I’ve just picked up the proof copy of the printed version of the Oxford Indie Book Fair Magazine from Andy Severn of OxfordeBooks. It is essentially an online magazine: you can read this third edition on the link. If you like a good short stories you won’t be disappointed.
Our aim was to print 50 copies to distribute around bookshops and to the media. That may have to wait awhile! The theme of this edition is Biography and Life Writing. It includes, A Five Step Plan to Write your Memoir by Anna David and my third feature on Life Writing and How to Begin.
This is a good time to recall memorable moments from your life. I’m currently working on my own memoir. For the first time in fifty years, I took out Atam’s letters to me and mine to him. It was an emotional experience taking me back to the sixties. Why not do the same: rummage around your photographs and memorabilia? Invoking vibrant images of better times, while not avoiding the painful ones, is a healthy thing to do in these sticky fog days of Covid.
I can write on the subject because I described the lives of 120 people for The Oxford Times (See the collage of a few of them) For I Love You All – a history of an Oxfordshire choir, I wrote another 30. I interviewed the Stars artist Qu Leilei over three years to provide the authentic background detail to my novel Brushstrokes in Time . Leilei allowing me to dig deep into his life experiences was a privilege .
