Fiction – F C MALBY

Using Photographs as Writing Prompts for Short Fiction

Lots of people ask me where I get my ideas from when writing fiction. The answer remains elusive. As a photographer, I find much inspiration from snippets of every day life that are captured in photographs. Scenes from life, interactions, a moment in time. These all form the seeds of an idea.

I find black and white images particularly striking. Ted Grant famously said, “When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!”

I use Pinterest to collect and find ideas. You can read about it in this post. I’ve gathered together a few of my favourite recent photographs from other photographers into a board of writing prompts. You can see a few of them below, but go to the board for the full range.

All photo credits: Unsplash (see my Pinterest Board for individual photographers)

There is something about a visual stimulus which can spark an idea. It also makes the writing process less daunting, particularly if you’re struggling with writer’s block.

Do you use images for inspiration in art or writing? Let me know in the comments. If you find inspiration from any of these writing prompts, I’d love to hear from you.

Celebrating 100,000 Blog Views with Writers and their Creative Spaces

To celebrate reaching a blogging milestone of over 100,000, I thought I’d share more of what you’ve enjoyed recently. One of my most viewed posts over the past month has been Writers and Their Creative Spaces. So, here are some of the creative spaces of other writers.

Hemingway’s writing space at his home in Florida Keys. He wrote whilst on his boat or at his Key West home. Here, he wrote The Old Man and the Sea.

In celebration of hitting a blogging milestone of over 100,000 views

Michael Pollan built this small writing hut in the woods by his house in Connecticut. Pollan was inspired by French writer, Gaston Bachelard, who wrote in The Poetics Of Space, ‘I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.’

“The house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”

Neil Gaiman built a gazebo almost 30 years ago in his garden. He says, “I can look out of the window and some wildlife will occasionally look back…There are heaters down there, because it gets cold here in winter, and blankets on the chairs, ditto, and I have to try and remember not to leave bottles of ink on the table as they freeze. It’s just out of reach of the house Wifi, too, which is a good thing.”

It’s just out of reach of the house Wifi, too, which is a good thing.

Roald Dahl wrote in a shed in Buckinghamshire, which he called his Gipsy House. Everything was within reach of his chair, according to illustrator, Quentin Blake. He also wrote with his favourite pencils on yellow paper.

Inspired by Dylan Thomas, who found writing at home difficult with young children, Dahl built his Gipsy House – a sanctuary, somewhere where he could work without any interruptions.

A sanctuary, somewhere where he could work without any interruptions.

Poems Published in Cable Street Press: Issue 9

Four of my poems have been published in the marvellous Summer Edition of Cable Street Press, Issue 9.

A word from the editor on Issue 9:

**Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly, Sage Flowers, Marigolds.**

Bastille Day has come and with it, the explosion of writing and art that is the latest Cable Street Issue. I’ll be frank with you—every issue blows my mind. I see all the pieces one by one and they are surprising, delightful, shocking, thought provoking. But then they all come together, and each and every time, I’m moved by the web of art in conversation that is created...And these are only some of the many treasures of this issue. Storm into this tower at your own speed, making sure to check out the poetry of F.C. Malby and Roberta Schultz…There is plenty to enjoy on this Bastille Day weekend.

— Hardy Griffin for the editors

Poems by F C Malby

My poems, Crossing, I Have Already Gone, Moths, and Where Have All the Birds Gone feature a range of themes, including the contentious issue of immigration. Through Crossing, I wanted to give a voice to the voiceless; this is a particularly exigent issue.

Crossing

I line up with other bedraggled bodies,
some look as though they might be dying,

others carry the weight of grief. I watched
a child slip away while we waited yesterday,

saw the life leave its lungs, the mother clung
to its body, tears wet the child’s face. It’s not

pretty, it’s worse than they tell you. I don’t
know whether we will make it or whether

we might be taken back. I don’t speak
the language, few of us do. It matters.

The look on the guard’s faces is difficult
to read, tells me they’ve seen so much

of this. None of us know what to do or
what’s next. Clothes dry on a makeshift

line between tents, next to plastic bags
of what we have left after the police take

anything else. Some of us camp under
bridges, avoiding the boulders that stop

us settling on softer ground. We wait for
the next boat, for a better life. The

mother is still holding the child. We
wait. Some of us won’t make it.

Read my other three poems here.

Exciting News: Four Poems to be published in Cable Street Literary Journal

I’m thrilled to have an acceptance of four poems to be published in International Literary Journal, Cable Street, in July. They only publish work three times a year, so I’m happy that my poems have found their way into this wonderful journal. I don’t know about you, but I love a backstory, so I thought I’d share a little about the publishers ahead of the publication.

CABLE STREET

“We are, first and foremost, an international, online journal fostering exchange among writers and readers of many languages. We post new issues three times a year: on or about May 1, Bastille Day, and Thanksgiving.

Our name reflects the essence of our journal: a festival of communication across nations and traditions, a chance to wander the byways of art from many hands and many lands.

Cable Street is a road in London’s East End. It takes its name from the ships’ cables once made there—cables that traveled the world on British fleets. A place enlivened, then and now, by the dozens of languages spoken by sailors, traders, and immigrants. A place where, in 1936, a coalition of antifascists took a stand against the British Union of Fascists, turning back the tide of repression and ethnocentric dominion.

Like our namesake thoroughfare, Cable Street embraces the human family in its multitude of cultures.“

Photo credit: Cable Street Journal, Cable Street, London

More news in July!

What I’m currently reading and watching

There have been some wonderful new book releases and crime thriller series, so I thought I’d share some of my recent reads, books on my Wishlist and things I’ve watched and enjoyed.

CURRENTLY READING

The Giant on the Skyline, by Clover Stroud, is a memoir on home, belonging and learning to let go. It’s meditative, restless and unafraid to ask the difficult questions of life. Stroud’s ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’ are loud and resonant. I’m looking forward to seeing where the story will take me. I would recommend it from what I have read so far.

NEXT ON MY BOOKLIST

Kate Atkinson is a wonderful writer. In Death at the Sign of the Rook, Ex-detective Jackson Brodie is called to a Yorkshire town over a stolen Turner painting.

Once a grand country house, Burton Makepeace, Lady Milton’s home, has been converted into a hotel, hosting Murder Mystery weekends. As guests, including a vicar, an ex-army officer, aristocrats, we are taken on a Agatha Christie-style mystery tour.

Dream Count is the searing new novel from the author of Americanah, Chimamanda Ngoni Adichie. The Times hails this as a “feminist War and Peace.” It tells the story of four women and their loves, longings and desires.

Adichie tells the stories of these women while leading the reader to consider the choices we make and those made for us and on our interconnected world. Dream Count presents unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars.

WHAT I’VE WATCHED

Adolescence is a four-part crime drama series that will make you feel you are living the nightmare that 14 year old Jamie Miller’s family are enduring, as we are thrown into his arrest for killing school girl and fellow classmate, Katie.

This is a gripping and timely drama that runs close to real life, telling a story of violence and shame, as we watch the story unfold in their home, on the streets, in the police station, an in a chilling interview with a psychologist.

In this fast-moving crime thriller, Black Work, police officer, Jo Gillespie, is left with unanswered questions surrounding the death of her husband, who is shot dead in the line of action as an undercover officer. Jo has to work out who to trust and retrace his steps, as she is left to confront issues in her marriage in order to discover who killed her husband.