For Patricia (1957-2010), a poem
I wrote this a while ago, and then forgot about it. Pat was my dear companion for sixteen good years. Writing the poem helped me think about her and her memory. When Bad Apple put out a call for poems about remembrance, I thought of it. On re-reading it, I decided it wasn’t so bad. One odd little poem for one odd little…
The Two Storms (a poem)
This is a bit of eco-verse. I can’t help comparing the storms we seem to have every winter with the winters I remember as a boy. There’s no doubt something’s changed: but do people notice? This was published by a new e-mag, The Lake. https://www.thelakepoetry.co.uk/poetry/sharif-gemie/
Song from Hergest (a poem)
For a long time, I resisted poetry. While I was an academic, I learnt to speed-read all books but, without any doubt, you can’t speed-read poetry. I retained a sneaking admiration for Adrian Mitchell, who still delights me. The big shift came during lockdown. I was part of a Zoom-based creative writing class taught by Stephen Jenkins. He had a wonderfully permissive, tolerant…
Mother & Child
This is one of my favourite stories, although it’s been knocking about for a while and a lot of readers aren’t keen on it. It’s a dialogue, and I’ve heard many readers say that it would be better as a radio script. No, it wouldn’t. If it was radio, the mother’s voice would need to be clarified from the start. It only works…
Gran's Story
This story began with a problem. As a historian, I was used to tracing an issue over a period of time, sometime for decades or even longer. How could you do this for a single person in a short story? I thought I’d try focusing on three crucial turning-points in a person’s life. And so, Gran came into being. There’s also a sort…
Dead on Time
A while ago, I attempted to write a series of linked short stories centred on Mary Cove, a generic ‘hospice worker’. The project as a whole didn’t work, but some of my stories were published. This, I think, is one of the best. Unusually for my fiction, it’s pretty tautly plotted. Dead on Time – Sharif Gemie
Five at Four
Back in the days before Lockdown, I joined a Zoom-based Creative Writing course run by Stephen Jenkins. It proved an invaluable support during Lockdown. I looked forward to the regular meeting with other people. Stephen has a very relaxed, permissive approach to writing. He encouraged all of us to experiment with different forms, often saying ‘it’s all just words’. As a result, I…
Leading the Way
A long-ish short story with an eco theme, set in Abergavenny. I wrote it partly as a test, but it is also partly inspired by Gaia Vince’s brilliant, terrifying and thoughtful book Nomad Century. My story is on p. 125 of this PDF. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/613eba5595ed212144cde6c4/t/64d2829f0021f0317f551f86/1691517613648/Journal+Seven+Refuge+08+08+2023+FINAL.pdf
The Artist, the Duke and the Mad, Mad Girl
This is one of my favourite stories. It was written after a visit to the Leonardo da Vinci museum in Venice. This was a wonderful place: partly designed for children, so you could touch and play with most of the exhibits. I felt a strong sense of Leonardo’s personality, his playfulness but also the constrained nature of his life. In was published in…