How we impact on each other

(Nimue)

Last summer I read Cider Lane – a novel by Mark Hayes. It affected me deeply, to the point where I wasn’t able to figure out how to write a review. It’s a novel about trauma and redemption, loss, grief, guilt, self-harming and wanting to die. It’s also about overcoming those things – sometimes. Having read it was a major contributor to my being able to fix a languishing novel of my own. I started writing Ghosts of the Lost Forest about fifteen years ago, and couldn’t finish it,

Last week, Mark wrote about his feelings in response to Ghosts of the Lost Forest. It’s not exactly a review either, because he’s had the same kinds of issues with this one that had with Cider Lane. Which seems fair.

Forgotten forests

The act of sharing stories can have powerful and unexpected consequences. That’s true for stories of our lived experiences. It’s also true for the things we make up but that also come from our souls. Sharing stories isn’t particularly about writing novels. Most of us have small, everyday opportunities for sharing stories about what’s going on in our lives. What we share, and how we share it can have a huge impact on others.

It is so powerful seeing something of your own experience reflected back. This is why inclusion is so important, and why we need to push back against the domination of able-boded, white, cis, straight, neurotypical male stories. There are a lot of other people in the world who need to see something of themselves. The majority of people are not served by that narrow bandwidth of stories and the growing diversity in recent years has been such a good thing.

Tell the stories that only you can tell, and seek out stories that show you different perspectives of the world.