Losing the plot

Monthly newsletter, August 2024

Read on for book and event news, and for this month’s reading recommendations. This message is likely to be truncated by your email provider, so please think of clicking through to Substack and reading it in your browser. And while you’re there, do join the conversation and leave a comment!

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Dear friends

Some of you will have noticed that there was no newsletter for free subscribers last month, for which I apologise. Towards the end of June I broke my (left and non-dominant, thankfully) wrist so spectacularly that I needed surgery. I didn’t anticipate either the pain or the post-surgery fatigue, which went on for a full two weeks, and it was all I could do just to keep up with the essentials: no spare braincells available for thinking or creating! It is (slowly) improving now, though it’ll be a good while before my wrist function is back to whatever its new normal is.

I briefly wrote (for paid subscribers) here about the challenge of suddenly feeling very frail and fragile, and wondering whether this is a condition of growing older that isn’t ever going to go away. But really, the challenge was more than that: it was that the whole business stopped me in my tracks. I had just had a proposal for a new book accepted (more of that in a while) and I was desperate to complete other writing projects and begin it. I was just about to head off on a return pilgrimage to Ireland, to simply be there for a while – for the first time in five years, since we left in the spring of 2020 and moved back to Britain. In other words, I was about to have something remarkably resembling a holiday! I was focused, was on something of a roll – then that good old deus ex machina happened along and, instead of providing a mechanism for moving the plot along, hauled me right on out of it instead.

Well, I’ve written a lot about the ‘time between stories’ and all the ways in which it’s necessary to hold still and hold steady when you’re not yet ready to move forward – but this wasn’t a time between stories. I’d been right in the middle of a story, and I’d been enjoying it. But rail as I might, there was nothing to be done about any of this, so I napped and rested and read a lot of novels and stared tragically into space when it all got too much and typed when I needed to with three fingers of my right hand so I could keep up with most of my obligations and waited for the tide to turn. Which, happily, and slowly, it finally has.

That sense of losing the plot wasn’t helped by the fact that it was midsummer (I broke my wrist precisely thirty-two hours after the solstice). Because every summer, I’ve realised, in some way I lose the plot. Literally, I lose sense of the narrative. Who I am, where I am, and why. My antipathy to summer isn’t just because I don’t like the heat or the sunshine, even though it’s true that I’m something of a creature of the night and autumn and winter are the only times of year when I truly thrive. It’s because I can’t see the threads any more: I’m blinded by the light. Spring isn’t too bad; new characters arrive to play essential roles and seem to keep the story moving along. Oystercatchers. Cuckoo. Lapwing. Swallows come and swifts – but where then am I? When the nests have all been built and the first fledglings are already set for the sky? Checked out, gone with the jackdaws, who leave their now-too-busy ruined castle at the beginning of June and fly away in a huff, up into the silence of the hills. Away with the jackdaws. It has a certain ring. Because it’s all too bright, and the owls have gone to ground. Give me a morning that’s still dark at six and I’ll give you a story worth the telling. But in summer, I’m always all out of plots.

In my first novel The Long Delirious Burning Blue I wrote this, in my main character’s voice, about the great American Southwest: ‘Pitiless, this desert provides no such respite. Out there, there is nowhere to hide. The sun shines down on you fiercely, illuminating all your hollowed-out emptiness, casting far too much light on your daily fumblings for adequacy.’ And I guess I feel something close to that way even about a chillier, often-grey English summer. It all just makes me want to crawl under a stone and not emerge till September. Stop the story, I want to get off. Well, this year I managed that in the most unexpected of ways!

Wishing you, as ever, all the blessings of whichever season you’re in,

Sharon

Amazon US Kindle offer, The Long Delirious Burning Blue

I’m delighted to say that amazon.com has The Long Delirious Burning Blue Kindle edition on special offer until 31 August: it’s just $4.99 compared to the list price of $11.99. Purchase it here.

Wise Women events, October – November

This autumn will finally bring the publication of Wise Women (October 3 in the UK, October 8 in North America), the culmination of over five years of research during which I delved deep into the annals of European myth and folklore, looking for – and finding – stories of funny and feisty, but above all powerful, elder women. My last book, Hagitude, was focused on the distinctive archetypal characteristics of a few of these women, but I didn’t have room to tell their stories in full, or to write about the entire, lavish array of enchanting characters I’d discovered. I conceived of Wise Women so that, for this first time, this large body of elder-woman folklore might be brought together in a book. Drawing on my many decades as a psychologist as well as a folklorist and mythologist, for each of the 32 stories collected in the book, there’s a commentary which offers ideas about how it might inform and inspire older women today.

If you haven’t pre-ordered yet, do head over here to find more info and all the appropriate links. There will, of course, be an audiobook too, and I was down in London a few days ago to record my Introduction and Afterword to the book. The stories themselves will be read by an actress, as is common for such things, and those of you who’ve listened to the audiobook of The Long Delirious Burning Blue will recognise the voice of Kristin Atherton.

I’ll be doing a bunch of events around the UK in October and November – grateful to all the bookshops, festivals and organisations who’ve invited me – and would love to see some of you there. I’m especially delighted to be working again with Alternatives London, offering an all-day workshop on navigating the second half of life and reimagining the Wise Woman archetype, on Saturday November 22. Here’s where it’s all happening, so far at least; in-person event locations highlighted in bold:

September 19, 1.45pm, Instagram Live session on Wise Women with Borzoi Books, Stow on the Wold. At the @borzoibookshop IG account.

October 5, Exhale Festival (online): ‘Wise Women: Reimagining the second half of life’. Book here.

October 13, 2.30pm, Ilkley Literature Festival. Booking info coming soon

October 15, 8pm, Dartington Trust, Totnes: ‘Wise Women’; booking info coming soon

October 16, 7 - 8.30pm, 5×15 Bristol: ‘Wise Women: the menopause and beyond’. Book here.

October 21, 7.30pm, Topping & Co, Edinburgh. Book here

October 22, 7.30pm, Topping & Co, St Andrews. Book here

November 6, 7pm, Bookends, Carlisle. Booking info coming soon.

November 8, 6pm, Bookshop by the Sea, Aberystwyth. Online conversation (details coming soon).

November 22, 10am - 4pm, Alternatives London: all day workshop on ‘Wise Women’. Book here

Wise Women final cover and endorsements

To hopefully whet your appetite, here’s a portion of the gorgeous sleeve for the UK hardback:

And here are some of the kind endorsements received so far by Virago from other authors; I’m so grateful to each of them for taking the time to read the proofs.

‘The book I’ve been longing for. I immediately want to give it to all my woman friends. It is so important and Sharon Blackie is exactly the right inspirational person to bring this topic and these new stories of old women to the culture.’
– Jill Dawson, author of The Bewitching

‘The glorious possibility that we might age and ripen, age and grow greater, age and be-come, while also accepting that we will age and die – this is what I have come to expect from Sharon Blackie’s expansive work.’
– Stella Duffy, OBE, author of The Room of Lost Things

‘I adored Wise Women – this is the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle when it comes to reframing the narrative in our culture about the role of older females. Sharon Blackie has unearthed the tales we Queenagers need to see what we can be and become as we age. Essential reading.’
– Eleanor Mills, founder of Noon.org.uk and author of Much More to Come

‘Nestled in insightful notes, this collection turns the spotlight on older women, celebrating their perspicacity and clout with the flair of a seasoned Broadway performance. This will be a smash-hit of a show starring mature and canny women in its second and third acts!  Read it, absorb it, treasure it!’
– Shahrukh Husain, author of The Virago Book of Witches

‘This rich curation reiterates the truth that women in midlife – and beyond – are a vital source of wisdom. Reading them ignited a fire in my belly!’
– Julia Bueno, author of Everyone’s a Critic

‘A fascinating collection of female myths and legends that read like both dreams and nightmares.’
– Sara Sheridan, author of The Fair Botanists

‘Wondrously wise, clever and insightful as well as slyly funny. A new path made of old stories, offering an alternative for women in the second half of life – a reframing as a harvest season of experience rather than a dying off.’
– AG Slatter, author of The Briar Book of the Dead

‘A collection of stories retold to celebrate the power of women in the second, golden half of their lives. Begone crones, witches and hags – here, the old ways of thinking are cast aside for inspiration, boldness and fierceness.’
– The Bookseller (category highlight)

Reading recommendations

Here are some of the proofs I’ve received direct from publishers recently, and which I think you’ll enjoy.

Chasing Fog: Finding enchantment in a cloud, by

Laura Pashby

(Simon & Schuster). As a lover of all things mist, murk and fog, this was always going to be a book for me. Publisher’s description:

Liminal, transformative and increasingly elusive – far from a simple cloud of water droplets, fog is a state of mind. As mist drifted through a copse of trees, turning a familiar place strange and otherworldly, Laura Pashby snapped a photograph and an obsession began.
 
Pashby hunts for fog, walks and swims in it, explores its often pivotal role in literature, mythology and history, as well as its environmental significance. There has been a 50 per cent drop in 'fog events' in the past fifty years, fog is drifting away without us noticing and the ecological impact could be calamitous.

As she journeys to the foggiest places she can find, Pashby immerses herself in Dartmoor’s dangerous fog, searches for the Scottish haar, experiences Venice’s magical mist, tell us the myths behind the River Severn’s fog and the shipwrecks it hides.

Much More to Come, by

Eleanor Mills

(HQ). One for the ‘queenagers’, by the founder of Noon. Publisher’s description:

In the tumult of midlife, women can face a whirlwind of challenges: divorce, loss, career upheaval, and the daunting task of reinvention. At forty-nine, Eleanor Mills thought her life was going swimmingly. Then the bottom fell out of her world, and she had to start again from scratch.

Much More to Come is the guide she longed for in those dark times. Within these pages, Eleanor shares stories of resilience and optimism; her own and those of women who have survived and thrived in midlife.

Through moving stories and practical wisdom, Much More to Come cuts through the uncertainty and the self doubt, and proves that midlife is not to be feared, but embraced. It is a time for transformation, when we can finally become the women we always wanted to be.

And staying with the midlife theme … if you’re approaching perimenopause and want to map your journey, you can now pre-order this beautifully illustrated journal from

Kate Codrington

to help you do so: The Perimenopause Journal (David & Charles, out on September 10). Here’s what they say about it:

The Perimenopause Journal is created for the bold, curious women who are interested in personal growth and who want to understand and care for themselves while they go through the process of perimenopause. They go to yoga, but might cringe at the chanting. They get the giggles in a gong bath and close out their mindfulness class with a glass of prosecco. They are sharp, they’ve busted glass ceilings, they’ve burned out and (hopefully) recovered and are now longing to learn how to live their lives sustainably and stylishly. They don’t want to be patronised, they need a reassuring guide to understanding themselves, managing their symptoms and allowing them to blossom into a creative life postmenopause. They bought period pants and moon cups are now entering perimenopause and finding that there is no one there who speaks their language or gets their situation. The perimenopause journal is for those women.

This undated journal can be started at any point in the year, and guides readers through the phases of perimenopause, allowing them space and time to really engage with their symptoms, and how their changing lives can be a source of excitement and joy. Written by artist and facilitator Kate Codrington, The Perimenopause Journal is a year-long experience of this unique time of a woman’s life that helps to chart the course to a smooth and fulfilling “second spring”. Based around the seasons and the lunar year, the journal shows readers how to recognise and track their symptoms of perimenopause, and how to care for themselves, and embrace their energy over 52 weeks.