebook, which means that those who could not physically attend, for whatever reason, could either tune in live and listen to local authors talk about their work and chat about all sorts of other issues mostly pertinent to Gibraltar, its people and its culture, or could catch up on the recorded version later. 

For me, and many others I have spoken to this week, that was an instant hit. It meant that Literature Week succeeded where the International Literary Festival does not - it brought Gibraltarian books and authors to a wider public, including an international public (a friend of mine in US tuned in to some of the talks, for example, as well as family in UK). It meant that those who struggle to leave home, and did so even in the halcyon pre-pandemic days, could watch and listen and join in to an extent through the chat functions. Those of us who could not take time off work could catch up with recorded versions, and those who might not normally engage with events that perhaps have a touch of elitism about them, were able to watch from the quiet anonymity of their homes. I'm not going to rant on about literary festivals and elitism - but it is a feature of festivals and something that has been openly discussed across the world for years, and it is something that was happening here too. Not this year though. I have no idea what the viewing figures have been, but I hope they were good, because this was a very accessible and worthwhile format for introducing Gibraltarian writers to Gibraltar and beyond. In other words, whether they realised it or not, Gibraltar Cultural Services created a platform for writers.

A platform for writers

Why is a platform necessary? And in particular, why is it important for a small city, a self-governing territory still tripping over the remains of its colonial past, to create a 'national' platform for its writers?

I'm not going to go into an academic essay - I am not an academic and there are those professors out there who are expert in Gibraltar and Gibraltarian literature who would do much better justice to the subject. But I will say that, just like we talk about a platform for businesses, or a digital platform for marketing, we should be talking about creating a platform for Gibraltar's writers so that our literature, our stories, can gain better exposure at home, and more importantly, across the rest of the world. Heck, we might even sell some books!

In turn, that is important if we are going to develop our writing as individual writers and as an independent, identifiable, unique community. It's a lonely pastime, writing. We don't all have the chance to take writing degrees, or gain any objective or external perspective on our work. Unless our writers try to publish abroad, they usually have to self-publish to have their work read, and self-published work usually benefits from close scrutiny and revision before publishing. We have to head online and out of Gib and try to fund our own critiques, editing and so on. We have to help each other by being each other's beta readers, which is jolly tough if you're also trying to earn a living and raise a family. Because, of course, like many other art forms, such as music, in its early stages (most of its stages, if truth be told) writing simply doesn't pay that much.

A platform for writers in Gibraltar could involve creating regular events such as Literature Week, but perhaps hold them more regularly. They could be themed e.g. young writers' week, writing from the Gibraltarian diaspora, Gibraltar and writers of the Maghreb, Gibraltarian and Iberian writing, writing and mental health, writing and your family history, Gibraltarian literature and our varied languages and so on ad-infinitum. While this first literature week (because I do hope it is only the first of many) took what was clearly a very broad view of literature to include memoirs, history books, photobooks and art books, and perhaps was less literary than some might have wished, it did succeed in showcasing some of our writers and it did so in two of our cultural languages. I have to say only two, because with strong Hindu, Moroccan and Jewish communities to name just three, we are a multi-lingual society and writers can and should write in whichever language they feel comfortable doing so. A body of literature can celebrate that linguistic diversity as it can celebrate its own patois (for want of a better term to try to define llanito).

A platform for writers could also bring about a development of local skills through workshops. It could foster a sense of community for writers, an inclusive community that doesn't start with a red ID card or end when you pop over to the other side of the border for a few years. It could help grow book sales, and foster reading and literacy. It could, above all, become the launch pad for international careers as writers, to grow an international audience for Gibraltar.

This is not a task for one government agency to do alone. There are all sorts of issues that hamper government bodies from achieving such things, not least budgetary and time constraints or the policy priorities imposed by whatever political leadership is in place at any one time. But the initiative, and often facilitation, encouragement and empowerment for growing a platform for literature, does move faster with real support from government. And if the fostering, nurturing role by government is carried out properly, objectively, then the community of writers is likely to be able to take it forward further. Provided, of course, that independence is kept at the fore of the platform. Otherwise, its direction is too easily influenced, its strength diluted. 

What else for Gibraltar's writers?

Gibraltar's writers have a little bit of support. Literature Week was one event, only a small number of Gibraltar's writers got the chance to showcase their work. Some, I am aware, felt a little neglected to say the least. The Youth Arts Jamboree usually includes poetry and writing workshops and at least writing is included. There is an annual government run poetry competition and similarly an annual short story competition.

So far so good. But Gibraltar is missing so much. There are no bookshops. There are no creative writing classes. There is no real recognition. There is one publisher only. The support for publishing is in the form of a loan. There are no incentives to take a break from working and dedicated time to your art. This year is the first year that the prize for the poetry competition has finally begun to reflect the work and effort and sheer talent that goes into writing a good poem worthy to be showcased as the best in Gibraltar at that point in time. Oh, and there are no bookshops - have I said that already?

The space in which support for literature and the literary arts could grow is...exactly that. Spacious. Support is small, intermittent, dependent on what or who happens to be in flavour at any one time, which itself depends on what is written and how. I'd like to see open public discussions about the  nature of some of Felice's plays for example: maybe Utrecht, and Flavius, which touch on some significant Gibraltarian issues and events. Yes, plays, and yes, writing. Durante's poems, along with Hernandez, Cruz, Faller, Moreno could easily fill hours of teaching time to support English lessons, as could the novels of Sanchez, with their gritty realism redolent with the familiarity of the Gibraltar that we all know and many would like to prefer stays tucked away behind a veneer of glitz aimed at appealing to Cat 2 economic migrants. Sorry, my bad, high net worth individuals. I have no problem with anyone who wants to live in Gib, whatever their socioeconomic status, but I do have a problem with pretending our reality does not exist.

But I digress. The Literature Week was a good alternative to the Literary Festival, and even when the Festival returns, the Literature Week should remain. And it should grow and be enhanced. And writers should really think hard about committing a bit of time and energy to creating a platform to help Gibraltar's writing emerge into the spotlight, to stand up and be read and heard not just on the Rock but across the world. As Humbert might have been going to say in his Literature Week talk before he was outrageously cut short - no government has ever really committed to literature. We've had tourism led events, we've  had a little offering. Writers need so much more if the stories and the art that they can produce are to take up their rightful place on the bookshelves and stages and radios and screens of the world.

If you are a writer, and you feel you would benefit from a local platform for your work, both physical and digital, comment below or email me: jackiegirl@hotmail.co.uk. Maybe if we press hard enough together, it will happen.

Gibraltarian Literature - emerging from the shadow of the Rock

It has taken many years of a few, enlightened people banging their lonely drums here to bring the discussion out into the open. Yet Gibraltarian literature has been around for a long time: Elio Cruz, Leopold Sanguinetti, Hector Licudi, Sam Benady, Mary Chiappe and numerous others have been among the Rock's writers. And when a Gibraltarian writer commits his or her thoughts to words, whether fiction, non-fiction or other forms of writing, then the Rock of Gibraltar and its people, are written into the world's literature. The sad thing is, many in Gibraltar, many in its wider diaspora and much of the rest of the world, barely know about it.

It is thanks to the work of several individual writers such as Mark Sanchez, Humbert Hernandez, Trino Cruz among others, who have had the temerity to publish and openly discuss their work with academics in other countries, that finally the voices of Gibraltar's writers are being heard in other parts of the world. And, in the odd way that history works, it is because literary critics and other academics outside of Gibraltar have observed and are researching the value of Gibraltarian literature, and its relevance in world literature, that these voices are being both heard and perhaps given a greater sense of value than in Gibraltar itself.

The online Symposium, "In the Shadow of the Rock: A Symposium on Gibraltarian Literature", organised by Professor  Robert Patrick Newcomb of UC Davis in California and co-hosted by Professor  Edwige Tamalet Talbayev of Tulane University in New Orleans recently brought together seven contemporary poetry and prose writers from Gibraltar to talk about Gibraltarian literature, their own work and their thoughts on Gibraltar's literary relationship with the countries by which it is most influenced: Britain, Spain and Morocco. 

As a participant, listening to my contemporaries and samples of their work was tremendous - a rare opportunity, since literary events or literature in general has such a low profile in Gibraltar. Perhaps, and probably perversely so, it is considered of low cultural value, when, in reality, it will always be the words of writers that live on long into the future and are far more likely to shape and influence thinking than some other expressive art forms: while the illustrative and expressive function of a painting or a photograph will engender an emotional response, stimulate discussion and thinking, and music will express a range of emotion, it is the written and the spoken word that will spark, create, and ultimately record debate in a way that will offer future generations the details of our current story.

There was so much depth to the symposium, so many strands of discussion, so many themes to be explored further, that I am not going to try to relay them here. I hope very much that there will be further work on this by the talented literary critics involved in the symposium.

As a non-academic, to listen to the thoughts of professors on the other side of the world and in other countries discuss our work, our Gibraltarian words, was illuminating. I always had a hunch that Gibraltar writers were underserved, and I know from talking to many writers here that there is a sense of Gibraltar's writers working in the dark, that their words will never see the light of day or never be read beyond their immediate circle of family and friends. I know some logged in to the symposium, and I hope, that like me, they found inspiration to keep going. Because there is a growing platform for them outside Gibraltar. There are readers beyond the shadow of the Rock, and tough though the road to publication might be, the effort is worth the effort personally and also because you will be part of pulling Gibraltarian literature out from under the shadow of that Rock.

For those of you who didn't get the chance to join in either to listen in or join in the discussions, here's a quick summary:

Humbert Hernandez read an extract from one of the short stories he has written based on the patio culture of the Gibraltar of his youth, a culture that has all but disappeared. His presentation sparked a discussion on language, Gibraltar's bilingualism, the part this plays in its literature and where this bilingualism and indeed, 'llanito' might be heading in the future.

Marisa Salazar spoke about how she came to write poetry, the 'novel inside her' and she read some extracts from her work. She uses the simplicity of the haiku form to create intense, unforgettable images. She recited poetry inspired by the sea and also by the border. The issue of borders, in a city whose life is dominated by the border and by the sea, enclosed as we are by those features, is particularly pertinent in Gibraltarian literature.

Giordano Durante gave a detailed expose of his poem, "Alameda Interlude" published in his first collection "West". Through the words of the poem, and his exposition, he shed light on so much about Gibraltarian culture, how we still cling to the vestiges of colonialism while displaying snippets of a myriad other cultures, how the remains of those colonial days are crumbling about us, and again, the issue of our "mongrel talk" fuelled discussion about Gibraltarian use of language and how writers reflect that.

Trino Cruz, a writer published in Spain and Morocco, recited some of his beautiful poetry, which he writes in Spanish. He also spoke about the importance of lifting Gibraltarian writing off the confines of the Rock itself to find its place in the literature of the wider locality: the Iberian Peninsula, Morocco and North Africa and perhaps even further afield. Among the poems he recited was one of my personal favourites, "Si borramos algunas huellas", published in the "Anthology of Contemporary Gibraltar Poets". 

Mark Sanchez, who has so successfully brought Gibraltarian writing to the attention of the rest of the world, read an extract from his  new book, Gooseman, due to be published shortly, a multi-layered novel, it promises to be a delightful mix of gritty no-holds barred realism tinged with his characteristic dark humour. I am looking forward to reading this when it comes out. Mark also pointed out that he includes both Spanish and Llanito in the work; it is, after all, a realistic portrayal of what we speak here in Gibraltar. Our language, in our literature.

Professor David Alvarez, of Grant Valley State University in Michigan, spoke about his views on Gibraltarian literature, its development and how it has broken away from the shackles of colonialism, from being written about by the imperialist powers of Spain and Britain, to producing its own voices. He mentioned the importance of works of criticism by Gibraltar University's Becky Gabay and Jennifer Ballantine's Institute of Gibraltarian and Mediterranean Studies, the need for a people to 'have an inventory', and mused on the Gibraltarian diaspora and the cosmopolitan nature of Gibraltar - the movement of peoples in and out and how that is a feature that might create boundaries to the development of a Gibraltarian literature and at the same time be the reason for its potential success.

A good number of threads and themes emerged from the symposium which will give me much to mull over. Above all, it is clear that Gibraltar's writers simply must keep writing and that Gibraltar urgently needs to help them find a platform for sharing their work and for writing the Rock into world literature. I would urge all Gibraltar's writers, whether on the Rock or somewhere in another part of the world, to keep writing on whatever theme and in whatever genre. This growing body of work will be part of Gibraltar in years to come.

This being my first time participating in a symposium on literature, I'm not sure what my contribution achieved, except to add a bit to the discussion on the vital nature of stories and how they shed light on a culture, on how a particular people live and think and function in a specific time and place. I've published my contribution on the link below - feel free to read and to make comment. The conversation on Gibraltarian literature, is, after all, only just beginning. Long may it last.

Writing in the Shadow of the Rock, by Jackie Anderson