Lynne Rees

[Michelle]

Lynne Rees
Website

Lynne Rees came to attention when I reviewed Messages, which she wrote with Sarah Salway. I then went on to read The Oven House, another book that impressed me.

She also writes poetry, and teaches creative writing courses.

[Michelle]

I'd like to welcome Lynne to the forum. Although I'm aware that most of you haven't read any of her books, I'm sure she will be an interesting person to have here.

Lynne, could you start by telling us a little more about yourself, your books etc?

[Inver]

Hello and welcome. Where do you get your ideas/insipiration for your books?

[Lynne Rees]

Thanks Michelle - and thanks so much for the invite to take part.

I was born in South Wales, but lived mainly in Jersey and Kent from 1978 until this year and I'm now based in Antibes, South of France. I'm the author of a novel, The Oven House (2004 & 2007), a collection of poetry, Learning How to Fall (2005) ,and co-author with Sarah Salway, of Messages (2006 & 2008), a volume of short, experimental prose. I was a creative writing tutor until the move to France (University degree modules, WEA, adult education, schools, and my own AppleHouse Poetry Workshops from my home in Kent) and I still run a poetry workshop blog which aims to encourage and celebrate both apprentice and more experienced poets: http://applehousepoetryworkshop.blogspot.com/

In 2006, as a result of taking part in a writer's exchange between England, France, Belgium and Ireland, I started to explore haiku writing, which includes not just the familar form of short, three line poems, but also 'the haibun' - a genre that merges the haiku with prose, in the form of a journal, or a memoir, or, and this is still at its experimental stage, a short story. I love working with my two favourite forms - poetry and short prose and some of my recently published work can be seen at: http://anopenfield.blogspot.com/

Looking forward to meeting your forum members and having a chat.

[bev]

Hello Lynne

[Lynne Rees]

Originally Posted by Inver

Hello and welcome. Where do you get your ideas/insipiration for your books?

Hi Diane - ideas and inspirations, regardless of the genre I'm writing in, come from everywhere: memories, overheard conversations, other people's writing, published authors and my students, things I see on a day to day basis, my family and relationships, even dreams... though the genre then determines how I treat that 'idea'.

For example, a poem needs a more concentrated approach than a short story or an excerpt from a novel and my poems tend to explore moments of insight, or one particular person's response to something in particular. Fiction (and memoir too) has the space to explore character, flesh out a story, move about in time.

I ran my own second-hand bookshop for 12 years in Kent and tried many times to write poems about it but there was too much 'story' to be contained in any single poem. It was The Oven House that allowed me to write about the bookshop... and the novel's sub-plot of theft is pretty close to what really happened!

[Inver]

Do you have a favourite place/time of day you like to do your writing?

[knitnat]

Hi there

I heard someone (a reviewer I think) lamenting the fact that here in Australia, none of the large publishing houses will publish poetry. Is this a world-wide pheonomena? If so, what do you see as the future of poetry?

[Kate]

Of all your work, which is your favourite piece?

[Lynne Rees]

Originally Posted by Inver

Do you have a favourite place/time of day you like to do your writing?

Good morning.

I've had my own writing space for some time now - before that, for years, I shifted a desk around different corners of the house and/or had to put everything away at the end of a writing session. In 1996 my partner built me a 'writing house' in the garden as a present when I finished my MA, though also, I suspect, because I came home from B&Q armed with shed brochures and he was horrified at my choices! I christened the building 'The Pen' and that's where I wrote The Oven House and started on Messages with Sarah Salway.

When we moved. I had my own writing room, again, but in the house, and that was big enough to run small creative writing seminars in too. Now I've re-located to France, I have a wonderful study that looks out on palm trees. Yes, palm trees! I can hardly believe it myself...

It does feel like a luxury, having a dedicated place to write in, and I do believe that if we really want to write we'll do it anywhere. But Virginia Woolf was right about 'a room of one's own'. It's as if the place gathers atmosphere through the concentration that takes place there.

As far as times to write go ... not really... though I'm not an early morning person. If I'm thoroughly involved in a project I can write at anytime, and lose track of the hours completely.

[Lynne Rees]

Originally Posted by knitnat

Hi there

I heard someone (a reviewer I think) lamenting the fact that here in Australia, none of the large publishing houses will publish poetry. Is this a world-wide pheonomena? If so, what do you see as the future of poetry?

Hello - I can't really answer as far as 'world-wide' goes, but there are a few major publishing houses in the UK that publish poetry - Faber being one of them, though I imagine that their amazing back list allows them to publish books that don't actually make any money! There are some specialised poetry publishers - Bloodaxe among them - and lots of smaller presses who have a regular output of poetry books, some of which get Arts Council money, but that seems to be diminishing. I imagine in most cases that the publishing is a labour of love rather than a money spinner, and maybe poetry will always be the 'poor cousin' in the literary world because there just isn't the reading market for the books.

I was just going to write it is difficult to get a collection published, but actually, it's difficult to get any MSS accepted and published, isn't it?

As far as the future is concerned... I think every now and then a book of poetry, or a poem, or a poet, will come along and encourage a larger general readership, but for the most part, poetry will probably remain less popular. Maybe it asks more from a reader than prose does? A different kind of attention, approach. A different way of reading? That's definitely something I address when I teach poetry.

[Lynne Rees]

Originally Posted by kb.marsh

Of all your work, which is your favourite piece?

Hello Katie - hmmm... difficult question because I have attachments to each book for different reasons.

The Oven House was my first book and I can remember the feeling when I opened the box of author's copies and held one in my hand for the first time - overwhelmed, proud to bursting, frightened... a mixture of every emotion! The photos of the book launch show me grinning from ear to ear in every shot though so I think 'bliss' was the over-riding one! Although relief also, because I don't feel I'm a natural long-story teller and I really struggled with expanding the plot and sub-plot of The Oven House, so to have completed a novel, albeit a short one, and to see it published, felt like a real achievement.

Learning How to Fall was my second book, and because it was through poetry that I found a deep connection to writing, and to myself, this was very special. The poems in there were written over 10 years so they represent a long period of my life - events, changes, people. I still feel very close to a lot of poems in the book, and pleased that at readings people have come up to me and said, 'I don't usually like poetry, but I could understand yours and enjoyed it'. That's one of the best responses I can ever hope for to anything I've written.

And Messages. What a phenomenal experience that was, writing it and watching it develop into a book. It was originally a private writing project between me and Sarah Salway - bouncing 300 word emails off each other to stimulate creativity and keep in touch with the joy of writing - but within a few weeks we both felt the energy that was building, how we were both so engaged and excited by what we were doing, what we were discovering about ourselves as writers. When we completed the project - 300 pieces of 300 words - we gave a couple of conference papers on collaboration and the writer's voice and then subsequently the book was published. And from what we've heard, readers seem to enjoy the book as much as we enjoyed writing it.

My writing now has taken a different turn. I'm much more involved with writing on the internet, and I'm an editor at Simply Haiku - www.simplyhaiku.com - a journal that celebrates the writing of japanese forms in english, one of which - the haibun - is my latest obsession. The form combines prose and poetry (haiku) and I'm currently using it to write a journal of my new life here in Antibes, and two excerpts can be read at:
http://haibuntoday.blogspot.com/2008...ross-pond.html
http://haibuntoday.blogspot.com/2008...ross-pond.html

All of which doesn't answer your question, does it?!!