With my poetry collection… I’d send it to places and they’d say it wasn’t quite right but then they would give some really nice feedback… and that’s what kept me going, because they actually took the time to tell me that so that probably is a good sign.
In this episode, writer and scholar Caitlin Stobie talks about the start of her writing career and how rejection felt ‘crushing’ but, at times, it could also be encouraging.
We have all felt lost at the beginning trying to place our first poem or the first piece of prose fiction in a magazine or a publisher. But we all also have at least one rejection that was encouraging and showed us we were on the right path. Sometimes, these kinds of rejections can be even more inspiring than acceptances.
What is the ‘best’ rejection that you have ever received?
At the time, rejection always feels crushing, especially if it’s something where you think you actually stand a chance.
caitlin stobie
Listen to this extract to find advice on:
Handling rejection as a starting writer
Recognising the ‘nice’ rejections – and using them to keep working on a project
The sea strips / the sand into strata, / shifts the timeline / on the tides. / The village / was Saxon, was Viking / was Roman. / Was here, then gone.
natalie sorrell charlesworth
Picture credits: Andrew
Christ the King, Fishergate Hill
Castle ruin, fairy gate, grey-white mirage
side-eyed from the slipstream windowpane
of a hundred early morning bus journeys.
Octagonal towered, Notre Dame aspirant
pulled flat on all faces but this. A demoted
church, the council’s truncated, votive offering.
One day I will walk up to your wall, press
my palms flat to your bricks. Push.
Picture credits: Preston Digital Archive
Tulketh Hall
Back to grass and heather. The hum
of masonry bees vibrating in their
honeycombed brickwork remnants.
Hidden undergrowth fed on ashes.
Here, a hunter once crouched
in their furs in the long grass,
watching the sedate grazing
of their next rabbit-skin hat.
Here, a monk once set down
his wandering staff, bricked
the world into windows, panes
of glass arching heavenwards.
Here, a man made a manor
of a monastery, rented out
the choral echoes of inherited
nobility, to trade and railways.
Here, they sent the orphaned
or unwanted, the short-trousered
progeny of parents on a budget,
for Latin, Greek and arithmetic.
Here, the army stored their secrets,
then forgot to post a guard. Lost
the lot to trespassers five years later,
ten-year-old Tom with dad’s lighter.
Here, half the roof peeled open
in a storm, like a ring-pull can lid.
The council puts paid to the walls
with a wrecking ball next winter.
Here lies Tulketh, interred in
Avenue, Brow, Road, Crescent.
Foundations’ bones tarmacked
under a car park’s cracked skin.
Picture credits: Tjer77
Domburg Beach
i.
The sea strips
the sand into strata,
shifts the timeline
on the tides.
The village
was Saxon, was Viking
was Roman.
Was here, then gone.
ii.
One winter reveals
a headless Victory.
She was carried
in triumph
to the church. Left
greening
out of salt until
she was reclaimed,
or lost,
to lightning.
iii.
In harder times
the villagers develop
criminal tendencies.
Wind their way
through the wave
forms of foundations,
the worm casts
of superfluous
underwater wells.
Seek plunder.
iv.
The currents change
on the whim of the weather,
call up
the temple of a forgotten
Roman goddess, plying
her faith amongst
the carcass stalls
of Viking merchants,
the graves of Christians
birthed
out of the mud,
heads facing westwards.
v.
For centuries of dark nights,
the villagers’ children
have crept out
through the waves’
boneyard, pillaged the surf’s
hand-me-downs
for the brooches and skulls
they liked the best, ferried
them home through
seaweed snares and crab nests.
Of the rest, little is known
and the locals’ lips
are salt-sealed.
Dr Natalie Sorrell Charlesworth, is a 29 year old Preston native. She won the Poetic Republic Portfolio Prize 2014, was specially commended in Elbow Room 2016, shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize 2020 and Jane Martin Prize 2014 and longlisted for Mslexia 2021. Her work has been published by Poetic Republic, Elbow Room, Beautiful Dragons and Hidden Disabilities. She works as a Library Assistant for Lancashire County Council, as an Outreach and Schools Liaison Officer for Lancaster University and as a freelance artist and genealogist. She is an active board member for Lancaster Literature Festival and recently passed her VIVA for her Creative Writing PhD at Lancaster University.
I don’t have a writing routine for my writing now, it mostly happens in little bursts in between finishing something for my postdoc or maybe on the weekend, in the evenings…
Some authors combine their careers with a job in academia. This is the case of Caitlin Stobie, whois a writer and a research fellowat the University of Oxford. In fact, Caitlin’s interest in the intersections between science and literature partly inspired her forthcoming poetry collection, Thin Slices.
In this episode, Caitlin talks about changing routines to find what works best for you wherever you are in life. She also recommends the book Daily Rituals, which describes the creative routines of well-known writers such as Sylvia Plath, Patricia Highsmith and Franz Kafka.
Listen to this extract to find advice on:
Combining your academic writing with your fiction writing
More often than not I’ll open my laptop and start writing at around 7 o’clock in the morning. That’s deliberate because I know that I’m going to get two hours worth of work without anyone getting in touch with me on email or a phone call or anything like that.
If waking up early is something that comes naturally to you, why not try to get your writing done before anything else? The early hours tend to be the most creative, way before your brain becomes overwhelmed with the demands of the day. For years Rob has started his day very early at his writing desk, which gives him two hours of focused time on the craft before going into his day job as a lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton. No wonder why he’s such a prolific writer!
Listen to this extract to find advice on:
Writing first thing in the day
Cold showers, breathing exercises and more ways to tap into your creativity
Finding time to focus on your writing and avoid distractions
With my poetry collection… I’d send it to places and they’d say it wasn’t quite right but then they would give some really nice feedback… and that’s what kept me going, because they actually took the time to tell me that so that probably is a good sign.
Caitlin Stobie chose to develop her writing career in different fields, including poetry and academia. In this episode she shares what she’s learned from working with editors and publications in both areas. She also gives us advice on approaching publishers informally before you send them your work. Watch out for Caitlin’s debut poetry collection, Thin Slices, which will be published by Verve Poetry Press in 2022!
Listen to this extract to find advice on:
Develop your writing career in and outside academia.
Approaching publisher informally.
How to research the best places to submit your work to.
You shouldn’t be scared of having an informal chat with publishers before sending them something.
‘Having sent quite a lot of poems out the previous years and having got nowhere with them… apart from getting enough rejections slips to wallpaper a room, I got a handwritten note from the editor of Fire saying that they’d accept my publication, and I think that was the first time that I felt that what I was doing was worthwhile… and that would then propel me forward, and it did, it became quite an addictive feeling, getting poems and short stories published in magazines…’
It took several years until Rob M Francis had his first piece published. Now he’s the author of numerous poetry pamphlets and two novels, Bellaand The Wrenna, both published with Wild Pressed Books. He works as a Creative Writing lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton. In this extract, Rob talks about the excitement of getting a piece published and how you can use that energy to keep sending your work out.
Listen to this extract to find advice on:
Finding the energy to submit your work to different publications.
The importance of remembering the first piece you ever published.
Knowing when your writing is ready to be sent out.
‘That sense, that juice, that energy, that drive, that sense of validation that you get through publishing books is quite different [from publishing shorter pieces] because you spend so long on a particular project.’
to Ormskirk I find pavement I have driven before
in another state, across a border, across an ocean
that divided me from some other place,
where I spoke to people in a brick building,
about a book I had written, before I knew
what writing was, when I kept thinking—then,
see, this is who I was, then; and now?
Now I see a field so bright I am left
wondering is that the colour I saw there:
in some other state, across that border, across this ocean?
Those brick buildings, there, surrounded by fields that were
yellow, no green. It was green all around,
and I knew I was floating in a sea of grass.
You begin to feel that you were in that place first,
now this place; one more real than another?
Or that every road you travel is pavement you have made:
the black tarmac, harsh in its blackness, black tar.
And when you rise over the next small incline,
you think: you can make this road again, you can,
you can can can…
THE WANDERING BARD 