Ned Hayes's Blog, page 160

"What is the form of writing down a dream? Should this dream be in line breaks?"

“What is the form of writing down a dream? Should this dream be in line breaks?”

- In the Laurels, Caught by Lee Ann Brown, glowingly reviewed at The Rumpus by Sarah Sarai (via therumpus)

"The sound of a distant ocean covers me with surf, that tide...

"The sound of a distant ocean covers me with surf, that tide that bears me back eternally into the past, back to the place where I was born.

People come through the whiteness, through the bright light, but all of them are ghosts. The day before he died, my mother did something inexplicable. She took me out in our little fishing boat, out on the open water of the sea. The thrum and hiss of surf upon the shore behind us, the breaking rhythm never ceasing. My mother waited until we were out of sight of land. She squinted against the bright sunlight, making sure of our isolation. And then she taught me something: strange words in a foreign tongue, a lilting sing-song rhythm to it."

— from the novel Sinful Folk

Photo

Photo

I ran. A path seemed to open before me into the wood, some...

I ran. A path seemed to open before me into the wood, some small track to a little town, a forgotten village.

I sensed the watcher, keeping pace with me in the thickening forest, maneuvering silently through the clasping vines, the slapping branches and heavy windfall logs. She was close to me at times.

For it was a woman: somehow I sensed that already. A furtive one who moved without the need to prove her strength, a specter in the leaves, a faint scent of lavender and mint.

— from the forthcoming novel Sinful Folk

PHOTO:

Illustration from darkface: The Path to Nowhere by ~Stridsberg

I wrote a novel — SINFUL FOLK — in the voice of a...

I wrote a novel — SINFUL FOLK — in the voice of a medieval woman. 

theparisreview:

“It’s amazing what you find out about yourself when you write in the first person about someone very different from you.” —Doris Lessing

"Books may well be the only true magic."

“Books may well be the only true magic.”

- Alice Hoffman (via true-i-talk-of-dreams)

Ten years ago, Michaelmas. Summer hours fading into dusk, day...

Ten years ago, Michaelmas. Summer hours fading into dusk, day dying slow. I had fallen out of the straight path into a place of harsh rocks and broken brambles, like the legend tells Satan fell from heaven on St. Michael’s Day. But I had fallen from no heaven, and those who pursued me were no angels.

….

On that long summer day, I had stolen a monk’s cassock and cloak from the Cluniac Monastery, rosary beads and all, using the shapeless brown cloak to conceal my womanly figure.

…..

Then the flap of a bird in a bush. The crack of twigs under stealthy footsteps. Someone watching from the wood. A faint shape and shadow in the wind, a stirring in the leaves. I gazed into the dappled dark, wondering at the watcher.

I was turned away from the road when they came. The sound of horses, a vast thrumming, a swarm of distant angry bees. Then I turned and saw them.

— from the novel Sinful Folk

"Maybe reading was just a way to make her feel less alone, to keep her company. When you read..."

“Maybe reading was just a way to make her feel less alone, to keep her company. When you read something you are stopped, the moment is stayed, you can sometimes be there more fully than you can in your real life.”

- Helen Humphreys, Coventry (via larmoyante)

"The fire blazes, sparks rioting above the earth, rising into...

"The fire blazes, sparks rioting above the earth, rising into the night. In the reflected blaze, the masks of the players packed in a cart glimmer behind us, false faces shifting in the light."
— from the forthcoming novel Sinful Folk