I saw my first West End play as a newly arrived backpacker in London in 1987 and was immediately hooked on live theatre. Living in Brighton and Windsor from 1987 to 1995, I saw countless professional and amateur productions. But I didn’t dream in 1987 that one day I’d be up on stage, too, taking a bow.
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My birthday is on March 30. This year (2020), I turned fifty-eight, and when fireworks heralded the new year, I didn’t expect to remember my birthday for COVID-19. I thought it’d be just another tick towards a more significant (sobering) milestone, sixty. But now I wonder should I forget it this year?
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I have kept diaries for thirty-three years and used the Belmont A7, day-to-a-page, pocket-diary for twenty-one of those. Its twenty lines per page proved a perfect fit for my daily entries. However, last August, I lost my 2019 diary and discovered the joy of not being constrained to a page per day.
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When I was five, and my younger brother was only two, our parents separated. My father gained custody of us, and to help him look after two young boys, we lived with his parents, my Nan and Pop. I have vivid memories of those days, which is why the #5YearOldSelfie challenge caught my eye.
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I’m not into making New Year’s Resolutions, possibly because I don’t trust myself to keep them. However, while on holidays at the end of 2004, a barista with whom I grew friendly over morning coffee fixes, talked me into writing a list for 2005. The other day I found the list and my year-end review.
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Unlike my son, born in the era of digital cameras and phones, there are few photos of me from my childhood years and fewer of me as a teenager. I have one with my mother and two brothers, taken on Xmas Day 1978 when I was a surly long-haired sixteen-year-old. *Gulp*, my son is sixteen this Xmas!
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When I was five-years-old, my parents separated, and my younger brother and I moved in to live with our grandparents. While our Nan embraced her two young grandsons with warm grandmotherly arms, our Pop could be standoffish and a little scary, especially when angry with a couple of “naughty boys”.
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It was my younger brother’s idea to attend the Buddhist lesson. He said the class was in the back room of a pub, a short walk from my flat, which was handy because we were running late and my bladder felt full as we headed out the door. To save time, I decided to hold on until we got to the pub.
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When my son was a five-year-old, I gave a talk at his child care centre called, Can I Pat That Dog? I based it on a book of the same title written by Susan McLaine. And though it’s over ten years since that visit and my “little boy” now towers over me, I still highly recommend the book.
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Writing can be lonely, especially if you’re living on your own in a cramped flat, in another country, far away from family and friends. So when I lived in England in the early-1990s, I volunteered to work one afternoon a week at an Oxfam op shop. I needed to get out and meet and mingle with people.
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As a kid growing up in Perth, Western Australia, in the 1960s and 1970s, I didn’t learn about the Vietnam War from classroom history lessons. Vietnam and the broader Indochina conflict was on our radio and TV news every morning and evening. And it was front-page headlines in our daily newspapers.
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My travel journals are typically student exercise books, with each day’s sights and highlights recorded over two or more pages. Daily diaries of work and everyday life are less exciting. And it took me many years to settle on a format to jot down the day’s events without feeling like it was a chore.
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By definition, brevity is the key to good microfiction. There is no time for plot and character development, so every word must count. ~ Robert Fairhead
I hope readers enjoy the short story journeys in Twelve More Furious Months and make it home in time for dinner. ~ Robert Fairhead
I look forward to the Writer's Centre's monthly Furious Fiction competitions because I've become addicted to the escapism of writing short stories! ~ Robert Fairhead
This slim book is hard to put down. And the only regret we may feel after reading it is that we reached the end too quickly! ~ Denise O'Hagan
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. ~ Maya Angelou
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