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TCK TALENT: The “Where are you from?” question evokes poetic sentiments in this third group of TCKs

Leave a comment Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on March 2, 2018

Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli is back with a third round of poems composed by Third Culture Kids in answer to that vexed “where are you from?” question.

Hello again, fellow Displaced Nationers, global nomads, expats, Third Culture Kids and other curious travelers! As March comes in like a lion (here on the U.S. East Coast, where Winter Storm Riley has become a strong nor’easter, hitting us with wind, snow and rain), I’d like to present the third post in my series of TCK poetry. If you missed the first two, be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2.

The poems are the work of a group of 11th and 12th graders at an international school in Malta. Their teacher wanted them to think more deeply about what “home” means for them, given that they are all growing up in more than one country.

Before we leave the topic of the weather: We in the Western Hemisphere may be growing tired of winter at this point (the so-called Beast from the East has just swept across Europe). But it’s interesting to note that although all three of the young people featured below are from colder countries than Malta, which enjoys mild winters and warm-to-hot summers, two of them recall the winter season in their poetry. Hm, does absence make the heart grow fonder?

* * *

Where I’m From
By Yoana Tsekova

I’m from the Southeast,
from the Black Sea,
from aromatic rose oil and healing rivers
From weddings and divorces
surrounded by cave paintings.

I’m from movement to fill space,
from applauses and projectors and sleepless nights.
From the ashes of the campfire,
from shaking heads for ‘yes’,
and nodding for ‘no’.

I’m from here and from there
From water balloon gaffes
From white lies to protect friends,
From moments and laughs.

There is a small country that no one knows about.
And there is a small girl that everyone teaches how.
I’m from there—
from gold and rust
And easy trust.

Yoana is Bulgarian and she lived in Malta from 2015 to 2017.

Where I’m From
By Ivan Orlav

I can see a lot of cars
but few people from the window
I can smell the kitchen scents
mixed with the paint from my porch—
Sweet and chemical.

I feel the heat inside the house
and the cold outside the door
I shiver during winter
and feel refreshed during summer.

I’m from the white wool
falling from the sky,
cooling the ground,
for two thirds of the year.

Editor’s Note: We are checking on Ivan Orlav’s country of origin but suspect it is Russia.

Where I’m From
By Judith Smit

I am from Napoleon Bonaparte’s bronze soil,
I am from the silver trust in the eyes of a horse.
I am from the blonde country’s golden hair.

I am from surviving
And winning over the lower levels.
From creativity and freedom
And the possibilities that create dreams.
I am from diversity
And from sharing stroopwafels.

I am from the red
Blood flowing on an ancient stone wall,
From the white
Belly of a Burmese mountain dog,
From the blue
wavy water that never ceases.

I am the fiery clean energy,
The air scented by tulips,
And the unexpected weather.

Judith is from the Netherlands; she has lived in Malta and Holland.

* * *

We love to hear from our readers, so please leave any thoughts, questions, suggestions—and yes, poetry—in the comments! During the last round, it was great to get a poem from Cinda MacKinnon, an Adult Third Culture Kid and novelist whose work has been featured on the Displaced Nation. You can read it here.

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to Lebanese parents, Dounia Bertuccelli has lived in France, UK, Australia, Philippines, Mexico, and the USA—but never in Lebanon. She writes about her experiences growing up as a TCK and adjusting as an adult TCK on her blog Next Stop, which is a collection of prose, poetry and photography. She also serves as the managing editor of The Black Expat; Expat Resource Manager for Global Living Magazine; and is a freelance writer and editor. Currently based on the East Coast of the United States, she is happily married to a fellow TCK who shares her love for travel, music and good food. To learn more about Dounia, please read her interview with former TCK Talent columnist Lisa Liang. You can also follow her on Twitter.

STAY TUNED for more fab posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for the biweekly Displaced Dispatch, a round up of posts from The Displaced Nation—and much much more! Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Photo credits:
– Photo of Bulgaria by Alexandr Bormotin on Unsplash
– Photo of Russian snow by Anton Scherbakov on Unsplash
– Photo of stroopwafels from Pixabay.

Cool Columns, TCK Talent ATCK, Bulgaria, Crosscultural, Europe, Holland, Malta, Poetry, Russia, TCK, TCK Talent, The Netherlands, Third Culture Kid, Writers we love

EXPAT AUTHOR GAME: What score does Apple Gidley earn on the “international creative” scale? (2/2)

4 Comments Posted by ML Awanohara on February 17, 2018

Readers, we had a long pause in this episode of the Expat Author Game, for which I heartily apologize. Christmas and New Year’s intervened, and the Displaced Nation has been hibernating during January. But it’s February now and we are back again, in time for Valentine’s Week! It seems appropriate that in this post we will be playing the second round of our Expat Author game with Apply Gidley. Her debut novel, Fireburn, is, at heart, a love story—for a man and an island.

For those who are catching up, in Round One Apple came up with a winning algorithm for Fireburn, her debut novel that takes place in the Danish West Indies in the 1870s. During this round, we’ll be trying to see how closely Apple measures up to the Displaced Nation’s (admittedly somewhat quirky) notion of an “international creative.”

On the face of it, Apple has one of the best claims we’ve ever heard to being “international.” Born to an Australian mother and a British father, she spent her childhood in Nigeria, the UK, Australia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea. She met her husband in Papua New Guinea, after which her travels continued as his career in oil took them all over the world. Their two children were born in the Netherlands and Thailand, and nowadays the couple calls two places home: downtown Houston and the US Virgin Islands: specifically, the island of St Croix, where the action of Fireburn takes place. Apple says she enjoys the contrast between the vibrancy of city life and the relaxed pace of the Islands.

Furthermore, I think it’s fair to call Apple “creative”. You can read about the many roles she has played on her author site, but what I’m most curious about is what caused her to don Kareni headdress in the above photo. Was she paying a visit to the hill tribes of in northern Thailand? Perhaps she’ll enlighten us in the comments.

I am also rather impressed that, although her only formal training was as a secretary (she attended secretarial college in the UK), Apple now serves on the Advisory Board of the University Museum at Texas Southern University, one of the premiere museums celebrating African American art and artifacts in Houston. One should never underestimate Ms. Gidley! No sooner has she landed somewhere but she can be found immersing herself in the local history, community and culture.

Without further ado, let’s resume the Expat Author Game and see how Apple manages Round Two, where points are scored for intangible indicators of an expansive, global outlook and the ability to take a creative approach to exploring the world.

Welcome back to the Displaced Nation, Apple. As you may know, many of our residents, myself included, have confessed that the expat life has made them feel like a character in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. How about you? Are there any lines from this classic work that resonate with you?

Having lived in 12 countries, relocated 26 times and now living between two places, I’d have to pick

“Who in the world am I? Ah, THAT’S the great puzzle.”

One of the joys of global mobility as an accompanying spouse is the opportunity to reinvent oneself—something I have done many times, as you mentioned in your introduction. I’ve sold diving equipment in Texas, edited a magazine for an international charity in Singapore and Thailand, sprung Brits from jail in Equatorial Guinea and decorated pubs in Aberdeen—and now I’m a writer! I have occasionally wondered which hat I am meant to be wearing at any given time.

Which leads onto the next quote:

“..it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

One of the hardest relocations is the final one—repatriation. Perhaps that why I live in two places.

Moving on to the next literature-related challenge: According to George Elliot’s Maggie Tulliver, the best reason to leave her native village of St. Ogg’s would be to see other creatures like the elephant. What’s the most exotic animal you’ve observed in its native setting?

In South Africa, at Mala Mala, I watched a leopard prowl around the base of a tree. Her kill—an impala she had hauled up into the fork of the tree—was being eyed by a hyena lying nearby ready to pounce if any part of the mutilated antelope fell. The leopard’s strength and perseverance was humbling, as was her beauty.

Last but not least in this series of literary challenges: We’re curious about whether you’ve had any “Wizard of Oz” moments when venturing across borders. Again, please use a quote or two. You can also pick quotes from other literary works if you like…

Saying goodbye is one of the most underrated things in a nomadic life but if we don’t say “goodbye” well, it is hard to open our hearts to saying “hello” to new people, new cultures, new adventures. The Wizard of Oz got it right:

“It’s not where you go but who you meet along the way.”

It’s always about the people, both local and other expatriates. It is they who make the place, who share their customs (some of which we might not like but of which we must always be respectful even if trying to make changes to long held traditions), their foods, their belief. And some of those people we will, inevitably, lose touch with even in the age of the internet. That’s okay, because we have had the pleasure of knowing them in a certain time and place.

And secondly, I love the following quote from The Magic Pudding, an Australian children’s classic (it was first published in 1918), by the wonderful author and illustrator, Norman Lindsay. It is a story about how Bunyip Bluegum, a koala bear, meets a grumpy pudding called Albert. My mother was Australian, and this is one of the books I remember her reading to me as a child. This is quite long but it says it all, even if I have lugged around a great deal more than suggested!

“The fact is,” said the Bunyip, “I have decided to see the world, and I cannot make up my mind whether to be a Traveller or a Swagman. Which would you advise?”

Then said the Poet,

“As you have no bags it’s plain to see
A traveller you cannot be;
And as a swag you haven’t either
You cannot be a swagman neither.
For travellers must carry bags,
And swagmen have to hump their swags
Like bottle-ohs or ragmen.
As you have neither swag nor bag
You must remain a simple wag,
And not a swag or bagman.”

“Dear me,” said Bunyip Bluegum, “I never thought of that. What must I do in order to see the world without carrying swags or bags?”

The Poet thought deeply, put on his eyeglass, and said impressively,

“Take my advice, don’t carry bags,
For bags are just as bad as swags;
They’re never made to measure.
To see the world, your simple trick
Is but to take a walking stick
Assume an air of pleasure,
And tell the people near and far
You stroll about because you are
A Gentleman of Leisure.”

“You have solved the problem,” said Bunyip Bluegum, and, wringing his friend’s hand, he ran straight home, took his Uncle’s walking stick, and assuming an air of pleasure, set off to see the world.

Moving on to another dimension of creativity: telling tales of one’s travels through photos. Can you share with us a favorite photo or two you’ve taken recently that in some way relate to your creative life, and tell us why these photos have meaning for you?

Here is a view of Christiansted Wharf today. Christiansted was the capital of the Danish West Indies. Apart from a couple of new buildings in the background, this scene has not changed much since the 1870s when Anna arrived back on St Croix from her ten-year exile in London. It was the history all around me—the Danish architecture, the ruins of sugar mills, the skeletons of plantation houses and slave quarters—that helped me formulate the background for Fireburn.

My second photo shows my desk in Houston. It has all my favourite books within grasp, and my favourite photos on view. My excuse for a cluttered desk is that I am a firm believer in Einstein’s theory that a clean desk represents an empty mind.

And now for our interplanetary challenge: Can you envision taking your exploration of other modes of being beyond Planet Earth? How about a trip to Mars?

I wouldn’t! I’m rather fond of planet earth and think we need to concentrate on saving it before readying ourselves to destroy a new one.

* * *

Congratulations, Apple! As anticipated, you aced Part Two of the Expat Authors Game. I absolutely love the idea of a magic pudding named Albert telling a koala bear named Bunyip Bluegum that if he wants to see the world, he should carry a walking stick and assume an air of pleasure.

Readers, are you ready to score Apple’s performance on Part Two? How did she do with her literary references? And what about that animal of hers, of which she even supplied a photo! Speaking of photos, that photo of her in a headdress is quite something, and I have to say, I agree with her about having a messy desk: writers need to create nests!

Finally please note: If you are burning (so to speak) to explore the world Apple conjures up in her novel (which her other photo, of Christiansted Wharf in St. Croix, illustrates), be sure to visit her author site. You can also follow her on Twitter, where she announces her next book readings.

STAY TUNED for more fab posts.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for The Displaced Dispatch, an occasional round up of posts from The Displaced Nation—and so much more! Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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Photo credits: All photos supplied by Apple Gidley; photos in section heads are from Pixabay.

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FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD: Jo Parfitt’s creative life as serial expat

2 Comments Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on November 16, 2017

Columnist Doreen Brett is back, and she’s accompanied by another “great” in the expat publishing world, Jo Parfitt, who has published 30+ books herself while also helping at least a hundred new expat writers publish their first great works. Wow. Who among us can compete? —ML Awanohara

Hello Displaced Nationers! It is my pleasure to present to you the venerable Jo Parfitt, who has been an expat for more than three decades while also carving out a career for herself as author, journalist, writing mentor/teacher, and publisher.

This is not Jo’s first time on the Displaced Nation. A couple of years ago, another expat author, Ana McGinley, interviewed Jo about her decision to found Summertime Publishing, which specializes in publishing books by and for people living abroad.

Summertime, by the way, is turning 10 years old this year. Congratulations, Jo!

As Jo reported to Ana, one of her own books, A Career in Your Suitcase, remains one of Summertime’s top five bestsellers. Is it any wonder, given that Jo is her own best example? Among the many places where she’s lived and worked are three I know well: my native Malaysia, my husband’s home country of Britain, and my current home of the Netherlands, where Jo, too, now resides.

And now let’s hear about Jo’s experience as a serial expat—and how living in so many different places has fed her creative life.

* * *

Welcome, Jo, to the Displaced Nation. First let’s do a quick review of all the places you’ve called “home”. You were born in Stamford, a town in Lincolnshire, UK. A few years back, Stamford was rated the best place to live by the Sunday Times. But you were not content to stay put. Instead you have lived in Dubai, Oman, Norway, Kuala Lumpur, Brunei, and the Netherlands. What got you started on this peripatetic life?

I went abroad the day after I got married, when I was 26. My boyfriend had gone to Dubai for work and I had to marry him to follow him. Before that happened, I already knew I loved being overseas. I had done a French degree and a year abroad, so I was already travelling before I met my husband. But still, I hadn’t imagined living in Dubai and, in fact, did not want to go there at all. But my husband (he was my fiancé at the time) said: “Come for six months. If you don’t, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.” And thirty years later, we are still living abroad…

Why didn’t you want to go to Dubai?

At that time I was running my own business and doing quite well. And I was really happy in my career and didn’t want to give it up. Career has always been really important to me. When I closed down my business (I was in a partnership) to move to Dubai, I found it absolutely devastating.

So Dubai was a hard landing?

I was the first expat wife in my husband’s company. They had no support for me at all. We weren’t given our own apartment. I ended up sharing a flat with some other chaps who were in my husband’s office. I was lost and lonely and I knew nothing about networking, I knew nothing about portable careers, I knew nothing about being an expat. But then I found a job opportunity for somebody to do some freelance CV writing. So I did, and eventually I became a journalist. When I submitted my CV they said: “Well you’re not very good but you’ve got potential. So you work for me and I’ll shout at you a lot and you’ll learn.” So that’s what happened. One thing led to another and I had a career again.

Can you tell us about where you went next?

From Dubai, we went to Oman for two-and-a-half years, which was heaven. We loved it. We left too soon because after Oman we went to Stavanger, in southwestern Norway. We went from heat and and living outdoors and having help in the house to a cold and rainy place with no help. We stayed 18 months—actually, we cut that posting short. (I’ve been back to Stavanger since and I thought it was wonderful, but at that time, it was just not for me.) We moved back to Stamford, but I didn’t fit in anymore. We were based in the UK for seven years while my husband would commute on the plane or bus or train for work, until finally we decided it was time we all stayed together as a family again, and we went to live in The Hague. My husband and I also moved to Brunei for a short posting, staying just a few months before returning to The Hague. From there my husband got a job in Kuala Lumpur. For me, living in Malaysia was a dream come true. We’d traveled to Southeast Asia while living in Dubai, and I knew right away I wanted to live in that part of the world some day. It was fantastic.

When you repeat being an expat so many times, do you end up being drawn to cities, where you’ll find other well-traveled people?

In Dubai and Oman it was impossible to get to meet the locals; one has no choice but to live in the expat bubble. In Norway, my home was on the edges of the expat bubble because I didn’t feel that they were really my kind of person. To be honest, I don’t know who I thought my kind of person was. I was depressed in Norway, so nothing would have made me happy. When I went back in England, I realized I didn’t fit in anymore because I’ve lived overseas, so I found my community by starting up a professional network of women writers.

In general have you found that living in cities tends to feed your creative drive?

I wrote a blog called Sunny Interval while based in Kuala Lumpur. I wrote briefly in Brunei. Wherever I went, I found things to write about, generally about transition. I am a poet and a columnist at heart. I love finding parallels and being able to compare and contrast cultures. That said, I lost my mojo in KL for quite a long time—I couldn’t seem to find the beautiful bits. But then I had an experience that absolutely changed my life: an opportunity to write a book on Penang, which is located on Malaysia’s northwest coast. As part of the research, I had to interview Penangites, I had to understand the history and get under the skin of the place. That’s when I realised that getting under the skin of a place is the thing that WILL feed your soul, even if the place is not inherently beautiful. It was such a privilege to get to know Muslims and Buddhists, Chinese, Malay, and Indian, and call them all friends.

Does language tend to be a barrier when you’re in a non-English speaking place?

Even though I’m a linguist, I didn’t learn Arabic or Norwegian, I know very little Dutch. But when I went to Malaysia, I decided that I would learn Malay, and it made a huge difference. Boleh lah! (Can do!) And now that I’m back in The Hague, I’m determined to speak more Dutch. I think it’s very important to learn the language, and I am ashamed that I didn’t learn Arabic or Norwegian, or Dutch the first time around.

How about the more remote places you have lived? Do they, too, feed your creativity and if so in what ways? And how do you keep from feeling isolated?

I write! As I mentioned, I did a degree in French. As part of my studies, I did a year teaching in France in a really boring small town and I didn’t have any friends there either. I would walk around the town for something to do. And I would walk in the shops and I would look in the windows. And I looked at the wonderful display of tarts and I just thought: “”French Tarts”—that’s a great title for a book. I’ll write it.” And what it did was it gave me something interesting to do and a way to meet people and eat (which I loved!). Because I couldn’t cook I decided to ask everybody I met in the town if they’d have me to dinner, and if they had me to dinner they had to make me a tart and I would write about it and would put their recipe in my book! I was 20. I had utmost confidence that they would say yes. So I went to dinner with the doctor, the dentist, the lady who ran the baby shop, teachers from the school, the man who ran the bicycle shop… I just said to anybody, I want to come to dinner. And I wrote the draft of French Tarts, which came out when I was 24. That was my first book.

What a great story! And I happen to know that’s not your only cookery book. After all, you brand yourself as a bookcook…

When I was in Oman, I had the idea with a friend of mine of writing a cookbook on dates because none of the expats knew how to cook with dates. So we wrote a cookbook on dates. We invented the recipes (I could cook by then!) and did everything else. Though it looked terrible, it sold very well because people wanted the content.

Are there any other remote places where you’ve lived that have fed your creativity?

The most remote place I’ve lived in was Kuala Belait in Brunei, which for those who don’t know if a small sovereign state on the north coast of the island of Borneo (the rest of the island is Malaysian and Indonesian). Kuala Belait was really remote. There was nothing to do there at all. I actually went online and googled bloggers in the area. And I found one blogger, who was 20 years younger. I met her for coffee. I did everything I could to find people. In the end, I started a writer’s circle. I ran a few writing classes and joined a French conversation group. And I was only there for three months. You have to make an effort to reach out to people, but the Internet does make it easier.

I know you’re a great networker. Do you tend to network online or in person?

I network with people online. But I also make sure I network with people in person. I sometimes think, it’s been three weeks and I haven’t seen anybody apart from my family, so I get on the phone and book lunches and things.

Do writers sometimes find it a struggle to meet people IRL?

When I was working from home as a writer, I realised that if I stayed in all day and all evening and wrote, I got depressed. And so I used to go for a walk at lunchtimes and at least try to engage with somebody in a shop. I am an introvert when I work. But I feed my soul by being out. I like to see people face to face every week. I don’t think you get much energy from talking to somebody through the email and texting.

You have 31 books! Do you have a favorite?

Out of my 31 books, I would say that a couple have been pivotal for me. One I’ve already mentioned: French Tarts. It made me realise that If you’ve got a good idea, then you can do anything. The other is A Career in Your Suitcase, which is now in its fourth edition and still going strong. I had the idea for writing it when we first went to Norway. There were no English publications for me to write for. I started working on this and an expat anthology called Forced to Fly.

What’s next for you, travel-wise and creativity-wise: will you stay put where you are or are other cities/artistic activities on your horizon?

I’m in The Hague now. I like belonging in a community. I love the fact that everything’s familiar. When you’ve moved and moved and moved, you really want to feel that you belong somewhere. And knowing the way and not having to use a map and knowing where the doctors is: it’s a great feeling. Here in The Hague I’ve also come back to old friends, and that’s been fantastic. I didn’t have friends in England really. They’d all gone off to university or wherever. England was difficult. I think Norway was the hardest. England was the next hardest. Coming back here to the Netherlands has been the easiest because it wasn’t a repatriation as I thought it might feel. It was a reposting. It had all of the positives and none of the negatives.

Tell me about your new venture taking writers away on retreats. I believe you call them “me”-treats?

This has been an ambition of mine for some time. I’m holding what I call Writing Me-Treats. These are residential holidays for four or five nights. They’re for people who love to write, to come and indulge in writing and sharing and doing beautiful things that will make them feel really inspired. For example, in The Hague, we will do the walk in the Jewish quarter and talk about what happened to the Jews. Understanding that has really deepened my love of the place. My first writer’s Me-Treat is in Penang, this month. My next writer’s Me-Treat is in The Hague, which I have timed to be exactly after the Families in Global Transition (FIGT) conference. The next one is in France, in a mini chateau. Then Devon. Then Tuscany.

Do you have any advice for other global creatives?

If you’re a writer, try getting into a writers circle. That’s where I found my soulmates. People come, we do some speed writing, we share what we’ve written, then I create a task and we do an exercise. It’s about being forced to write, not having an excuse or procrastinating. It shows people what they can do in 10 minutes. It empowers them to think they are good enough. I think a lot of writers want to keep what they’ve written to themselves because they’re too afraid to share it. Or they’re too scared that somebody else will plagiarise it. Which is a real worry. What you get in a writer’s circle is a safe space. People get very friendly. They get very close.

I should remind our readers at this juncture that you have your own publishing house for expat books.

Yes, I run Summertime Publishing. I’ve been helping people to write books since 2002. I teach people online and have three online courses: people can study by email as well. Four years ago I decided to run this writer’s scholarship, the Parfitt-Pascoe Writing Residency. I would train writers, they would cover the FIGT conference, and I would publish what they wrote. This is about to be my fifth year. It’s a wonderful opportunity for people to get training from me for free, to get lots of mentoring for free, and to increase their network.

Any recommendations for the wannabe writers out there?

The other thing I would recommend is that you either write a journal, and do it religiously, or write a blog. Whenever something happens, that I think is of note. I write a blog post. I write it for people I know, so I feel safe enough to be authentic and vulnerable, to show how stupid I am, and my mistakes. And I write as if no stranger will read it. And it becomes a record of my life. A lot of people are very scared to expose themselves like that. But don’t be.

Thanks so much, Jo, for sharing your story with us.

* * *

Readers, any further questions for the extraordinary Jo Parfitt on her thoughts about place, displacement, and the connection between the communities you’ve lived in and creativity? Any authors or other international creatives you’d like to see Doreen interview in future posts? Please leave your suggestions in the comments.

STAY TUNED for this coming week’s fab posts.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for The Displaced Dispatch, a biweekly round up of posts from The Displaced Nation—and so much more! Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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Photo credits:
Photos via Pixabay.

Cool Columns, Far from the Madding Crowd Brunei, Dubai, England, Far from the Madding Crowd, It's Food!, Malaysia, Middle East, Norway, Oman, Repatriation, Scandinavia, Southeast Asia, The Hague, The Netherlands, Trailing spouse, UAE, UK, Writers we love, Writing Tips

TCK TALENT: In response to “Where are you from?” a few more TCKs wax poetic

2 Comments Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on October 14, 2017

Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli is back with a second round of poems composed by Third Culture Kids in answer to that vexed “where are you from?” question.

Hello Displaced Nationers, global nomads, expats, Third Culture Kids and other curious travelers! Since the last time my column appeared, I trust you have moved on from an enjoyable summer (or winter, for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere) to a splendid fall (or spring).

In celebration of the change in seasons, I’d like to present the second post in my series of TCK poetry here at the TCK Talent column. If you missed the first, be sure to check it out here. As I explained then, the poems are the work of a group of 11th and 12th graders at an international school in Malta. Their teacher wanted them to think more deeply about what “home” means for them, given that they are all growing up in more than one country.

Perhaps because I never even lived in the country of my ancestry (Lebanon), I find it endlessly fascinating to read what these young people had to say in response to the fundamental TCK question: where are you from? The older I get, the more I realize that, although there are places I feel more connected to and that hold a big piece of my heart, I’m definitely not “from” any of these places. I don’t belong entirely to any of them.

And by now I’ve also grown used to the bittersweet flavor of living in-between. At the same time, I feel confident that, given the choice, I would do it all over again—because the sweet far outweighs the bitter.

See what you think of the poems below, readers. Are the young writers on the road to the place where I am now: can they taste more sweet than bitter?

* * *

Where I’m From
By Arabella Ovesen

I am from the tall coconut tree
towering over a blue sea
where the Rhum Runner runs
under the midnight sun.
I’m from the yellow, luxurious castle
Azzurra where father taught me to dazzle.

But one day we went up north,
back to the Vikings’ home
where they work back and forth
in a frozen zone.
And that day, I lost my
Spice Ilse throne.

I’m from the pure white snow
of the Northern Pole.
From being surprised;
At the age of fourteen,
they didn’t want to survive.
I’m from time being slow, dark.
A place where Caribbean purity
lost its innocence,
and left a burnt mark.

 Arabella is from Grenada; she has also lived in Malta and Sweden.

Where I’m From
By Clarissa Meyringer

I am from trams
From steel and cement
I am from cold, glistening snow,
It feels like whipped cream.
I am from the towering pines,
giants whose evergreen leaves
were sharp like knives.

I’m from horses of stone
From Fabio and Ben
I’m from the jokers
And the loners
From turning and turmoil
I’m from shadows,
Seen, never heard or spoken of.

I’m from the shallow sea, crystalline.
From the late night snacks
of my grandmother,
The dangerous soccer fan tales of my uncle
I’m from lore and religion, Supernatural;
A friendship with Luci, Castiel and an alliance with Crowley.

On a wall in my room is a drawing
Colors bright
A breathtaking sight
A crayon mess
I am from that place—
Chaotic and free—
Everchanging.

Clarissa is Austrian-Italian; she was living in Malta at the time of writing.

Where I’m From
By Gianluca Chincoli

I’m from the mixed sounds of farm animals
The mud, those painful marble stairs, and a giant old farmhouse.
I am from fresh air and immense woods
Extending in all directions like a green ocean.

I’m from those two spiteful creatures
That made my life a horror and a fight since the beginning.
I am from big toothless smiles to every stranger
And all those cheeky jokes we crew of three planned every day.

I’m from the wind of the night and the day,
Warm and cold, strong and weak like a zephyr.
On those plastic crafts with sails it was always a tough adventure
But the prizes were always priceless.

I’m from the screamings of my father
New experiences, like no one else in the world.
I am from the orange porch of golden sunsets,
Where the wolf was acting drama in front of the innocent children.

From Italy, Gianluca has been living in Malta.

* * *

We love to hear from our readers, so please leave any thoughts, questions, suggestions, and yes, poetry in the comments!

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

Photo credits:
All photos from Pixabay except:
– Photo of Rum Runner boat in Grenada: 1252 Rhum Runner II in Grenada (19), by Mark Morgan via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
– Photo of Italian football fans: AC Mailand – VfL Wolfsburg (2:2), by funky1opti via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
– NOTE: The final photo (from Pixabay) is of a hiking path in the Garda Mountains, in northern Italy.

Cool Columns, TCK Talent ATCK, Austria, Crosscultural, Europe, Football, Grenada, Italy, Lebanon, Malta, Middle East, Poetry, Spain, Sweden, TCK, TCK Talent, Third Culture Kid, UK, USA, Writers we love

LOCATION, LOCUTION: Living in France, English writer Harriet Springbett isn’t afraid to go out on a limb and produce first novel

5 Comments Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on September 16, 2017

Tracey Warr is back with her latest interview guest, Harriet Springbett, an Englishwoman who is now rooted in south-western France and has seen her creative life blossom as a result.

Greetings, Displaced Nationers. My guest this month is Harriet Springbett, an English writer who lives in the Poitou-Charentes region of France with her French husband and their dual-nationality teenage daughters.

Harriet grew up in West Dorset. She qualified as a manufacturing engineer before discovering she preferred people to machines and words to numbers. It was the mid-1990s, and she thought about applying for an MA in creative writing, a degree that was rare at the time, but her boyfriend was French and she ended up moving to France to study French for a year at the Université de Pau. As she writes in one of her blog posts: “I finally opted for love in an exotic setting.” She settled down in France, and in addition to having a family has worked as a project manager, a freelance feature writer, a translator and an English teacher—while writing fiction in her spare time.

Now in her forties, Harriet has produced her debut novel, Tree Magic. Released this year in January by Impress Books, it’s a coming-of-age story about a 13-year-old girl named Rainbow, who has secret powers over trees: she can help them grow and heal. Reflecting Harriet’s own experience, Rainbow travels from England to France, but in Rainbow’s case the quest is to discover whether her ability to communicate with trees is a gift or a curse.

Harriet writes every morning and also maintains an author site, Harriet Springbett’s playground: Words and Thoughts about writing in France, where she covers writing, life in France, and French cultural events. Several of her short stories (e.g., “Quark Soup,” “Shingle and Sand,” “Ami Entends-tu?” and “Big Bones”) have been placed and shortlisted in competitions or published in magazines such as The French Literary Review.

* * *

Welcome, Harriet, to Location, Locution. My first question to you is: how has being “displaced” affected your writing? Has it affected what you write, how you write, that you write at all, or had some other effect?

Over the years I’ve realised that I write to keep in touch with my English origins. When I go back to England and see bookshops stuffed with books, or blogs featuring new books every day, I feel intimidated. Writing stories suddenly seems rather pointless and I wonder what I can possibly add to the overloaded bookshelves. Then I come home to France and it feels rare and right once more. France is my cocoon. If I lived in England, I’m not sure I’d be a writer. Living in France also means that I’m now uncomfortable writing about English settings because I lack familiarity with today’s England. This means that most of my work is set in France or in pre-1999 England.

Which comes first for you, story or location?

Actually, character comes first for my novels, but the location is usually attached to the character. I was fascinated to hear displaced novelist and academic author Patricia Duncker say that the location is often the part of a story that remains with the reader for longest—well after you’ve forgotten the characters and the plot. This is true for me as a reader, and as a writer I need to be able to visualize and sense the setting very clearly. The location grounds the story. At the moment I am writing a story set in the Pyrenees mountains, a place I love, so it’s a real pleasure for me to spend imagination time there.

What’s your technique for evoking the atmosphere of a place?

I write more easily about countryside locations than cities, maybe because I find that cities feel calculated whereas nature is full of coincidental oddities. When I describe places, I try to use all five senses, though not in a list, of course. Sometimes I will associate a smell or a sound with a place, so that when different characters are in the place they will experience the same sense, but colour it with their own perception according to their character or mood. In this way the reader learns about the character as well as the place. Other times I search for a metaphor or simile that describes the place as a whole and leave it to the reader to imagine the details.

Can you give us some examples of features create a sense of location: landscape, culture, food…?

That’s really difficult to pin down. All of these are important, along with language, and, of course, the light: some places have a dark, brooding light, while others have a brightness that bleaches them almost into two dimensions. But the most evocative features are often those you don’t expect. It’s important to spot little details that say a lot, and I love going out and about alone because this is when I play at putting words to what’s around me. On the subject of detail, I remember listening to Beatrice Colin talk about how to make historical fiction authentic: she said you don’t need to describe everything, just a few places—but you must do this in detail.

Can you give us an example from your novel, Tree Magic?

Here is a passage from the beginning of Chapter Two, when Rainbow is out selling tomatoes and arrives at the so-called Drunken House, on the outskirts of the village where she lives.

The Drunken House was the local horror spot, the place you had to go into alone if you lost at Forfeits. She’d only lost once, but the memory of invisible eyes watching her as she’d stood in the hall and counted to ten had been burnt into her mind forever. She’d stopped playing Forfeits with the village kids after that.

The house lurked on the inside of a bend in the dank lane and had been empty for years. Ivy-clad trees grew on the steep bank opposite, and its cold brick walls huddled in their shade. There weren’t any neighbouring houses. It crouched alone, full of ghosts who were just waiting for her to run home alone on a dark night so they could reach out and grab her.

Rainbow hurried past, clutching her bucket. She could feel the house’s dampness creeping out to her. It willed her to push open the rotting door and sacrifice her warm body to its hunger.

How well do you need to know the place before using it as a setting?

I don’t need to know it well but I do need to have a strong sense of it. I often have a real place in my mind as a starting point, which I then adapt to suit the needs of the story. This is the case with The Drunken House extract above: I know the place I mean, but it has changed in my mind to become this new place, which is part real, part fiction. The Chinese novelist and Nobel Laureate Mo Yan mentions this mix of real and imagined locations in his collection of essays Dépasser Le Pays Natal (roughly translated as “Surpassing Your Native Land”). He talks about how, when he returned to his childhood home after several decades of absence, he was surprised to find it different to the childhood home he’d remembered and described in his fiction. I can identify with this.

Last but not least, which writers do you admire for the way they use location?

I tend to find that most books I enjoy have evocative settings. Two authors come to mind immediately: in Philippe Claudel’s novel Brodeck’s Report, a kind of adult fairy tale, I am in those mountains alongside Brodeck. His skill in creating convincing locations is such that the French cartoonist Manu Larcenet was able to create a graphic novel based on this book, and its images, although somewhat darker, are very close to the pictures in my head. The other writer is Donna Tartt—particularly, The Little Friend, whose hot, sticky, Mississippi setting actually made me sweat. She’s the queen of sensory detail and I think this is why I inhabit her books so easily. And if she’s the queen, then British novelist Jon McGregor has to be the king (I hope they don’t mind me marrying them off like this!).

Harriet Springbeck’s picks for contemporary writers who have mastered the art of writing about (and in one case, illustrating!) place

Thanks so much, Harriet, for your answers. It’s been such a pleasure.

* * *

Readers, any questions for Harriet? Please leave them in the comments below.

Meanwhile, if you would like to discover more about Harriet Springbett and her creative output, I suggest you visit her “playground”. You can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

À bientôt! Till next time…

* * *

Thank you so much, Tracey and Harriet! Harriet, I can relate to the idea that you initially went to France as a love-pat, and although you thought it might mean relinquishing your writing career as you have expressed in this post, it seems you are now finding your way. Not only that but your displaced life has fed your creative urges. Kudos! —ML Awanohara

Tracey Warr is an English writer living mostly in France. She has published three early medieval novels with Impress Books: Conquest: Daughter of the Last King (2016), The Viking Hostage (2014), and Almodis the Peaceweaver (2011), as well as a future fiction novella, Meanda (2016), set on a watery exoplanet, as well as non-fiction books and essays on contemporary art. She teaches on creative writing courses in France with A Chapter Away.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

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Photo credits:
Top visual: The World Book (1920), by Eric Fischer via Flickr (CC BY 2.0); “Writing? Yeah.” by Caleb Roenigk via Flickr (CC BY 2.0); author photo and photos of West Dorset and French countryside via Pixabay. Other tree photos, including the one in the background of Springbett’s book cover, also via Pixabay.

Cool Columns, Location, Locution Fiction Writers, France, Historical Fiction, It's Fiction!, Location Locution, Love love love, Memoir | Travel | Food Writers, Nonfiction, UK, Writers we love, Writing Tips, young adult fiction

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD: Ruth Van Reken’s creative life as Adult Third Culture Kid

2 Comments Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on August 26, 2017

Columnist Doreen Brett is back, and she’s accompanied by someone whose “homes” have ranged from Africa to the American Midwest, and who knows better than any of us here what it means to feel culturally displaced. Hm, who else could it be other than the indomitable Ruth Van Reken? —ML Awanohara

Hello Displaced Nationers! It is my pleasure to present to you Ruth Van Reken, an expert in cross-cultural identity and globally mobile families. She is renowned internationally for her compassion, knowledge and insight into what it means to be a child growing up among worlds, otherwise known as a Third Culture Kid.

An American, Ruth was born in Kano, Nigeria, to missionary parents. Although her mom was raised in Chicago, being a TCK is a tradition on the paternal side of her family: her father, too, was a TCK (he was born in Rasht, Iran, then known as Persia, where his parents lived). It’s a tradition Ruth has continued: both her children and first grandchild are TCKs.

Among her many accomplishments, Ruth is co-founder and past chairperson of Families in Global Transition (FIGT), a forum for globally mobile individuals, families, and those working with them, the signature event being an annual conference. She is also the co-author, with David Pollock, of the now-classic Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, soon to be out in its third edition.

Ruth often speaks about issues related to the global lifestyle and has developed the website Cross Cultural Kids as a hub for children of refugees, immigrants, minorities, career expatriates, mixed race, and bicultural families. The way she sees it, not just TCKs but all children who have experienced a globalized upbringing or some form of displacement from their parents’ home/culture are forming a “new normal” in today’s globalizing world.

Now let’s hear about Ruth’s own experiences of living in various locations abroad—and how those locations have fed her creative life.

* * *

Ruth, I understand you’ve just celebrated your 72nd birthday. Happy birthday! And welcome to the Displaced Nation. As I mentioned just now, you were born and grew up in Nigeria. What I didn’t mention is that you lived in Liberia and Kenya as an adult, with your husband and family. How did you come to spend so much of your life in Africa?

Spending 13 years of my childhood in Nigeria was the result of my parents deciding to accept a teaching job in that country. Later, when I got married, my husband and I chose to live and work in Liberia—he as a pediatrician, and me as a nurse. It didn’t go quite to plan. I didn’t end up doing nursing because they were trying to use Liberians for nursing, and we couldn’t get visas to visit my parents in Nigeria even though I had grown up there and loved the country. It was postwar, and all the Nigerians cared about is that I had an American passport. When I finally got to visit my parents, it was a journey of clarification for me. Nigeria wasn’t my world. There had been big changes politically. There were soldiers in the airport. I still really loved the country but could see it wasn’t mine. Later we moved to Kenya.

Would you say it’s normal to live in this way?

For some of us, for whom the seeds are planted early, it’s normal to live like this. Some may think that it’s radical, or how would you dare. But for me it’s the way life is, and it’s good. My hardest move was from Kenya to my current home of Indianapolis, when I thought my travels are over! I’ve come to enjoy where I live right now, but at the time, I thought the international lifestyle was missing. Everybody’s lived here forever and is the same.

How did you keep from feeling isolated through your many moves?

Feeling isolated? I’m an EE (Extreme Extrovert)! There are always people, as long as you don’t demand that they have to be just like you. My hobby is that I like to talk, and I also like to go out, even if it’s to shop for groceries in a little mud hut someplace. So I never felt isolated. Africa is a very social environment. It’s warm all year. In Kenya I joined an International Women’s Club. We had a group of 17 women of 14 different nationalities meeting together every week.

Many of us expats or people who’ve grown up as Third Culture Kids gravitate towards global cities as that’s where we think we’ll find work and our “tribe.” Has that been your experience?

Chicago is quite a global city now, but it was very different when I first moved back home, pre-immigration days. My family lived in a neighborhood where everyone was segregated into traditional communities. That’s why, when I came back as a 13-year-old, everybody was from there and white, and although I looked like I should fit, I didn’t. That was a bad year for me. After one year, I did the chameleon thing and pretended to blend in. I would not tell anyone I was from Africa.

What about when you moved your own family back to the United States?

When my husband and I moved back to Indianapolis, we chose the suburbs as we were specifically looking at schools for the kids. I saw one school and thought, “Everyone looks the same. My kids won’t fit in here.” We found a school where the kids had many looks—a school with multi-nationalities and multi-backgrounds. I felt our kids are going to fit in here better, they have more space to be themselves. You know, somebody here once said: “You think you know everything and you’re so proud because you’ve been everywhere.” I was shocked and horrified. I told her:

“If I just try to be the suburban housewife, then I have a place. But if I ever let you know who I am, then I have no place.”

How did your life in Kenya compare to this?

Kenya was easier for me. When we were sitting with the other expats, we would often be talking about who we are and where they’ve been. That conversation was acceptable for that group. I realized that I don’t understand my neighbor’s job in tech, and he doesn’t understand mine, but we can be great friends on a million other subjects. You can make a bridge of the human story. The more stories we share, the more we connect in those spaces of humanity. In time, I found my space.

I know from reading your books that you think TCKs have special gifts.

I think the biggest gift of being a TCK is that I can connect, and I am sure you do too, to the humanity in people who don’t look like me, and who are from different backgrounds. We can connect with different cultures in some ways. We understand how much the human heart wants to belong.

Can you give us a concrete illustration of a work of yours that was nurtured out of the places you have lived in?

Although my parents were teachers for local schools, they sent me to an international boarding school when I was six years old, as was the norm, so I would learn American history and culture and be prepared for repatriation. I was there for three years, and after that I spent a year in the United States with my gran. Finally, my mother asked if I would like to be home schooled, so from fourth grade onwards, she taught me lessons in her classrooms in the Nigerian schools. I was able to connect to my family, I had Nigerian friends, I learnt the language and played games with them. Years later, when my husband and I had been in Liberia for some time, my daughter wanted to go to boarding school because all her friends were going there. I got depressed, with unresolved grief from my childhood. That was a discovery for me, of the impact of transition on my life. I started writing letters to my parents as if I were six years old again. These then became my memoir, Letters I Never Sent: A Global Nomad’s Journey from Hurt to Healing. Here’s an excerpt:

May 1958. “Today we’re leaving Africa… It’s unbearable to think that I may never again see my home or closest friends or the country that I love so much. It’s sort of like a death—to lose your whole world in one moment.”

Readers responded that they’d felt this way too. This was when I first heard of “TCK”. My first book wasn’t a conscious choice. My second book, Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, which I co-wrote with David Pollock, was bigger than me and my story. I traveled to 50 different countries for the TCK work.

And let me tell you about my home here in Indianapolis. When I first arrived, my life in boxes, I put up some African things on the walls. My daughter’s friend took it all down, and said you’re in America now. But my bookcase still has musical instruments from all around the world. Every culture makes music through four ways—percussion, string, wind, and brass. These are the same four ways to make music all over the world. This display, too, is a creative expression of my life.

You still live in Indianapolis. Does that city feed your creativity as well?

With immigration, I realized the world was coming to Indianapolis, but people here weren’t attuned to it (for example, in human resources and schools). I started seminars here, and with the help of some friends with organizational skills, my efforts grew into Families in Global Transitions (FIGT).

What’s next for you, travel-wise and creativity-wise: will you stay put where you are or are other cities/artistic activities on your horizon?

On September 8th, we will be releasing the third edition of Third Culture Kids, with more stories and more diversity of TCKs. My interest is in the innumerable ways people are growing up cross-culturally now. I think a lot of Cross-Cultural Kids (CCKs) feel lost and aren’t feeling internally where they belong. Human beings need a place to fit, we need to find new ways to name identity so people can belong in positive ways. They should be able to say: Given the reality of my life, I can accept where I’ve come from instead of trying to fix what’s different about me.

Do you have any parting advice for your fellow ATCKs?

Come for the next Families in Global Transitions (FIGT). I think we find our tribe there. You don’t have to explain yourselves to the group. And whatever project you’re working on, that book, that website, there’s an empowerment to go back and continue and finish the writing, finish the project.

Ruth, your story resonates with me in so many ways! Thank you for sharing it.

* * *

Readers, any further questions for the amazing Ruth Van Reken on her thoughts about place, displacement, and the connection between the communities you’ve lived in and creativity? Any authors or other international creatives you’d like to see Doreen interview in future posts? Please leave your suggestions in the comments.

STAY TUNED for this coming week’s fab posts.

Related posts:

Photo credits:
Opening collage: 245 Kano City Nigeria 1995, by David Holt via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0); Chicago Skyline from Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois, by Ken Lund via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0); Waterside Stores (Monrovia, Liberia), by Mark Fischer via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0); 774 Redbud Lane (Greenwood, Indiana), by Bart Everson via Flickr (CC BY 2.0); photo of Kenya via Pixabay and photo of Ruth supplied.

Photo of girl via Pixabay.

Book covers supplied.

Cool Columns, Far from the Madding Crowd Africa, ATCK, Chicago, Far from the Madding Crowd, Kenya, Liberia, Midwest, Missionary Kid, Nigeria, TCK, Third Culture Kid, USA, Writers we love

EXPAT AUTHOR GAME: What score does Chandi Wyant earn on the “international creative” scale? (2/2)

3 Comments Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on August 10, 2017

Readers, I’m happy to report that Chandi Wyant came up with a winning algorithm for her new memoir, Return to Glow: A Pilgrimage of Transformation in Italy. She is therefore proceeding to the second round of the Expat Author Game.

During this round, we’ll be trying to see how closely she measures up to the Displaced Nation’s (admittedly somewhat quirky) notion of an “international creative.”

On the face of it, Chandi has a solid claim to being “international.” Not only has she lived in Europe (Italy, Switzerland, and England) but also in South Asia (India) and the Middle East (Qatar).

That said, she recently confessed to one interviewer that after spending so much of her life abroad, she developed a huge appreciation for her native California:

I see it now as one of the most beautiful and healthy places in the world to live. Not only does it have every kind of stunning landscape you could want, it has an abundance of organic food, and an abundance of educated people who know how to think critically. I’m not too impressed with the US right now—but if I look at California just on its own, it’s a darn close second to Italy.

Furthermore, I think it’s fair to call Chandi “creative”. She was encouraged from a young age to paint and draw a lot, with the result that she often “sees photographs” in the world around her. (Notably, she shares one of her actual photos below.) Writing is also important to her. While in Qatar, she taught history at a local college and got to know a lot of young Qataris. She conducted interviews with some of them and some day hopes to turn those interviews into a book. That’s in addition to the memoir she just produced about her pilgrimage along the Via Francegena.

Even the title of her personal Website is creative: Paradise of Exiles, which is what the Romantic English poet Shelley called Italy.

But now it’s time to see how Chandi manages Round Two, where points are scored for intangible indicators of an expansive, global outlook and the ability to take a creative approach to exploring the world.

Welcome back, Chandi, and now let’s get started. Many residents of the Displaced Nation have had a moment or two when they’ve felt like a character in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, myself included. How about you? Or if you’d prefer, you can use a quote from another children’s book.

I’ll choose this quote from Dr. Seuss:

“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.”

The feet in the shoes and any direction you choose reminds me of the time I got lost on my solo pilgrimage in Italy. My feet in my shoes were not doing well. I had developed plantar fasciitis and had bought arch supports but they were sliding around in my shoes. It was super hot, it felt like there was a gremlin in my shoes stabbing my heals, and I was lost in stark wheat fields somewhere south of Siena. Then I simply chose a direction, and by making a choice, I was able to stop being anxious about how to find my way.

Moving on to the next literature-related challenge: According to George Elliot’s Maggie Tulliver, the best reason to leave her native village of St. Ogg’s would be to see other creatures like the elephant. What’s the most exotic animal you’ve observed in its native setting?

An oryx in Qatar. It’s a large species of antelope that is native to the Arabian Peninsula. It nearly went extinct due to poaching but has been reintroduced.

Last but not least on this series of literary challenges: We’re curious about whether you’ve had any Wizard of Oz moments when venturing across borders. Again, please use a quote or two.

GOOD WITCH GLINDA TO DOROTHY: “You are capable of more than you know.” Definitely the capability thing comes up a lot when I travel alone (or move alone) to far flung places, both of which I seem to do. I didn’t necessarily set out to travel alone and move abroad alone so many times in my adult life. It all started when I was 19 (that was in the 80s), when I did a budget backpacking trip in Europe with a friend. After four months of travel together, we split up in Istanbul. In my first 24 hours of solo travel, all kinds of crazy things happened and I quickly learned that as soon as you cut through the fear and embrace the world, that it embraces you back. (These stories are recounted in more detail in my book.)

Moving on to another dimension of creativity: telling tales of one’s travels through photos. Can you share with us a favorite photo you’ve taken recently that in some way relates to your creative life, and tell us why it has meaning for you?

This one I took recently in Lucca, Italy (where I now live). It has meaning because doorways like these symbolize for me an opening of consciousness, and an invitation to step into mystery.

And now for our interplanetary challenge: Can you envision taking your exploration of other modes of being beyond Planet Earth? How about a trip to Mars?

I don’t want to offend anyone who is super into Mars but I have no interest in going to Mars or any other planet. I am awed by the planet we have and how special it is, and it’s an enormous shame that we’ve not learned to respect it and take care of it. I am much more interested in how we can better appreciate and take care of planet Earth, rather than attempt to get to Mars, which clearly is vastly inferior to Earth, as far as sustaining life.

* * *

Congratulations, Chandi! Just as I suspected, you easily rose to the challenge of Part Two of our Expat Authors Game. Personally, I found your Dr. Suess citation inspired! Readers, are you ready to score Chandi’s performance on Part Two? How did she do with her literary references? And what about that animal of hers: rather unusual! And don’t you like that photo of her up top, looking so joyful in an Italian setting? She says she hasn’t mastered the technical side of photography, but that photo of the doors in Lucca suggests otherwise…

Finally please note: If you want to keep cultivating your inner glow under Chandi’s influence, be sure to check out her author site and its companion Facebook and Instagram pages.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts.

Related posts:

Photo credits: Photo of Paul and the ocean supplied; all other photos from Pixabay.

Alice in Wonderland, Expat Author Game, Features, Memoirists A picture says..., Alice in Wonderland, California, England, Expat Author Game, India, International Creative, Italy, Memoir | Travel | Food Writers, Out of this displaced world, Qatar, Repatriation, Seeing the elephant, Switzerland, The Displaced Oscars, Travel guide, Travel yarn, Wizard of Oz, Writers we love

LOCATION, LOCUTION: France-based English writer Jacqueline Yallop recommends a life of “being on the move”

1 Comment Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on July 28, 2017

Tracey Warr is back with her latest interview guest, the lyrical writer Jacqueline Yallop, who says she’s a believer in writers being “on the move.” Hm, let’s see what she means by that…

Greetings, Displaced Nationers. My guest this month is British writer Jacqueline Yallop, who has been living in South-West France for more than ten years while also spending time in the UK.

Before moving countries, Jacqueline studied English Literature at Lincoln College, Oxford. She went on to obtain a PhD at the University of Sheffield, with a thesis exploring literature, objects, collecting and museums in the 19th century.

Jacqueline’s first career was as a museum curator. She worked with a variety of collections including the Wordsworth Trust collection and archive, at Dove Cottage in the Lake District, and the Ruskin collection, at Museums Sheffield.

She has since moved on to a career in creative writing and is the author of three novels:

Marlford (2015), set in a dilapidated manor house in England in 1969.
Obedience (2011), set mostly in a convent in 1940s occupied France; and
Kissing Alice (2010), set in 1920s and 1930s England (shortlisted for the 2010 McKitterick Prize).

She has two non-fiction works as well:

Magpies, Squirrels and Thieves: How the Victorians Collected the World (2012), which tells the stories of some of the 19th-century’s most intriguing collectors following their perilous journeys across the globe in the hunt for rare and beautiful objects; and
Dreamstreets: A Journey Through Britain’s Village Utopias (2015), exploring a network of “ideal” villages which sprang up across Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries. A Guardian critic praised its “sharp and tangible” descriptions of place, surface and mood.

Jacqueline’s most recent work, out this month, is the memoir Big Pig Little Pig: A Tale of Two Pigs in France, about why she quit city life to move to France to rear pigs.

In addition to her own creative endeavors, Jacqueline teaches creative writing at the University of Aberystwyth and mentors emerging writers.

* * *

Welcome, Jacqueline, to Location, Locution. My first question to you is: how has being “displaced” affected your writing? Has it affected what you write, how you write, that you write at all, or had some other effect?

I don’t really consider myself displaced so much, as “on the move”! Being on the move is helpful as a writer, because I find that it’s often when you first arrive somewhere that you see the place most clearly, with the curiosity and detachment of a newcomer. My second novel, Obedience, for example, was very much inspired by stories I’d heard from neighbours when I first moved to France—stories which struck me at the time as strange and moving and worthy of attention.

But how about nowadays? You’ve been living in France for a while.

True. My memoir, Big Pig Little Pig, is absolutely rooted in my growing attachment to a particular place: it aims to capture the moment when you stop feeling displaced and begin to feel as though you belong. That’s an important—and ambiguous—moment for me.

Which comes first for you, story or location?

The two are so tangled together that I couldn’t say. When I begin to imagine a new story, I always see it in a particular place and begin to people it with characters that act in the ways they do because of the locations that have helped form them. But then when I start to think about locations, I’m immediately inspired by the character stories that help to define place.

What’s your technique for evoking the atmosphere of a place?

I don’t think there’s a secret to this: it’s about finding those little details that say a lot without words; it’s about trying to nail down where the past meets the present, and the crossover between the physical environment—townscapes, landscapes—and its less tangible “spirit”.

Can you give us some examples of what you mean by little details: landscape, culture, food?

All of these, I would say, as well as other things: what do people look like in this place? What do they wear? How do they speak? What work do they do? In the end, of course, most places look very similar to somewhere else, one way or another—but there will be a combination of people, things, events, nature etc. that end up making a place unique.

Can you give a brief example from your latest work that illustrates place?

Here’s a paragraph from Big Pig Little Pig, which, I hope, captures something of the joy and intimacy of being close to the land:

“One of the pigs’ new favourite games is pear chase. I stand at the top of the slope with a bucket of windfall pears from the tree in our garden. The fruit are too small and grainy for us, but the pigs love them, and in particular love foraging for them, so I hurl them one at a time as hard and as far as I can. The pears bounce off in all directions, ricocheting from trunks, rolling down the terraces, splatting hard against stones; the pigs follow after, galloping down the hill, slipping and sliding, stopping to find a pear, hearing another one fall close by and setting off after it, barging and wrangling, snuffling through the dug earth after the scent of fruit. When I’ve emptied the bucket I watch them for a while and then leave them to their search; they’ll be at it a long time.”

I love the way the passage takes us right into the scene. It seems that you feel you need to know a place before using it as a setting?

All my books have been set in places I know very well—I’ve either lived in the place or have family connections there. Some of the students I teach manage to create a completely fictional place from scratch—perhaps a fantasy setting, or a dystopian city—but I struggle to do this. I prefer to have my ideas rooted in sights, sounds and smells I’ve experienced.

Last but not least, which writers do you admire for the way they use location?

Jacqueline Yallop’s picks for contemporary novelists who have mastered the art of writing about place

This is an impossible question! I admire all sorts. Lots of the “classic” novels use location to great effect: Dickens’s London, Hardy’s Wessex, Joyce’s Dublin, Emily Brontë’s moorland… But of course, contemporary writers are strong on this, too. There’s a lovely short novel by the Catalan writer Maria Barbal, known in English as Stone in a Landslide, which evokes the Pyrenean landscapes and communities very movingly; I also very much enjoy the way Marilynne Robinson captures the American Mid-West.

Thanks so much, Jacqueline, for your answers. It’s been a great pleasure.

* * *

Readers, any questions for Jacqueline? Please leave them in the comments below.

Meanwhile, if you would like to discover more about Jacqueline Yallop and her creative output, I suggest you visit her author site. You can also follow her on Twitter.

À bientôt! Till next time…

* * *

Thank you so much, Tracey and Jacqueline! I have to say, I absolutely love the passage from Jacqueline’s memoir! This is in part because I am an auntie to a miniature pot-bellied pig (who lives in Manhattan) but mostly because, although I’ve never been to that part of France, I now feel as though I’ve visited the exact place where the pigs were playing the pear game. Just delightful! —ML Awanohara

NOTE: If you happen to be anywhere near Carew Castle (Pembrokeshire coast, west Wales) on Sunday, Tracey Warr will be speaking about the history behind her fiction. She’ll be answering the question: which castle was Welsh Princess Nest kidnapped from? Sunday, July 30, 2017, 13:00-14:00.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

Related posts:

Photo credits:
Top visual: The World Book (1920), by Eric Fischer via Flickr (CC BY 2.0); “Writing? Yeah.” by Caleb Roenigk via Flickr (CC BY 2.0); author photo and photos of French countryside, supplied; photo of Sheffield via Pixabay.
Second visual: Photo of author’s house in France (supplied).
Third visual: Omppu-possu vauhdissa! by samerika! via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).
Last visual: Book cover art.

Cool Columns, Location, Locution Fiction Writers, France, Historical Fiction, It's Fiction!, Location Locution, Memoir | Travel | Food Writers, Nonfiction, UK, Visual arts, Wales, Writers we love, Writing Tips

TCK TALENT: The best answer to that pesky “where are you from?” question? A poem!

2 Comments Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on July 22, 2017

Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli joins us again—and has something new and exciting in store.

Welcome readers! Today we’re starting something new at the TCK Talent Column—a series of poems from TCKs on where they’re “from”.

If you’re a TCK, global nomad or otherwise displaced individual, you will probably appreciate the complexity of emotions raised when you’re being asked a seemingly simple question like: Where are you from? Where is home?

Spread over several posts, we’ll share the work of these TCKs along with some details on where they’re “from” originally and where they’ve lived.

The poems were part of a project and the students’ teacher is the best person to explain how this theme came up and how they tackled it:

“I teach in an International IB school in Malta, and I have 11th and 12th graders who come from all over the world. Last year I started doing a unit on cultural diversity and I connected it to the idea of being a Third Culture Kid.

As Third Culture Kids, we hear ‘Where is your home?’ a lot. It has always been difficult to answer completely, but we wanted to give it a try. While thinking about how to tackle this identity question, we looked at George Ella Lyon’s unique poem “Where I’m From”. In it, home is not connected to one place. Rather, it is connected to all the diverse images, phrases, memories, neighborhood characters, tastes, scents, sounds, and sensations that make up a reflective person’s foundation and sense of self; and this seemed a fitting way to describe our concept of home as well.”

A couple of years ago, I composed my own “where is home” poem, following a prompt on a friend’s blog. It was a fascinating exercise, coming up with the words to express the combination of places, people, sights and smells that make up who I am.

Where I’m From
By Dounia Bertuccelli

I’m from the warm Mediterranean Sea,
And the smell of fresh pines in the mountain.

I’m from lavender fields and vineyards,
And the ochre colored house.

I’m from bahebak, je t’aime,
I love you, te quiero and ti amo.

I’m from islands and continents,
From north to south and east to west.

I’m from all these places that hold my heart,
And from a home that’s rooted in love.

Truth be told, it’s tough to cover everything in a single poem, but at least we can provide a glimpse into the beautiful complexity that makes up the Third Culture Kid life. We are the sum of our experiences, of all our homes, of the blood that runs through our veins, of the people we met throughout our journey, of the foods we tasted, of the smells we breathed in, of the languages we spoke and heard…

All of these make us who we are and tell the story of where we’re truly from.

And now let’s find out how a couple of the TCKs in the Malta class answered this question.

Where I’m From
By Allesia Falcomata

I am from the best cuisine
in a small city of pasta.
I am from fashion shops
and the coffee everyone loves the best.

I am from the south
with hot weather
and the beautiful sea.

I am from the sunset,
when the city lights come on.
I am from November,
‘the cold month’.

I am from tons of pictures,
because the best moments they must be captured.
I am from the black and the white,
and the mystery photo too.

I am also from red,
the warm color.
And from the dreams of
Eiffel Tower love.

From Italy, Allesia was living in Malta at the time of writing.

Where I’m From
By Andy Qiu

I am from the twitter
at five everyday
pushing me to wake up.

I am from the stream
flowing around the mountain
and the sun
lighting up the atmosphere

I am from the golden field,
fragrant with growing rice,
where I spent most of my childhood.
I am from children salivating over
the sausage and ham
hanging on the wooden stick

I am from the town
where everyone provides sincere help.
From the yearly reunion dinner
which includes all the village.

I am from the desire
for a peaceful atmosphere
where it still exists.

Andy (Yuqin) has lived in Malta, China and Costa Rica.

* * *

Readers, I hope you enjoyed this first poetry sampler. And if you’ve written your own version of “where I’m from,” we’d love to have you share it with us in the comments.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

Photo credits:
All photos from Pixabay.

Cool Columns, TCK Talent ATCK, China, Crosscultural, France, It's Food!, Italy, Malta, Poetry, TCK, TCK Talent, Third Culture Kid, UK, USA, Writers we love

LOCATION, LOCUTION: Canadian author Dianne Ascroft lives, eats, breathes—and writes—Ireland, past and present

1 Comment Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on June 23, 2017

Tracey Warr is here with Dianne Ascroft, a Canadian writer who left the hustle-bustle of Toronto for Northern Ireland, a place she found so compelling that she ultimately settled in the countryside and has specialized in writing books set in that part of the world.

Greetings, Displaced Nationers. I hope your summer is off to a productive start. To give you that extra inspiration, I hope you’ll enjoy my interview with this month’s writer, Dianne Ascroft.

Dianne grew up an urban Canadian, in Toronto. But those roots would hardly be apparent if you met her now. In the 1990s she moved across the water to Northern Ireland, where she still finds herself a quarter-of-a-century later.

Dianne started out in Belfast, where she moved for work. Then, after living in Troon, a town on the west coast of Scotland, for a spell, she returned to Northern Ireland and settled into rural life in County Fermanagh, with her husband and their assortment of strong-willed animals.

Dianne says that this gradual downsizing of her surroundings reflects her pursuit of a writing career. Since moving to Britain, she worked in various offices and shops; but her head was always in books and she harbored a passion for writing. She is an avid reader and started writing her spare time more than a decade ago. Now that she is living in the countryside, she can concentrate on writing fulltime.

“When I’m not writing,” she says on her author site, “I enjoy walks in the country, evenings in front of our open fireplace and folk and traditional music.” She also plays the Scottish bagpipes though has given this hobby up since moving to the farm, which she says is “just as well as it’s rather disconcerting to turn around when you are practicing in a field and find that you have a herd of cows for an audience.”

Dianne mostly writes fiction, both historical and contemporary, often with an Irish connection. “I love where I live and I am fascinated by it,” she says. Her current project is The Yankee Years, a collection of short reads and novels set in World War II Northern Ireland. “After the Allied troops arrived in this outlying part of Great Britain, life here would never be the same again,” Dianne says. “The series strives to bring those heady, fleeting years to life again, in thrilling and romantic tales of the era.”

Her other fictional writings include:

An Unbidden Visitor, a ghost tale inspired by the famous Northern Irish legend of the Coonian ghost. (Dianne lives a couple of miles from the house that sparked the legend.)
Dancing Shadows, Tramping Hooves, a collection of six short stories about farm life in Northern Ireland.
Hitler and Mars Bars, an historical novel about a German boy growing up alone in postwar Ireland.

Dianne occasionally writes non-fiction for Canadian and Irish newspapers. In 2013 she released two e-book collections of her articles: Fermanagh Gems and Irish Sanctuaries.

* * *

Welcome, Dianne, to Location, Locution. Which comes first when you get an idea for a new book: story or location?

The two are very closely related in my writing so it’s rather hard to say. I tell stories that are sparked by interesting items that have caught my attention. Since I write historical fiction mainly, sometimes that’s something I read in an old newspaper or a history text, or maybe something I’ve noticed in the landscape around me. But, no matter what the original inspiration was, my stories will always be inherently part of the place where they are set. They can’t be separated from their location. The Yankee Years, my Second World War series, is set in County Fermanagh where I’ve lived for more than a decade now. The war was a pivotal point in Northern Ireland’s history; and the influx of Allied troops had a major impact on the economy and culture of County Fermanagh. Army camps and Air Force flying-boat bases sprang up, and the population of the county grew until approximately a quarter of the entire population consisted of military personnel. Fermanagh must have been so different from the quiet rural area that I know today, and imagining this recent past really intrigued me. The events during the war and their impact on the county grabbed my imagination—and that’s how the series was born.

How is it possible to conjure up the past now that the Yankees have gone home, so to speak?

Despite the impact the war had on Fermanagh, there was an interesting dichotomy in the county. The old way of life was disrupted and challenged by the incomers from unfamiliar cultures; but, at the same time, fundamental aspects of rural life didn’t change so I can easily imagine what farm life was like at that time as small farms are still very much the same today. The continuity of this way of life through the generations is another feature of the province that fascinates me and it is a great bonus for an historical fiction writer. It makes imagining the past much easier to do.

What’s your technique for evoking the atmosphere of a place?

I have to admit that I like lots of detail. I want to paint a picture of the place so that readers feel like they are there. But, I try not to be too wordy, and I follow the guideline that, if readers are likely to be familiar with a place or historical detail, then I don’t need to describe it in great depth. But, if I’m describing a place or item that won’t be familiar to most readers, then I try to show exactly what it was like. By evoking sounds and smells, as well as visual details, I hope to bring it to life in readers’ minds. I think it’s important to draw readers’ attention to details that they may not be familiar with and to use all the senses so they can fully experience it.

But is there any particular feature that creates a sense of location? Landscape, culture, food?

I’d say that all three are important but, for the stories I tell, the landscape and culture are central. The way of life in this rather remote, rural part of Northern Ireland has evolved from the work of the people inhabiting it: making a living from the land or water, farming or fishing. People lived their lives close to the natural world and, therefore, the landscape and culture were intertwined. The people who lived here a couple of generations ago, in the days before mechanised farming, were proud and capable yet they also needed the co-operation and support of their community. My plots are often built around elements of this simple, hardy way of life.

In the case of Northern Ireland, you also have the clash of religions. Do you weave this thread into your stories as well?

When I first arrived, I hesitated to tackle writing about Northern Ireland because of the history of sectarian conflict between Protestants and Catholics that has divided the country into two communities for centuries. This history makes Ireland very different from the society I grew up in, but I think it has to be woven into any writing about this part of the world as it is a unique characteristic of the country. It can be difficult to capture the nuances of life in this complex society where the tensions between the communities stretch back generations and still influence many aspects of modern day life. But, since I wanted to write stories about the Second World War era in Ulster Province, I decided I would have to tackle the issue. I think that viewing the society as an outsider gives me unique insights into it which I can use to convincingly convey the place and the people to my readers.

Can you give a brief example of your latest work that illustrates place?

Here is the beginning of Scene 2 in Keeping Her Pledge, the third story in The Yankee Years Books 1-3:

“Standing at the upstairs hall window in the early evening, her wet hair resting on the towel she had thrown across her shoulders, Pearl looked across the single field that separated the farmhouse from Lough Erne. She watched as a large lumbering Sunderland seaplane sliced through the water, gathering speed until it launched itself into the air. As it lifted off, a torrent of water sprayed out from it and she heard the roar of its engines.

Chuck had said that he wasn’t supposed to tell her but he was on an anti-submarine patrol today. He would have left the base at RAF Castle Archdale, on the opposite side of the lough, soon after first light this morning. There were patrols around the clock, and planes were taking off and landing day and night. She often heard the roars of their engines as she lay in bed, before she fell asleep and as she awoke. Sometimes she would stand at her bedroom window and gaze out at the row of navigation lights that guided the planes in to land, strung out like lanterns on a rope across the field and into the lough.

“I thought you’d be getting ready.” Davy walked up behind her.

“In a wee minute. Isn’t it a lovely night? I was just watching the planes.”

“Looking for your sweetheart, are you?”

“Don’t be daft. And he’s not my sweetheart.” Pearl smiled to herself. Although she had only recently met Chuck, neither of them was seeing anyone else. They were as good as walking out together. No doubt, she would soon be able to tell the world that he was her sweetheart.

“Well, if you’re standing here daydreaming, I’ll wash and shave. Race you to the mirror.”

Davy walked down the hall to the bedroom he shared with their two younger brothers, Charlie and Ian. Pearl hugged herself and sighed as she turned back to the window. The flying boats looked so graceful gliding through the sky, not at all cumbersome as they were in the water. Chuck had told her about the view up there. He said everything on the ground below looked tiny. It was like looking at a miniature picture with new images constantly spinning past inside the frame. She would love to see her house and Lough Erne from the sky. It was such a perfect evening. Chuck just had to return in time to meet her at the dance. She squeezed her eyes shut and wished.

Half an hour later Pearl stood in front of the large walnut mirror in the downstairs hallway. As she ran the brush through her hair, teasing and shaking the tangles out of it, she heard the drone of an aircraft approaching. With RAF Castle Archdale so close, she had become accustomed to the hum of the steady stream of aircraft flying overhead.

She twisted the brush sharply and tugged at a knot as Davy sidled up beside her. Without pausing, she stepped sideways to share the mirror. From this angle, she saw the landscape outside reflected in the glass: peaceful rolling hills divided by rough stone walls and thick hedges. A dark shadow moving rapidly in the top corner of the glass drew her attention. She turned away from the mirror to look through the small window in the front door. The flying boat she had heard was approaching the lough much closer to the ground than they usually flew at this distance from the water.

Davy followed her gaze. When he spotted the aircraft he ran to the door. “That plane won’t make the lough,” he shouted as he jerked the door open and rushed outside.

Pearl followed him. As she stepped outside the door, she heard a high-pitched whine before the seaplane’s engines cut out. The aircraft plunged steeply towards the ground and crashed in the field beside the water. Flames shot up from the wreckage and crackled like a huge bonfire. Davy, her father and two neighbours who had called in for a chat, Tommy Boyd and Dick Morton, were already running toward the aircraft.

Pearl hurried across their farmyard and crossed the road but stopped at the gate to the field. The smoke billowing from the plane nearly choked her. Her stomach clenched as she gawked at the debris strewn across the charred grass and she had to grip the top rail of the gate to keep her knees from buckling. Something gleamed dully under the hedge beside where the aircraft lay. She squinted through the smoke at the seaplane’s massive engine lying there intact and focused on its unsullied bulk, unwilling to look at the carnage surrounding it.”

Thank you for sharing that passage. How well do you feel you need to know a place before using it as a setting?

Because my stories are set in a region that features in few books, fiction or non-fiction, and one which many readers will not be familiar with but I want them to understand, I feel compelled to create for them an almost three-dimensional mental image of it. My first novel, Hitler and Mars Bars, takes place in several locations in the Republic of Ireland as well as the Ruhr region of Germany. During my research for the book, I visited each of the locations in Ireland to see exactly where the story would unfold. I noted minute details about each place so that I could use the relevant ones in the novel. I wasn’t able to travel to Germany but I did study detailed maps and historic photographs of the area where that portion of the story is set so I could imagine it fully as I wrote. The Yankee Years, the series I’m currently working on, is set in various locations in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. As for my first novel, I visited each location I had chosen for these stories in order to get a feel for the place. I wanted to be able to see the place in my mind as I wrote. I then also referred to historical photographs of the area to see what it was like during the Second World War when my stories are set. Before I started writing, I compiled detailed information about the physical and man-made landmarks in the region, the distances between various places, the sights, sounds and smells in the region and I drew on all of this information to create real places for the reader to step into.

Last but not least, which writers do you admire for the way they use location?

There are two in particular that immediately spring to my mind, and I have to admit that I admire these writers for many aspects of their writing styles, not only their use of location. What I like best is that they both use lots of detail—to describe characters, settings and the action unfolding in the story. Diana Gabaldon and Manda (M.C.) Scott are the writers I’m referring to. Although I admire both of them, Manda Scott has the edge. There is just something wonderful about her novels. Her ability to breathe life into characters, unveil complex stories and create vivid settings, as well as her skilful use of language, is absolutely wonderful and keeps me enthralled. I love stories like hers, that come alive in my mind.

Dianne’s picks for novelists who have mastered the art of writing about place

Thanks so much, Dianne, for your answers. It’s been a pleasure.

* * *

Readers, any questions for Dianne? Please leave them in the comments below.

Meanwhile, if you would like to discover more about Dianne Ascroft and her creative output, I suggest you visit her author site & blog, where you can sign up for her newsletter. You can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

À bientôt! Till next time…

* * *

Thank you so much, Tracey and Dianne! I for one certainly wouldn’t expect to meet a Canadian playing the bagpipes in the Irish countryside. Dianne, you are fantastically displaced! As far as your creative output goes, I’m particularly impressed by your “Yankee Years” series. Like many other Americans, I had no idea that the first U.S. soldiers to enter the Second World War landed in Northern Ireland. Good on you for writing fictional histories about that period, which might otherwise be lost to posterity or else overshadowed by all the stories of sectarian violence in that part of the world, AKA The Troubles. —ML Awanohara

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

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Welcome back to the Displaced Nation, Apple. As you may know, many of our residents, myself included, have confessed that the expat life has made them feel like a character in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. How about you? Are there any lines from this classic work that resonate with you?

Moving on to the next literature-related challenge: According to George Elliot’s Maggie Tulliver, the best reason to leave her native village of St. Ogg’s would be to see other creatures like the elephant. What’s the most exotic animal you’ve observed in its native setting?

Last but not least in this series of literary challenges: We’re curious about whether you’ve had any “Wizard of Oz” moments when venturing across borders. Again, please use a quote or two. You can also pick quotes from other literary works if you like…

Moving on to another dimension of creativity: telling tales of one’s travels through photos. Can you share with us a favorite photo or two you’ve taken recently that in some way relate to your creative life, and tell us why these photos have meaning for you?

And now for our interplanetary challenge: Can you envision taking your exploration of other modes of being beyond Planet Earth? How about a trip to Mars?

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Why didn’t you want to go to Dubai?

So Dubai was a hard landing?

Can you tell us about where you went next?

When you repeat being an expat so many times, do you end up being drawn to cities, where you’ll find other well-traveled people?

In general have you found that living in cities tends to feed your creative drive?

Does language tend to be a barrier when you’re in a non-English speaking place?

How about the more remote places you have lived? Do they, too, feed your creativity and if so in what ways? And how do you keep from feeling isolated?

What a great story! And I happen to know that’s not your only cookery book. After all, you brand yourself as a bookcook…

Are there any other remote places where you’ve lived that have fed your creativity?

I know you’re a great networker. Do you tend to network online or in person?

Do writers sometimes find it a struggle to meet people IRL?

You have 31 books! Do you have a favorite?

What’s next for you, travel-wise and creativity-wise: will you stay put where you are or are other cities/artistic activities on your horizon?

Tell me about your new venture taking writers away on retreats. I believe you call them “me”-treats?

Do you have any advice for other global creatives?

I should remind our readers at this juncture that you have your own publishing house for expat books.

Any recommendations for the wannabe writers out there?

Thanks so much, Jo, for sharing your story with us.

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Welcome, Harriet, to Location, Locution. My first question to you is: how has being “displaced” affected your writing? Has it affected what you write, how you write, that you write at all, or had some other effect?

Which comes first for you, story or location?

What’s your technique for evoking the atmosphere of a place?

Can you give us some examples of features create a sense of location: landscape, culture, food…?

Can you give us an example from your novel, Tree Magic?

How well do you need to know the place before using it as a setting?

Last but not least, which writers do you admire for the way they use location?

Thanks so much, Harriet, for your answers. It’s been such a pleasure.

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Would you say it’s normal to live in this way?

How did you keep from feeling isolated through your many moves?

Many of us expats or people who’ve grown up as Third Culture Kids gravitate towards global cities as that’s where we think we’ll find work and our “tribe.” Has that been your experience?

What about when you moved your own family back to the United States?

How did your life in Kenya compare to this?

I know from reading your books that you think TCKs have special gifts.

Can you give us a concrete illustration of a work of yours that was nurtured out of the places you have lived in?

You still live in Indianapolis. Does that city feed your creativity as well?

What’s next for you, travel-wise and creativity-wise: will you stay put where you are or are other cities/artistic activities on your horizon?

Do you have any parting advice for your fellow ATCKs?

Ruth, your story resonates with me in so many ways! Thank you for sharing it.

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Welcome back, Chandi, and now let’s get started. Many residents of the Displaced Nation have had a moment or two when they’ve felt like a character in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, myself included. How about you? Or if you’d prefer, you can use a quote from another children’s book.

Moving on to the next literature-related challenge: According to George Elliot’s Maggie Tulliver, the best reason to leave her native village of St. Ogg’s would be to see other creatures like the elephant. What’s the most exotic animal you’ve observed in its native setting?

Last but not least on this series of literary challenges: We’re curious about whether you’ve had any Wizard of Oz moments when venturing across borders. Again, please use a quote or two.

Moving on to another dimension of creativity: telling tales of one’s travels through photos. Can you share with us a favorite photo you’ve taken recently that in some way relates to your creative life, and tell us why it has meaning for you?

And now for our interplanetary challenge: Can you envision taking your exploration of other modes of being beyond Planet Earth? How about a trip to Mars?

Share this:

Welcome, Jacqueline, to Location, Locution. My first question to you is: how has being “displaced” affected your writing? Has it affected what you write, how you write, that you write at all, or had some other effect?

But how about nowadays? You’ve been living in France for a while.

Which comes first for you, story or location?

What’s your technique for evoking the atmosphere of a place?

Can you give us some examples of what you mean by little details: landscape, culture, food?

Can you give a brief example from your latest work that illustrates place?

I love the way the passage takes us right into the scene. It seems that you feel you need to know a place before using it as a setting?

Last but not least, which writers do you admire for the way they use location?

Thanks so much, Jacqueline, for your answers. It’s been a great pleasure.

Share this:

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Welcome, Dianne, to Location, Locution. Which comes first when you get an idea for a new book: story or location?

How is it possible to conjure up the past now that the Yankees have gone home, so to speak?

What’s your technique for evoking the atmosphere of a place?

But is there any particular feature that creates a sense of location? Landscape, culture, food?

In the case of Northern Ireland, you also have the clash of religions. Do you weave this thread into your stories as well?

Can you give a brief example of your latest work that illustrates place?

Thank you for sharing that passage. How well do you feel you need to know a place before using it as a setting?

Last but not least, which writers do you admire for the way they use location?

Thanks so much, Dianne, for your answers. It’s been a pleasure.

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