Incorporating Writing Issue Vol 2

incorporating writing
Issue 6 Vol 2 VIOLENCE
John Darwell - Andrew Taylor - Daniele Pantano
Incorporating Writing
(ISSN 1743-0380)
Contents
Editorial Why one is the magic number
Andrew Oldham goes to task.
Editorial Team
Managing Editor/Columns Andrew Oldham Deputy Editor/Interviews G.P. Kennedy Articles Editor Valeria Kogan Reviews Editor Janet Aspey Arts Editor Sara-Jayne Parsons Sales & Marketing Team marketing@incorporatingwriting.co.uk Columnists Christine Brandel Contributors Ben Felsenburg, Ian Kenworthy, Rhodri Mogford, Daniele Pantano, Clare Reddaway, Helen Shay, Helen Stacey. Cover Art John Darwell Design Incorporating Writing Contact Details http://www.incorporatingwriting.co.uk editor@incorporatingwriting.co.uk
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Interviews Andrew Taylor Articles Uberrogue
Caroline Drennan explores the work of this prolific crime writer.
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Daniel Pantano shares his secret.
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A Good Place to Die
Ian Kenworthy explotes the North.
A violent reaction to violence
Helen Stacey responds to violence.
People Across the Road
Valeria Kogan tackles our growing paranoia.
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Columns Notes from America
Christine Brandel from stateside tels us why its safer in the USA than in the UK.
Writing with Light John Darwell

Sara-Jayne Parson shows us examples of Darwells work.
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Reviews
Janet Aspey introduces new books from publishers.
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Incorporating Writing is an imprint of The Incwriters Society (UK). The magazine is managed by an editorial team independent of The Societys Constitution. Nothing in this magazine may be reproduced in whole or part without permission of the publishers. We cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, reproduction of articles, photographs or content. Incorporating Writing has endeavoured to ensure that all information inside the magazine is correct, however prices and details are subject to change. Individual contributors indemnify Incorporating Writing, The Incwriters Society (UK) against copyright claims, monetary claims, tax payments / NI contributions, or any other claims. This magazine is produced in the UK. The Incwriters Society (UK) 2005-2009
News and Opportunities
Why one is a magic number

Editorial by Andrew Oldham
Okay, Battlestar Galactica is over. I have to get over that but when something you love ends, the tendency is to turn to extremes. So, welcome to the Violence issue. One editors way of getting over what was one of the best television drama in years and yes it was science fiction. Do you want to make something of it? Fist raising aside. It comes as no surprise that BSG was one of the first programmes to deal with the often violent invasion and occupation of Iraq. Lets not call it a war because lets face the facts, were the bad guys and all of the world knows it. It is wonderful that television has at last remembered that they can hold up a mirror to society and say in beautiful images of storytelling, look this is what you have done, dont you feel like an
ass that you perpetuate these cycles of violence?. Dont believe me? Lets take the twentieth century, one continuous act of violence. Even the hippie movement ended up being kicked to death by the Hells Angels as the Rolling Stones looked on. So, how do we break the cycle of violence? Well, first lets not do it with guns or religion and call it peace keeping. Peace keeping is letting people come to the decision they should shake hands without a jackboot in the base of their spine. The problem is, we love violence. Everyone runs outside during a hot summer if a really good thunder storm rolls in. Come on, Im not the only one that does it. Ive seen you all. Its the release of tension. If you dont believe
4 4 wondering where it had been. I could look out my window and everywhere across this green land people would be smiling. Hate work? Stay at home and wank. Youre supporting a peaceful tomorrow. Hate your friend? Wank. Make peace. Not done your work? Wank. It relaxes the body, frees up the mind, cures headaches and staves of cancer. Thats a fact, it was on television. God bless television, it gave us BSG and guilt free wanking. Sure, no one would want to imagine their parents wanking or even their friends but imagine the result. We could create rooms at work, designated wanking zones. Come on, theyve killed smoking and taken away the only upside of smoking, the smoking room. We could have the wanking room, it could be sponsored by Kleenex or wet wipes. Okay, you may all have just gone, thats gross. You make think that thats not on. Its not savoury but I would take a nation of wankers over any army. If wanking was compulsory, Id bet that uwanted childbirths, anti-social kids and pissed off people would be consigned to history. So, join with me, raise your free hand to the storm overhead and wank for a better tomorrow.
me, go to any city centre on a Friday or Saturday nights and watch the boys who didnt get the girls beat the living daylights out of anyone they can find. They could have gone home and masturbated, this would have released the tension.
If the USA and the UK had been wanking frantically for the last five hundred years, everyone would be much more happier
And thats why world peace can only be solved by going to another physical extreme. Pleasure. So, my solution to violence is compulsory masturbation. Lets face it, anyone after good sex will agree to anything. If the USA and the UK had been wanking frantically for the last five hundred years, everyone would be much more happier. There would never have been any desire for colonialism. There would be no arguments about who owns what and no one would invade anything. As now, day time talk shows would be peppered full of facts on how to please your partners or who was caught masturbating in Regents Park. So some things wouldnt change but its a small price for world piece. It would break the cycle in a very sticky way but whod want fire a gun made by someone who wanks? Of course, world hunger would also be a problem. Ready meals would never have been invented. But at least and at last, we could with hand on heart say all our politicians where wankers. Anti-social members of the community would be put to work, wanking for a better tomorow, and no one would hand out an ASBO without
Andrew Oldham is the Managing Editor/Columns for Incorporating Writing. He is an award winning writer and academic.
A Writers Secret Passion Uberrogue: A Self-Interview

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Short Article by Daniele Pantano
No one knows Im a connoisseur of all things Uberrogue; well, scratch that, there are plenty of victims out there
Is it true? Yes, it is. Im into violence. And Im not talking about the fluffy stuff like acts of linguistic violence la Roman JakobsonI get plenty of that but something more akin to Alexs good old ultra-violence, something much more disturbing and toxic, something I call Uberrogue. Your first time? About a decade ago. It happened in one of the backrooms of a run-down strip mall on the corner of Waters and Armenia in Tampa, Florida. Let me tell you, it was good, so good in fact I labeled it and made it my own, made it my specialty, my secret passion. I began looking for it everywhere I went. I researched it, used it, lived with it, and once, only once, did it to my students! Does anyone know? No one knows Im a connoisseur of all things Uberrogue; well, scratch that, there are plenty of victims out there, but trust me, they know betterthey dont want to go through it again. I admit, the physical and psychological effects of it are, and will always be, horrendous, even to my seasoned soul, especially when it involves innocent children, elderly women, or animals. But I always emerge with a renewed sense of hope . . . and an insatiable appetite for more. What the hell is it? Let me try. Uberrogue is a particularly dark, shocking, and at times perverse artistic response to voyeur culture and a world obsessed with violence and destruction. Uberrogue is any work of art that intentionally tricks us into enjoying or tolerating something thats morally disgusting only to implicate us in the horror of the, shall we say, experiment. Its all about moral provocation in an attempt to elicit some sort of an expression of moral agency before we are, according to Naomi Greene,
inexorably drawn into a web of complicity. Moral agency? So, close the book? Leave the theatre, the gallery? Turn off the television? Exactly! Do something! You know, unlike the German and Italian public that merely stood by and watched and did not, at large, oppose their Nazi-Fascist dictators. Any examples? Think of the film Sal and how Pasolini tricks and provokes us with aestheticized violence and then blames us for its brutal existence (reverse binoculars?). Or Man Bites Dog (were part of the crew; we rape, kill, and die with them). Try Michael Hanekes films, especially Chach (whos really sending the notes?) Or think of Ballards perverse union between man and machine in Crash (Ballard once said, revolutions in aesthetic sensibility may be the only way in which radical change can be brought about in the future). There are some violent video games out there that blame us for playing them, too (try Super Columbine Massacre RPG). What does it feel like? Uberrogue should leave us utterly perplexed and devastateda feeling of having barely survived a terrifying accident. But hopefully we exit our crumbled vehicles with new moral headlights. Any last words? Next time youre up for some violence, make it Uberrogue! Daniele Pantano is a Swiss poet, translator, critic, and editor born of Sicilian and German parentage in Langenthal (Canton of Berne). For more information, please visit: www.danielepantano.ch.
Notes from America: Problem With Violence?

Column by Christine Brandel
But Americans arent stupid; after all, we watch TV
Okay, I admit it, it feels safer in America than in England. Its partially because of the particular areas in which Ive lived and the fact that, despite feeling like one, Im not a foreigner. My students in England believed that everyone in America is a gun-toting gang-banger which, of course, is not true, however Im not going to address whether or not it actually is safer here (Ill leave the statistical manipulation to gun law fanaticists and freshmen comp students). I will just say that it feels safer in America than it ever did in England, and I believe this is because of Americans perception of violence. And ironically that perception actually makes it a much more dangerous place to live. Everyone in America is aware of the problem with violence here. Hands up, we all accept that, just as many Britons accept the presence of violence there. Where the difference lies is in who commits the violence. In England, at least in my experience, it felt like people accepted that violence is present because people are sometimes violent. Various external factors (such as poverty, drug use, etc) could always be thrown in and increase the likelihood of violence. But essentially there seemed to be an acknowledgement that violence is possible in British society at any time by anyone. This is why you should lock your car, why you shouldnt keep windows open at night, why I would have never walked my dog in the dark. I knew my neighbours and liked them, but you just never know... Unless youre in America. Then you do know. You know it wont happen to you. How can you be so sure? Because in America, all the violence is committed by one group of people and therefore to avoid violence, or even the fear of
violence, all you need to do is keep yourself away from that group. Who commits the violence in America? Them. The others, the baddies. Not me, not my family, not my friends. Something like that could never happen in my neighbourhood. Depending on your own personal characteristics, you may be able to get slightly more specific on the details of the others. If you live in a rural area, you can be sure its the city folk who are violent. Whiteys pretty sure its the blacks who are violent; many blacks think its the crackers. Worry about nonEnglish speakers and Christ almighty watch out for the Mexicans. But Americans arent stupid; after all, we watch TV. We see people who look like us or grew up near us committing acts of violence. How do we make sense of that? Simple. You see, if were over forty, they must be young. If were Christians, they must be Muslims. All of us law-abiders know theyre drug abusers (unless we smoke pot, then theyre the crack heads). Its the music they listen to, the shows they watch, the games they playall of which we avoid. And if all else fails, it was the trench coats that made them do it. As you can tell the point isnt really who is violent; its who isnt. It isnt me. It isnt you. Its them. So if we do our best to keep away from them, were going to be okay. (Its probably also a good idea to keep a gun at home just in case they come to us.) For most Americans, this probably works. We are able to stay away from the baddies, let our kids play in the garden and lead safe and peaceful lives. And if we happen to have to live around or work with one of them, we just watch our backs until one day were safe again.
Ultimately, though, theres a serious flaw in this logic. I currently teach a class which focuses on critical analysis and writing. Each semester students are required to write an essay, which uses logical reasoning to support an argument. I always have students who write on what causes violence (generally their findings are the media or bad parenting). I taunt them by playing the devils advocate (which is probably my favourite part of this job). What about violence before Grand Theft Auto? What about the school shootings? It annoys them (which might be why I enjoy it so much), because it seems to go against what they were taught: people are not violent unless something causes them to be violent; we might not know exactly what that something is, but it is something else. And that something else makes them different from you or me. But of course the only thing that all violent people have in common is their human-ness. We all have the potential to be violent, whether we want to admit it or not. Its in us already. Its easy to want to believe its others who cause violence, but its probably safer to accept that we all can be violent. Especially in America, where most of us can also all own a gun. I think Ill be skipping the dog walk Christine Brandel is a writer and teacher. After finally accepting that, while in England, she would never escape the question Are you American? she was surprised to find that on her recent return to the States, she is being asked Are you British? The answer to both is yes.
Reviews
As much as we dont want to admit it, violence is an integral part of society, both today and in the past. Twenty-four hour news satiates us with it, from terrorist atrocities, seen most recently in Pakistan, yet another teenage stabbing, to the depressed teenager who went on a killing spree in Winnenden, Germany. And then there is the violence we pretend not to see, the violence that the lurks in the shadows of 1 in 4 homes, the violence highlighted by the tragic death of baby P and the recently bruised and battered face of pop star Rhianna. And so it was quite a task to come up with a Reviews Section that could represent this vast theme. I hope you like my choices. Taking the lead is the very topical Gomorrah, by Roberto Saviano. Ben Felsenburg explores this disturbing insight into the modern mafia, and the very personal cost the author has ultimately paid. Rhodri Mogford follows Sudhir Venkatesh as he becomes a Gang Leader For A Day and I take a look at Jason Donalds fictional exploration of the damaging effects of violence in the home in Choke Chain. The repercussions of violence are also explored. Helen Shay discovers Bosnian Vesna Marics entertaining memoir, Bluebird, and Clare deliberates on Gil Adamsons fictional depiction of a widow fleeing the brutal murder of her husband in The Outlander.
Janet Aspey is a recent MA Creative Writing graduate with a drama background. She is particularly interested in feminist history and literature, and is currently working on her second novel.
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Featured Review Recommended Read Gomorrah: Italys Other Mafia Roberto Saviano Pan Macmillan, 2008 8.99 ISBN 9780330450997 301pp
has made these gangsters less reprehensible than nigh-on being role models. The grim account of the operations of the Camorra, the Naples version of the Mafia, drawn by Roberto Saviano in Gomorrah stands as a corrective that leaves the fantasy of there being some code of honour amongst organized crime gangs reeling in the dust. His novelized investigation (although based on his years of research, there are embellishments that leave a slightly fuzzy sense of exactly what should be taken as literal fact) takes place in its own alien topography across the towns and industrial parks of Naples. Yet this is the globalised 21st century, so these small communities are wired into the infrastructure of the planet too. Textiles are shipped in from Asia to sweat shops that you might have thought belonged to a distant age, but in fact apparently churn out the haute couture that the great fashion houses sell around the world. The European Unions environmental regulations set in motion a trade from eco-aware states which end in a scarred landscape of vast dumps of toxic waste. And of course there are the drugs, most of all never-ending mountains of cocaine
For all that we reel in horror from the pervasive images that flood our lives through the news media, theres a strange persistence to the glamour of violence. Certain codes and narratives seem to be unfailing in their ability to capture our imaginations at the expense of our finer moral sensibilities. In some cases, such as heroic adventures in the Second World War, its understandable, yet the most seductive notion of organized brutality may be the least redeemed the Mafia. Despite the suffering and deaths caused by their crimes across Europe and America for a century and more, an immigrant rehash of the Robin Hood myth, in tandem with the sharp suits and gleaming cars of Hollywood thrillers,
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cascading in from the port through to network of distribution across Italy and then back around the world.
judges are amongst the thousands who have died in recent years in an area with one of the highest murder rates in the world. Within this close-knit community, where the Camorra holds almost universal sway, Savianos book is an almost suicidal act of bravery and defiance. Its no surprise that as a result of the publication of Gomorrah he now has to live with a continuous police escort. The obvious example of a writer in similar circumstances is Salman Rushdie, and its an instructive comparison. The Satanic Verses author has been the target of a theocratic autocracy. Savianos restricted existence is also testimony to the absence of democracy, only in this case within an EU nation. Here we learn that there is a vacuum of law in southern Europe, where instead corruption and brute force rule. Saviano gives us the map that not only demarks the rough human terrain but also traces the trade routes that connect that violence to all our lives.
Saviano is our guide through the Byzantine interlocking relationship and feuds of the families who control
Diverse as all these activities appear, they are really the acting out of a single drive, the insatiable pursuit of extraordinary profits. Saviano is our guide through the Byzantine inter-locking relationship and feuds of the families who control these businesses, and their names and those of the places where they live at times blur into a bewildering confusion of obscure genealogies. The aggregate effect is to locate us in the claustrophobic Camorra culture where the soldiers on the ground scrabble for their existence, far from the vast flood of cash that their work generates. They are, though, mired in the violence that oils the machine, a means of expressing the power without which the weak will sink. Saviano knows all too well of what he is writing: as a native to the area he was 13 years old when he first saw the body of a murdered man. His own father, a doctor, was savagely beaten for attempting to come to the aid of a victim of the Camorrista, and the experience profoundly affected the son, who has refused to be silent about the criminals despite the fact that they know no boundaries in their choice of victims: journalists and prosecuting
Pen for hire Ben Felsenburg is currently covering prime-time TV for a national newspaper and scribbling contemporary dance reviews while busily not writing a novel on death, golf and postcolonial cuisine.
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Gang Leader For A Day Sudhir Venkatesh Penguin Books, 2009 8.99 ISBN 9780141030913 283pp
this, his powerfully moving and wholly absorbing tale. Much of what Venkatesh writes is utterly intriguing. His ability to weave the lives of a patchwork of individuals into one single narrative means Venkatesh effectively presents the reader with a fabric representative of the American underclass in a way that is real and engaging. The stories of Clarisse the prostitute, Cordella Levy the project stalwart and Catrina the ill-fated young innocent, effortlessly flow into one another, coating the book with an earnest humanism that could never be found in any rigid sociological study. Gang Leader For A Day is a fascinating account from Sudhir Venkatesh, now a celebrated sociologist, who spent the better part of a decade carrying out research in one of the most notorious housing projects in the United States of America. Venkatesh tells of how he fell into a unique and complicated relationship with the compelling Chicago gang leader, JT, and how this relationship provided the springboard that enabled the author to gain a unique access to the Robert Taylor Homes and to the gang underworld that could be found therein. What follows is a mesmerising tableau of dealers and addicts, of pimps and prostitutes, and of activists and cops; Venkatesh dives deep into the heart of contemporary American poverty and re-emerges to tell Humorous moments, which see Venkatesh temporarily take the reigns of JTs Black Kings, are offset against incredibly tense situations during the authors early gangland forays, and even tragic ones as the lives of the characters we come to know dangerously unfurl. Clichd though it may sound, Gang Leader For A Day successfully takes the reader on a journey through a range of differing and sometimes even opposing emotions. The fact that Venkatesh is able to do this is both impressive and indeed central to what the book is about. At various points in Gang Leader For A Day, the reader is encouraged to foster the same kind of mixed feelings that Venkatesh himself had when confronted with such immensely complex social problems in the flesh: there are no easy responses, let alone easy answers,
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to the difficulties faced by the impoverished areas of society and this is what the book illustrates.
Day. Long before Ross Kemp dabbled with delinquents and Louis Theroux hung out in the hood, Sudhir Venkatesh was absorbing the world of the American ganglands; he came, he saw, he took notes and now Venkatesh has produced a fine book on the subject that was well worth the effort. Be a gang reader for a day.
Long before Ross Kemp dabbled with delinquents and Louis Theroux hung out in the hood, Sudhir Venkatesh was absorbing the world of the American ganglands
The sophisticated emotional depth of the book is also allied to a statistical element that enriches our understanding of the intricate workings of a gangland sub-economy. Venkatesh presents data on money laundering, prostitution and project life in a digestible narrative form that both entertains and informs in equal measure. Gang Leader For A Day is still a book by a sociologist and, in retaining the sociologists observational acumen, Venkatesh thankfully couples detail with drama: the book is the better for it. It is the fact that Venkatesh is an academic however, as opposed to a respected fiction writer, which means we should probably forgive his occasional tendency to drift into repetitive and trite writing. For while the story is strong enough not to rely on literary flights of poetic fancy, of which there is certainly none, there is something a little too hackneyed about a sentence like, He was the one who had brought me in, and he was the one who could open or shut any door to allow you to read it without wincing ever so slightly. That said though these stylistic blemishes are small in number and are not significant enough to detract from the overall pleasure of Gang Leader For A
Rhodri Mogford is an Oxford graduate in English, with an MA in Film from UCL. He is Welsh, passionate and dedicated to literature, the arts, and all things cultural. He currently works in the editorial department at Continuum Books in London.
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Choke Chain Jason Donald Jonathan Cape, 2009 12.99 ISBN 9780224087186 309pp
realms of violence that the children face at home. This stand-alone prologue is the book in microcosm; one that not only illustrates the pressure both boys feel at becoming the sort of man that their father would approve of, but also one that tenderly shows two young boys clinging to their childhood certainties, afraid of the violence that surrounds them and the impending uncertainties surrounding their fragile world. As the hail enters their home through smashed windows and begins to destroy it, Donald delivers a highly-charged and succinctly paced scene that draws you into his narrative and allows the reader to begin to care. Mom grabbed my wrist and pulled me to the floor. Together we crawled to the centre of the living room and huddled together behind the coffee table while our home disintegrated around us. What follows is an engaging, episodically-structured novel, told from the perspective of Alex as he makes his first tentative steps towards manhood. Clearly protective of his younger brother and close to his mother, this sensitive and kind-hearted boy has a very complex relationship with his over-bearing father, Bruce Thorne, and it is this relationship and the internal conflict that results that lies at the heart of Choke Chain. As young boys, Alex and Kevin idolise their father and follow everything he says with a mixture of awe and fear. As the narrative unfolds, as each scene
Mom once said that she had seen a hailstone the size of an onion smash through the windscreen of a car. She also said that if we ever saw a hailstorm we had to start looking for shelter straight away. Running home was not safeLets just keep going, I said. Jason Donald opens his emotionally assured and thought provoking debut with a thunderstorm; a violent thunderstorm that rains down hail the size of apricots upon his protagonist, twelve-year old Alex, and his younger brother Kevin as they walk home from school to their dirt-poor white neighbourhood in eighties South Africa. Under less skilful hands this could have been a very clichd opening, the storm too obvious a metaphor for the daily
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builds upon the last, Donald portrays a man who is self-centred and one clearly lacking any sense of moral duty in teaching his sons how to be good men. Instead, Bruce shows them how to lie and cheat their way into getting what they want, glamorising his objectionable behaviour as a game one has to win at whatever cost. We were better than the A-TeamIts like I was telling you boys earlierWinners and losers. Whatever it takes.
making sure that when Donalds next novel hits the shelves, Ill be picking it up to read no matter what the theme.
Although a challenging, thought-provoking and often upsetting read, it is never a bleak one
Like the squat storm clouds of the opening, the violence hovers above the narrative, and when it finally explodes upon the page it is all the more powerful and disturbing, assaults the reader as the hail stones pelted the boys. It is so shocking because we see it through Alexs eyes, a boy who, unlike the reader, expects it and fears it and is disturbingly used to it. Although a challenging, thoughtprovoking and often upsetting read, it is never a bleak one; a testament to the honesty and tenderness that Donald injects into each scene. The characters are well-drawn, particularly the character of Alex, and I was eagerly turning each page to see how it would all work out, willing good to happen for the young boys and their mother. But for the theme of this issue, this would not have been a book I would have picked up to read, but I am glad I did. It is a mature and assured piece of writing, particularly when one considers this is Jason Donalds first. Not only would I urge you to read this, but I will personally be
Janet Aspey is a recent MA Creative Writing graduate with a drama background. She is particularly interested in feminist history and literature, and is currently working on her second novel.
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Interview by Alexander Laurence
Bluebird: A Memoir Vesna Maric Granta, 2009 12.99 ISBN 978-1-84708-057-8 227pp In ways reminiscent at times of Kate Atkinson in Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Maric shows her ability to cameo personalities and project a sense of family inter-action
However, absorbing as this is, the real strength of the book lies in the frequent recounting of events in Marics homeland. These centre upon those caught up in the struggles, providing a testimony both to human cruelty and human fortitude. The book culminates in Marics return visit to her hometown, greeted by two elderly women who make the ultimate understatement that, It was hard here, my dear, you did well not to be around (page 219). This last section is narrated in the second person, giving it additional impact and immediacy, and emphasising that this experience is essentially one involving you. The lesson of the Bosnian war is how quickly a multi-ethnic community, living peacefully together for decades, can segregate and slip into extreme violence, fuelled by the forces of nationalism. In many ways, this memoir is a rites of passage story. However, within the overall framework of the protagonists development from vulnerable but defiant
Vesna Maric offers a fascinating account of both her literal and emotional journey as a sixteen-year old refugee from Bosnia-Herzegovina, coming to England in the early nineties. She narrates the experience of being a teenager in a foreign land, removed from any conventional family network to support her or rebel against. She finds a substitute in the group of refugees to which she belongs, and also in relationships formed with the British people with whom she lives, studies or works, ranging from Cumbria to Exeter, and later finding an unexpected sense of home in Hull. Through this account she gives a unique perspective on Britain in the 90s.
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teenager to the independent woman she craves to be, there are a series of shorter stories. Most of these relate to the other refugees around her and form vignettes within the main story. All are drawn with an adept selection of detail and powerful understatement akin to Katherine Mansfield. In the detail lies the profundity. One very moving example is the account of an affair between an English charity worker and a charismatic female refugee, where the personal tragedy that this causes in his life is contrasted and juxtaposed with the wider circumstances of the war, of which the refugee is victim. By such means, Maric is able to evoke the universal themes generated by individual circumstances. Above all, the book celebrates human ability to cope with the abnormal and adapt to what is at times a surreal existence. This lends much dark comedy to this engaging account. In ways reminiscent at times of Kate Atkinson in Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Maric shows her ability to cameo personalities and project a sense of family inter-action. One of the characters who stands out is Bakira, a vivacious female refugee who, on arrival at a new dwelling, first dusts and hangs a picture of Tito on the wall. Constantly, Bakira chides her English fiance in Bosnian over his bad sexual performance, and we like both her and the narrator are left never knowing just how much he is able to understand. Marics stylistic strength lies in her economy of narration and use of plain but effective language and imagery, such as On the mound of his six-monthpregnant beer belly, beneath the white cotton, the dark circle of his belly-button hole was visible and looked like plug. (p132). Still in her early thirties, Maric is an
exciting new literary talent, who has formerly worked as a journalist and for the BBC World Service. She is now writing a novel, which will no doubt help develop the full range of her unique voice.
Helen Shay is a solicitor-turned-writer. She writes and performs poetry, and has also had drama staged, including at Edinburgh Fringe. Her work has appeared in various publications and won competitions. She has recently completed an MA in Creative Writing with MMU. Her fantasy novel, The Fixed Lands, will hopefully soon be published by a new imprint, Writers of Worlds. She has reviewed drama and fiction for various publications. Her writing tends towards the surreal.
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The Outlander Gil Adamson Bloomsbury, 2009 12.99 ISBN 978 0 7475 9592 2 387pp
carefully chosen. The description of the country is vivid. As someone who has never been to Canada, I now have a strong picture of the landscape. And it is scary the atmosphere that the author conjures up is of constant menace and threat of immense wastes with no source of food or succour, of snow and rocks, hollows, hidden traps and loneliness. It is not only the twins who are determined to crush the widow, it is also nature. Adamson manages to convey the physical effects of starvation all too clearly. It is not only the description of the wilderness that is accurate, it is the historical detail. The authors research is impeccable, and she uses actual events to dramatic effect. The depiction of what life was like in Canada at the turn of the last century is fascinating and very real although, again, I am no expert. The writer uses tiny details the speed with which infirm ladies will whisk away from spilling ink to avoid staining unwashable clothes; the precise effects of a sip of laudanum on a novice; the edibility of a porcupine; how springy deerskin is to stitch all of which brings the setting to life. Perhaps the section that I most enjoyed was the mining town with its lopsided half-built church and its store run by the drunken dwarf, McEchern. This is the kind of shanty town glamorised in films, but which here has the stench of reality. As for the narrative, this novel has a classic chase or quest plot. The widows journey is
A widow, clad in black mourning weeds, is fleeing the brutal murder of her husband at her own hand. She is deranged and near starvation, lost in the wilderness. On her heels, dogged and relentless, are two red-headed twins, determined to avenge their brother and bring her to justice. This is the dramatic opening of The Outlander, a novel set in the Canadian mountains in 1903. It tells the story of the widow as she journeys across an inhospitable land and encounters a series of eccentric characters along the way. As she travels the writer unravels her past and reveals what brought her to such desperate straits. This is a book written by a poet. The author, Gil Adamson, has had two books of poetry published, and it shows. The writing is beautiful, the words
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punctuated by chance meetings with people who either aid or hinder her journey or enrich her life. These characters are drawn with careful detail for instance, the Ridgerunner, a loner who has spent years living in the wilderness, or the Reverend, a flawed but beneficent saviour in the mining town. However, the author has chosen to write about them all almost mythologically, which is exemplified by the way she refers throughout to the widow as widow rather than using her name. This stylistic choice, combined with the structure of the chase narrative which by very definition is a string of encounters that do not deepen as the character moves on, all mitigates against the reader caring deeply about either the protagonist or the characters that she meets. This book has all the elements of a gripping and dramatic read. However, for me, it fell short of its promise. There are moments of high tension and drama, there are moments of great beauty and there is nothing precisely wrong with the story, but I found it curiously unmoving. If you want to have a realistic, warts-and-all picture of a pioneer lifestyle in an unusual setting, then this is the book for you. However, if you want to laugh and cry and be on the edge of your seat with tension, then perhaps it is not.
Writing with Light

Welcome to the section dedicated to showcasing the work of contemporary artists using photography and lensbased media. Writing with Light will nurture emerging talent, as well as provide a platform for well-known artists, giving them an opportunity to reach a fresh audience. The emotive qualities of photography to capture violence can be found in war photography; Robert Capa and Eddie Adams spring to mind. Yet, consider the theme further and violence can be closer to home. Potentially prosaic, but where the rhetoric was no less important. Dark Days documents the outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in Cumbria in 2001. Efforts to stop the spread of the highly contagious virus. Darwells images capture the eerie aftermath of this environmental violence in the Lake Districts pastoral landscape. John Darwell holds a BA Hons in Photography (Manchester Polytechnic) and a PhD (Sunderland University) for which he researched of the photographic depiction of mental health. His work has been exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. Darwell lives and works in Carlisle, Cumbria. www.johndarwell.com
Clare Reddaway writes scripts for theatre and radio, and stories for children. Her latest audio play, Laying Ghosts, can be downloaded at: www.wirelesstheatre company.co.uk. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University.
Curator Sara-Jayne Parsons received an MA in art history from the University of North Texas. She is currently working on her PhD dissertation. Sara lives and works in Liverpool. She is the Arts Editor for Incorporating Writing.
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John Darwell, Burning feed troughs, from the Dark Days series, c-print, 2001
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John Darwell, Sheep for disposal, from the Dark Days series, c-print, 2001
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John Darwell, Roadside pyre, from the Dark Days series, c-print, 2001
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John Darwell, Closed picnic site, Carlisle, from the Dark Days series, c-print, 2001
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John Darwell, Cattle Pyre, from the Dark Days series, c-print, 2001
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John Darwell, Burial Site, Thursby Bypass, from the Dark Days series, c-print, 2001
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A Good Place to Die?
Article by Ian Kenworthy
Ever had one of those days? One where nothing is going right and every single hurdle is destined to trip you? Thankfully in my job an infuriating case of mental block seems to have been the sum of such abysmal luck but what if I were a detective? You know the type, the stereotypical quasi-hero; the alienated drinker who has forfeited the stability of marriage because of his unwavering devotion to duty. A man for whom the ability to crack even the toughest cases protections him from self-destruction through uneasy social encounters or the bottle. A bad day in this kind of job is likely to involve the kinds of crime that make the toes curl or the stomach churn. A bad day could start with the discovery of a body with identical modus operandi to one found not a week before, the sort of discovery that bears the hallmarks of a serial killer.
Already we have the beginnings of a story and the rising tension heart pounding count down to the next body being found. The keystone to every good serial killer/ thriller novel is violence and once you include it in an enticing amount you almost have the winning formula. Before we proceed though it is interesting to note that implication is as powerful as description and the setting can be evocative of the violent act itself. Ed Gein whose activities influence so many books most notably Silence of the Lambs only actually murdered two people but the famous house filled with body parts and human skin upholstery implies so much more. So although wall to wall gore and the kind of powertool torture that would make a surgeon blanche is one way to gratify our
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audience, perhaps we could try something more subtle. By describing a place so obviously ravaged by time and change we can bring the audience into a world of darkness, the world of our killer. Once we have a trail of clues for our illadjusted hero to follow, our story can begin except for one important detail, where exactly the macabre chase will take place.
where the unknown is part of the surroundings. Nowhere I have experienced is quite so threatening, or so well understood as that of the declining industrial centre. Whilst any part of the country you might care to visit has its own depraved areas, the North West of England could well provide the budding author with an almost perfect stalking ground for his unhinged murderers. A manufacturing industry long since departed has left dilapidated buildings unoccupied or with empty upper levels a stark reminder of the desolation to be found here. Whilst such buildings can be found elsewhere it is very difficult to imagine another place where the damp chilling saps the spirit as the north west of England, after all that is why the cotton mills were located here in the first place. Why does such a place exist? Surely cities and towns are the very pinnacle of progress, where money is made and high streets are lined by expensive boutiques? Yes this is the case for the visible and most often experienced part of the city, the one you might be familiar with, but even a brief scratch upon the surface tells a very different story. Once it was the centre of frantic progress, houses thrown together in proximity to the central mills in an attempt to provide a home for an ever expanding workforce. As competition from abroad and machinery took their jobs what had been a centre for progress stalled, stagnated and started a spiral of decline into the serial killers domain I am impressing upon you. Obviously as you might imagine the whole of a city centre is not a decaying core as there are businesses, nightclubs, houses and shoppers moving in and out but the underlying structures to be found on the periphery of almost
Whilst any part of the country you might care to visit has its own depraved areas, the North West of England could well provide the budding author with an almost perfect stalking ground for his unhinged murderers
Pondering upon this very idea resulted in surprisingly few options. My mind was immediately drawn to Ian Rankins Inspector Rebus trawling the underbelly of Edinburgh where rain soaked streets and dingy ill-lit architecture combine beauty and threat. A place where a beautiful daytime facade hides the dystopia that night time brings. This it seemed was a good starting point, and strange as it sounds, I set off in search of a place to be murdered. Imagine the perfect place for a murder, a place where violence is rife and a place where even the police loathe to go. No one with sufficient means would remain in such a place and for those who do perhaps victim is a better description than resident. Barely had I left the house when I stumbled upon the very place I sought. A transient locale where the large ever-changing population never has time to form a community, a place
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In the nineteen sixties it became clear that the crumbling Victorian housing with its lack of amenities was no longer viable for people to live in so town planners created something far worse
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every street corner still remain. In the nineteen sixties it became clear that the crumbling Victorian housing with its lack of amenities was no longer viable for people to live in so town planners created something far worse; the infamous concrete tower blocks. Falling into disrepair within a decade the mazes of concrete walkways and darkened staircases became synonymous with crime. When the blocks were built a lack of privacy and proximity to unknown neighbours created a fearful environment. Who could be living next door? What might be happening on the other side of that paper thin wall? Who might be listening? Where is there to run? Who will care when the killer strikes? So enough of my pompous theorising, after a good afternoons thought into the domain of a serial killer I set off to experience it for myself. Rain slashes from a darkened sky making me huddle into a wholly unsuitable coat. Clacking shoes are my only companion on this excuse for a main street. A constant cycle of tenants has left some buildings thriving whilst others still display the scars of deindustrialisation fifty years before. A woman stands on a corner perhaps awaiting a boyfriend, perhaps a client. Like the buildings a hasty application of make-up has done little to hide the ravages of time. An icy northern wind whips away any comforting warmth leaving me exposed on the lonely streets. The evenings revellers are packed into sweaty nightclubs with their polished aluminium fronts standing as bastions guarded by burley bouncers. Huddled nicotine addicts brave weather they are all too familiar with, loitering in the many alcoves or doorways and empty shop fronts. All sharing a joke, all
watching passersby with curious eyes. Already along this transect the streetlamps are thinning, pavements are showing signs of neglect and the fluorescence of shop fronts gives way to long-dead textile mills masquerading as warehouses. Shops with peeling signs inhabit some ground floor spaces, none of them attractive to new clientele. Graffiti adorns walls of crumbling brickwork and on every second corner the decaying relics of working mens clubs remain. Though far from perfect the lighting here is a comfort for who knows what evils dwell not a moments walk from the illuminated strip of the main road? In the daylight this place is vibrant with chugging lorries and foul-mouthed workers. At night Desolo Row takes on a different character. Suddenly I find that I am very much alone, the sound of plastic cups and wrappers dancing in the wind. Each clicking step and splashing footfall becomes louder, echoing from the high building sides. During the day people walk through here without fear but the light has long since gone and there is a horrible feeling that I am not alone. Youll be pleased to know that during my adventure I didnt encounter any killers, serial or otherwise but I did experience the unease that such an environment breeds. Why should a city centre be such a suitable setting for violence? After walking down those quiet streets I can certainly say that fear is a main reason. Anyone can fear the unknown but the horrors hiding in a city can all too readily be imagined or experienced. Unlike a village every face is an unknown, every passerby could be following you. Every Lisha Aquino Rooney abandoned building could house a gang or be home to a murderer. It is a no
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mans land, a place where no one really belongs.
Terraced inner city housing that once provided homes for mill workers now belongs to poor communities trapped by poverty and a lack of opportunities
Weve established that there is unease in the declining inner city but what else would draw a killer to this environment? Good transport links offer the careful planner a variety of exit strategies and a hive of activity to vanish into, a crowd being a good place to hide. Manchester with its Victorian network of canals, railway lines and viaducts provide the serial killer with the ideal dumping ground for bodies that might lie undiscovered for weeks. Even moving out of the Central Business District further into the inner city, leaving behind the looming buildings, provides no respite from the fear of violence. Terraced inner city housing that once provided homes for mill workers now belongs to poor communities trapped by poverty and a lack of opportunities. Such communities might be tight-lipped if something were to happen to their members. Straying into the wrong part of town invites violence but what if you found yourself trapped? Even inner city housing with its grid iron pattern provides an endless abyss of housing for victims or heroes to become lost in. Crossing unseen territorial boundaries where gangs of youths prowl might be an urban stereotype but in fiction that helps readers identify with the situations and characters. So when youre next wracking your brains trying to find a suitable location for a
killing spree I trust youll understand why the old industrial towns of North Western England are just the location for one to take place.
Ian Kenworthy is a former Geography teacher living in Manchester. His first book The Whispering Sand will be published later in the year by Book Guild Publishing.
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Prolific Crime: Andrew Taylor

Interview by Caroline Drennan
Lisha Aquino Rooney
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As a budding literature student, I took a Saturday job in our local library. And if that statement gives you a particular view of me, you had better keep on reading because things are not always what they seem. There was nothing quiet or sedentary about that job; restocking shelves I grew muscular and well able to step in when pensioners came to blows. In this library, Colonel or Miss Mustard wielded walking stick, umbrella or shopping bag with regular abandon for our new crime acquisitions adorned with dripping daggers or crumpled corpses. The stereotypes may have been at the front line but I soon learned that an unexpectedly wide range of readers were drawn to this surprisingly versatile genre in which whodunnit? was generally much less significant than the how, the ensuing consequences and the very teasing why? So it is extremely exciting to be interviewing Andrew Taylor, a prolific and talented writer, praised by the Times and Time Out amongst others for his mastery of psychological suspense. A graduate of Cambridge and University College, London, Andrew gained a broad working experience from boatbuilding to librarianship before turning to full time writing in 1981. Since then he has produced an impressive number of novels, demonstrating his ability to explore and test the limits, leading readers to question whether there are indeed any limits to writing of a criminal-psychological-often-historical kind. His Roth trilogy was televised as ITVs Fallen Angel in 2007. He has written TV tie-ins such as the Bergerac series under the pseudonym of Andrew Saville, short stories, books for children and a number of immensely well informed and readable reviews and articles on crime writers and the genre. He is formidably well read; the author Mike Ripley jokes that in a crime fiction
quiz show Ripley was chairing, Andrew Taylor proved so knowledgeable that he was not invited to participate again. Andrew has achieved an array of prizes, including the Crime Writers Association John Creasey Memorial award for the best first novel for Caroline Miniscule in 1982 and The Cartier Diamond Dagger award for sustained excellence in crime writing in January of this year. He has been nominated for the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger many times and is the only author to have won it twice, in 2001 and 2003. And if final affirmation were needed, Public Lending Right estimates put Andrews British public library readership in the top one per cent. I have no doubt that there will be carnage between the shelves when his next novel is released! Such acclaim might well go to a writers head but Andrews blog expresses a refreshingly unbridled response to the news of the Cartier Award: Only years of rigorously training the upper lip to remain stiff, and to push the women and children out of the lifeboat first, prevent me putting that heading [Diamond Dagger!!] in shrieking red capital letters. And why not! But where did it all begin? Andrew, what appeals to you as a writer about this particular genre and which writers have inspired you? Lets concentrate on the dead. Chandlers prose made a great impression when I first read him as a teenager. So did Margery Allingham with her almost Dickensian grasp of settings, especially London. And Josephine Teys ability not to write the same novel twice (a rare talent among crime writers) impresses more and more. Just before I wrote my first crime novel, Caroline Minuscule, I discovered Patricia Highsmiths Ripley books. They really were an inspiration - you could have a
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hero who was also a murderer. And you werent necessarily tied to a limited genre formula. Isnt
it extraordinary how many so-called literary novelists have turned to crime or thrillers? Think of the Banville/Black and Barnes/Kavanagh double acts
People certainly can be dismissive of genre fiction as too limiting or formulaic. What would you say to encourage the reluctant reader to broaden their experience? Its true a few formulas in crime fiction get used over and over again - Christies Mayhem Parva puzzles; the boozy private eye in the means streets of the American city; more recently all those serial killers, forensic pathologists and of course the endless British series featuring a faux-gritty Inspector Ipod with his doomed personal relationships and his awesome capacity for alcohol. I could go on. Some of the novels that rely so heavily on such tried-and-tested formats are very good indeed, and well worth reading - but many arent. But theres more to crime fiction than repetition. In the last 30-odd years things have changed - crime fiction has become an almost infinitely elastic genre: any novel can be considered as a crime novel as long as a) it has a corpse or at least a crime in it, and b) it remembers that the need to entertain the reader (in the sense of making him/ her want to turn the pages. Thats been hugely liberating for the genre as a whole. You can write a book that uses a formula. But you dont have to.
In the same period I think theres been a linked development - partly as a matter of changing literary fashion and partly for sordid economic reasons. Many literary novels have moved away from the traditional features of fiction (narrative, character, theme, tension, etc.) towards technical experiment or forms of animated sociology. Crime fiction tends to be technically conservative in the sense that it cant ignore the need to keep the reader reading. But it can also handle serious themes. More and more authors are using the genre to describe and analyse society. Which is why its the arguably the most popular form of modern fiction for authors as well as readers. There are some authors now writing crime fiction who, fifty years ago, would probably have been writing mainstream fiction. And isnt it extraordinary how many socalled literary novelists have turned to crime or thrillers? Think of the Banville/ Black and Barnes/Kavanagh double acts, for example, not to mention Faulks Engleby, the modish experiments of Amis (father and son), and many of Ian McEwans novels. No one has to read crime fiction if they dont want to. Thats the beauty of it. But theres a lot of good stuff youll miss if you dont. On your website, you say that when Caroline Minuscule was published, early reviewers often commented on the amorality of the work. Have you found that the passing of a quarter of a century has led to a significant change in critical responses to your work? The short answers yes. My (broadly sympathetic) hero in Caroline Minuscule is capable of killing people, which upset a number of reviewers at the time. They would hardly turn a hair now. The first draft of the book was considered too
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dark by the publisher - my editor made me tone down the killing and wouldnt let my hero roll up a joint in the final chapter. Spoilsport. You have produced an impressive number of books during the course of your career. What is for you the most challenging aspect of the creative process? Is there a work that you found particularly difficult to write? As Anthony Burgess once remarked, I wrote much because I was paid little. If youre paying the mortgage by writing, you have to keep the words flowing. The most challenging aspect of the creative process is... writing itself. Its pain and grief, as well as wonderful when its going well. The hardest book to write is the current one. I used to think it would get easier. But it doesnt. Every novel is hard to write, even if you think its going to be relatively easy. And I think it gets harder. Although your works are often concerned with violent crimes, from what I have read, your depiction of violence and gore is comparatively restrained. I was particularly interested in the way you present the parcels of rotting hearts sent to Mr Serridge in your recent novel Bleeding Heart Square. What is your view of the role of violence in a novel? Have you felt pressure as a writer to include more vivid or gruesome detail in your description? The most powerful ally an author has is the readers imagination. Harness that and it can take you anywhere. As with sex, an over-reliance on graphic violence often degenerates into a form of pornography. Leaving aside the moral issue, porn gets aesthetically boring very quickly. Too much description actually can blunt a readers ability to respond. As so often, less is more. As
Hitchcock and Poe knew so well, the heart of horror lies in the mind of the viewer/reader. So in Bleeding Heart Square (www.youtube.com/lydmouth) as in my other books, I usually try to avoid spelling out all the details of violence or at least to ration their use. I try to trigger the readers own responses. Its much more powerful and infinitely more flexible.
TV drama is another way of telling a story, and I learned a lot. But its inevitably a committee job - lots of people have to have a say in it. With a novel, on the other hand, the author is God in his or her own universe
For example, Ive had a lot of emails from readers of The Four Last Things who stumbled on the bag of something resembling sausages in a chest freezer. They know, and I know, that the bag contains fingers, and that therefore the neatly packaged corpse of the dismembered child is in there. Its more horrific if its not spelled out. Theres a bonus with this method: readers like stories that engage them, and bring their own imaginations into play. Reading fiction works best when its an inter-active process. To what extent have scientific advances and modern forensics had an impact on your writing? A crime writer has to keep aware of developments to avoid making mistakes. Developments like DNA, mobile phones, GPS etc. have had a huge impact on the
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genre. (I wrote one recent novel, A Stain on the Silence, partly so I could explore the effect of some of these, from DNA to wi-fi.) But forensic mechanics in themselves tend to date very quickly (just watch the early series of The Wire), and novels that depend on them often have a relatively short shelf life. Im more interested in the interplay between individuals and their social context, and in what happens when it goes wrong. And why. Those themes dont date. Your Roth Trilogy was televised as Fallen Angel in 2007. To what extent were you involved in the development of the screenplay? Did the end result cause you to see your work in a new light? It was a fascinating process and the production company was a pleasure to work with. I turned down the chance to adapt it - Ive already told that story and my mind was full of another one - but my wife (who works with me) and I went on set a good deal, and discussed aspects of the production with writers, directors, actors, etc. Their sheer professionalism was impressive - I spent a lot of time talking to the writer, Peter Ransley, about the structure, for example, and with Emilia Fox about her character Angel, which is central to the trilogy. TV drama is another way of telling a story, and I learned a lot. But its inevitably a committee job - lots of people have to have a say in it. With a novel, on the other hand, the author is God in his or her own universe. Right from the start I told myself that Fallen Angel was the TV production companys - but the Roth Trilogy is and always will be mine. What are you working on at present?
Im eighty thousand words into a book called The Anatomy of Ghosts, which is set in the 18th century, and takes place mainly in the University of Cambridge. Its a sort of murder mystery, a sort of ghost story, maybe a sort of love story... I dont quite know yet. But I hope I find out soon. I look forward to reading it. Thank you very much, Andrew. The following are direct links to further information about Andrews work, and are well worth investigating. www.andrew-taylor.co.uk www.youtube.com/lydmouth
Caroline Drennan is a writer and a teacher. Runner up in the Orange Short Story competition in 2005, she has recently gained an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia portraitsiberuttrek
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PDF Red Ink 6/ Summer 2009 (ISSN 1751-1496). Eds. Peter Lewin & Andrew Oldham Cover Art: Badrobot Poetry: Matthew Friday, R.G. Gregory, Jenny Harrow, Kathleen Kenny, F.J. Milne, Molly Naylor, Nusra Nazir, Phoebe Power Story: Kath McKay
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A violent reaction to senseless violence

Article by Helen Stacey
It is amazing just how often the word senseless is attached to descriptions of violent events in a way that suggests the lack of rationale the an action is supposed to somehow make it worse. So often we read in our newspapers or watch on TV politicians, community leaders, and bystanders all expressing outrage at the senselessness of an act as if its brutality alone were not enough to condemn it. I increasingly find such utterances have little impact upon me: they barely register. It is not that over-exposure to descriptions and images of violence have left me unable to comprehend the immorality or inhumanity of random acts of violence. Ive played blood-splattered video games until my thumbs ache so hard I can not bear to chop the head off of another zombie. Still, I can easily and
reliably differentiate these experiences from real life and from real violence, as can the over whelming majority of adults. Ive yet to be shocked by a video game and yet reading the paper regularly pulls me up short. Violence in real life is still shocking, still upsetting, still appalling. The fact is that I just wonder if the senselessness of the act might not in fact be something of a redeeming feature. Cold, planned and rational violence is the most horrifying thing there is. When we understand the motive behind an act we can start to build some kind of justificatory story. Once we have a story it becomes much easier to imagine the kind of circumstances which would lead a person to commit such brutality. Worse than this when we can grasp the persons validation for their deed we can
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grasp just how easily that rationale could have been a product of our own reasoning. Violence, when we understand that it can have a purpose, shows us something deeply unsettling about ourselves and humanity more generally. The recognition of such a potential for viciousness is truly terrifying. Take Soylent Green as an example. The main premise of the film, and the novel on which it is based, is that population growth and global warming have lead to a dystopian society where food is such a rare commodity that fresh vegetables and meat are out of reach of the average person. The only option for them are the highly processed produce of the Soylent Corporation which are advertised as being plankton based but are in fact made from the corpses generated by a state-sponsored euthanasia program. This is not the most violent act depicted on the silver screen; any serious injury is, after all, inflicted onto the dead who cannot feel its effects. The point is that for almost everyone recycling corpses to feed an unwitting populace is morally repugnant. It is also a case where we can readily understand the reasoning behind the act. There is nothing senseless in acting to prevent mass starvation however distasteful we find the act itself. Such a scheme could be the only way to support such a large world population and it would have less environmental impact than relying on GM crops which tend to require an awful lot of chemical fertiliser for their high yield. The use of euthanasia means less of the population will become dependent on the state in old-age, freeing up more resources to meet the environmental challenges for the rest of the population. Im not saying it is right, or even acceptable, but you can construct a strong rational argument in favour of the Soylent Green method. This is central to what makes it
such a disturbing tale. It becomes so much more real when you can comprehend just exactly how society can get to that point. In the face of the effects that global warming has on crops and world food prices, it is a reality that is not so distant from our current situation. If the Soylent Corporation had been feeding processed corpse to customers just because they could, for no real reason at all, the story loses its edge. The very senselessness of such an act would have undermined the impact it has upon us. Id argue the same applies to other rational but morally impermissible acts, in particular the cases of actual violence. The very fact we can comprehend an action that appals us makes it especially threatening. Consider the violent dystopia created by Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange. The actions of the anti-hero, Alex, and his gang at the beginning of the books are exactly what we mean by senseless violence. The gang robs, rapes and batters simply for the hell of it; violence for the sake of being violent. Its not that the scenes are not disturbing, they are. Its upsetting that someone could do those things to another human for fun and without remorse or regret. There is a failure of Alex and the gang to express what Jean-Jacques Rousseau called piti; the basic expression of sympathy toward those we recognise as sharing a common humanity. Nevertheless these are not the most distressing events in the book. That dubious honour must surely go to the scenes of the behavioural conditioning performed on Alex whereby Alex is programmed to respond to the idea of violence by an overwhelming urge to be sick. In particular I have in mind the theatrical presentation of the effects of the process.Reading of the exploitation of Alexs new inability to contemplate violence is horrific. Removing a persons
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free will by force is undeniably an incredibly violent concept. Again Id argue that the force of this event, the source of our negative reaction to it, is two-fold. Firstly there is our reaction to the idea of suppressing free will. It is something we find morally repulsive even though in this case the suppression is of a choice we also abhor. Secondary to this is our reaction to the scenarios plausibility. Over-crowding in prisons is rife. It would be nave to believe that the government would not jump at a chance to effectively neuter the violent impulses of certain inmates so they could be safely released. You can imagine them going for it without hesitation and in all likelihood the tabloid press would be bringing up the rear with a parade. The fact that the process as described in Clockwork Orange is painful and has the unpleasant side effect of ruining Alexs one non-violent pleasure of Beethovens music is likely to be viewed by many as a happy bonus. A method of punishment that manages to be simultaneously retributive and rehabilitative is an electoral wet-dream for most politicians. The very plausibility of the act makes it worse. In the Clockwork Orange case it is easy to imagine the government implementing such policy. It is in fact easy to imagine ourselves supporting such a policy, who after all would not want to rid society of violent crime. Think of it: no armed robbery, no rape, no domestic abuse. It is not just understandable that the state would practice such acts of violence; it is in fact a terrifyingly attractive proposition. It is this second element that makes rational violence, in my opinion, far worse. Newspapers should not be calling out for an end to senseless violence because that much is a given. No-one beyond the brain dead teenagers who send round videos of the latest pointless
happy-slap of some unsuspecting stranger would speak up in support of senseless violence. Sense-full violence on the other hand is far more insidious because while our gut reaction screams against it our minds can in fact justify and accept much violence on any number of grounds. Violence with a purpose knocks people off-balance because we begin to question whether it is really as bad as it seems. If we can somehow see it as necessary then it becomes harder and harder to speak out against it. It is threatening to realise that an act of violence against our person could be rationally explained. It raises the possibility that others around us will accept the given justification as legitimate. In such a situation the violent party has both might and right on her side which is an awfully potent combination. If she was right to be violent towards you then do you even have a legitimate claim to revenge? Do you even have a legitimate right to feel aggrieved? In our society this logic ends in the support for arguments defending torture or the death penalty. Where the argument really takes humanity is to the dystopias of fiction and in horrendous acts of brutality that can be logically and fully defended in terms of the greater good. This is why I wonder at the moral panic that surrounds random acts of violence. Violence that comes complete with its own water-tight justification is by far the more destructive, merciless, and terrifying prospect.
This is Helen Staceys first article for Incorporating Writing.
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SF NEWS. The round of conventions will soon be underway with LX2009 in Bradford at Easter, then Alt Fiction In Derby in June and Fantasycon 2009 in Nottingham in September. The 67th World SF Convention, Anticipation, this year will be in Montreal in August. WHAT WONDER WOMAN TAUGHT ME Friday 17th & Saturday 18th April at 8pm The Space, 269 West Ferry Road, London E14 3RS (Nearest station: Mudchute DLR) 10.00 / 6.00 The Space, 17 &18 April 2009 Wise, weird, wily and wonderful... women! They amaze, dazzle, baffle and frustrate. They find the plot, lose the plot, throw it out, and shatter it to pieces. Thea-poets new show What Wonder Woman Taught Me lets you in on their secrets about women, love and relationships. Charlotte Ansell, Cath Drake, Patricia Foster, Janett Plummer and Sifundo explore the bliss, humour, complexity and sorrow of relationships with their refreshingly honest stories about growing up, becoming women and learning to love and be themselves. The women of Thea-poets, from Australia to Jamaica and the UK, have performed their poetry, and live literature across the country and internationally, moving audiences with their humour and keen observation, distilling a brand of rich multicultural identities and experiences. Box office: 020 7515 7799 http://www.space.org.uk/ The Arts Council in Northern Ireland has cut financial support to the Creative Writers Network CWN. This 60, 000 cut in literary support means two salaried posts will terminate by the end of March, said CWN in a statement.
Industry News and Opportunities

CWN is seeking a review of the decision. The Arts Council said it considered an application from Creative Writers Network at its meeting on 11 February 2009. The Arts Council received an independent Value for Money Review of Creative Writers Network and its recommendations will have a bearing on the future relationship between CWN and the Council, said the council. The Arts Council said it has made an inprinciple offer of funding to CWN to run from 1st-30th April 2009. This offer is equivalent to one month of its 08/09 grant, i e 5,000, and is intended to give the organisation a months breathing space, according to the council. How to get published: Trespass workshops for writers and poets Get your work published in Trespass magazine, plus learn a raft of invaluable skills like reviewing, interviewing, Quark and Indesign basics, poetry and short fiction workshopseverything you need to know in order to get published. Theres more. Everyone who takes part will get to perform at a fabulous event in London, Leeds or Brighton . Sign up now! Sessions will take place on Saturday mornings, venue: Goldsmiths or The London Magazine and Associated Publications Ltd office near Turnham Green. We will also be running the course(s) in Leeds (May and June) and Brighton (July and August). Guest artist(s) include: Roddy Lumsden, Agnes Meadows, Niki Aguirre, Rosy Carrick, Alison McLeod, Gaia Holmes, Jim Hinks, Dzifa Benson
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LONDON SESSIONS* APRIL 11 SESSION 6: The importance of minding your ps, qs and commas. Impress an editor by sending them a flawless article. Basic proof reading skills discussed. Feedback given on articles and ideas pitched. Facilitated by the course co-ordinator Sara-Mae Tuson and Kiran Toor. April 18 SESSION 7: How to conduct an interview, and how to review. With Dzifa Benson Wouldnt know how to begin to quiz your favourite author? Think you could winkle the truth from a recalcitrant artist? Learn how to ask the right questions, and how to analyse and produce a cohesive review of a work of poetry. APRIL 25 SESSION 8: How to Promote yourself: Learn basic Quark and Indesign How it all gets put together: Final Presentation of work, working with a designer, sourcing and providing images for articles. Blogging Basic Quark and Indesign training session to give you a feel for the programmes commonly used in Journalism. Self Publication and Promotion, how to get your name out there. Facilitated by the course co-ordinator Sara-Mae Tuson and Sarah Foxall, Trespass designer. PLEASE SEND EMAILS STATING INTEREST TO trespassmagazine@yahoo.co.uk. Prices 8 sessions for 125, pay for all 8 sessions up front and pay only 100, at a 20% discount OR pay 50 for four sessions. Please note if you want to be
involved in an individual session please ensure that you book well in advance. Venue: Spread The Word Office 77 Lambeth Walk, London, SE11 6DX EXCEPT FOR THE COURSES ON APRIL 4 and 25 WHICH WILL TAKE PLACE AT: 32 Addison Grove, London, W4 1ER Time: 10:301:30 To book and to get Leeds and Brighton dates contact Sara-Mae Tuson at trespassmagazine@yahoo.co.uk, or on 07862722140. KITSCHEN WRITERS SERIES WORKSHOPS (MANCHESTER) Taking place in a new writers venue in a waterside mill on the Tame River, situated near the Huddersfield canal and with good rail links to Manchester, Huddersfield and Leeds. These series of workshops will have guest writers from across the North. The workshops will include poetry, fiction, script and non-fiction over the 12 weeks of summer from June-September. Workshops will take place on a Saturday morning (10:00AM-1:00PM) and will include tea and refreshments. In the workshops, award-winning poets and writers will help new and growing writers with their work. The workshops take a maximum of 14 students in each workshop and cost 30 each. The programme will be announced late April 2009. Individuals interested in hearing more can contact us at: events@incwriters.co.uk
All news for this section is compiled by Incwriters. Send your info to: info@incwriters.co.uk Further news can be found in their forum at: www.incwriters.co.uk
BANIPAL 33
honours the life and legacy of Mahmoud Darwish Let us go, you and I, on two paths: You, to a second life, promised to you by language in a reader who might survive the fall of a comet on earth. I, to a rendezvous I postponed more than once, with a death I promised a glass of red wine in a poem. - Mahmoud Darwish
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Incwriters OCL (Magazines) Award Winner 2008: Banipal
Banipal 33 opens with a major 70page feature on the life and legacy of Mahmoud Darwish. It includes articles, tributes, poems and many photographs of the great Palestinian and world poet, who passed away on Saturday 9 August following complications after major heart surgery in Houston, Texas, at the age of 67. Darwish left behind, writes Sinan Antoon, an entire continent of poems whispering and singing inside Arabic and calling on us to reacquaint ourselves with its topography. The feature includes a poem written by Mahmoud Darwish earlier this year, At the Station of a Train which Fell Off the Map, translated by Sinan Antoon. In addition we present a foretaste from Mahmoud Darwishs last collection, with a selection of poems from the collection, that wll be published by Saqi Books next year as If I Were a Stone, translated by Catherine Cobham.
Bannipal 33 includes fellow poets, and writers from around the world contribute their feelings on his passing, including Saadi Yousef, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Denys Johnson Davies, Wole Soyinka, Mark Strand, Abdo Wazen, Kadhim Jihad Hassan, Alberto Manguel, Amjad Nasser, Marie-Thrse Abdel-Messih, Giuseppe Goffredo, Fadhil al-Azzawi, Judith Kazantzis, Thomas Hegh, Peter Clark, Clara Jans, Gaber Asfour, Bernard Nol, Mohammed Bennis, Naomi Shihab Nye, Stephen Watts, Qassim Haddad, Saif alRahbi, Issa J Boullata, Taha Adnan, and Mahmoud Shukair.
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People Cross the Road

Article by Valeria Kogan
People cross the road when they see large groups of teenagers, women are told not to go out alone after dark, children are warned not to speak to strangers and alleyways look ominous, imbued with a danger which is in no way inherent - it is just a gap between buildings. It is amazing what a central part violence - or potential violence plays in our everyday lives. Fear of it affects even our most basic actions like the daily walk home from work; it dictates how we raise our children and how we interact with strangers. While you may nod now, maybe remembering how you walked a little faster when you heard footsteps behind you yesterday or felt your heart beat a little harder when you passed those 10 boys kicking bottles in the street last week, you probably wont think to include certain relationships in the group of things affected by violence.
Everybody in the country is now familiar with the blue eyes of child know as Baby P, brutally tortured and eventually murdered by his own parents while carers did nothing to help, or the case of a girl locked in a cellar to be repeatedly raped for 24 years by her father, and the father of her 7 children, just as we are aware of an unexplained chain of teen suicides in Bridgend and various instances of child abductions by family members, not least the tragedy which befell Jennifer Hudsons family and the faked abduction of Sharon Matthews. Within the past year alone, there have been so many monstrous acts of violence that repeated coverage has burned their names into our memories, added to the list with Myra Hindley and Howard Hughes. Not necessarily due to the violence involved, but because the crimes were perpetrated by loved and trusted members of the victims family or carried out by the victims themselves.
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We like to tell ourselves that these instances are rarer than violence committed by strangers. Unfortunately, this is not the case for the most horrific and violent crimes.
We have accepted that parents can potentially do far worse things to a child than a strange
Every ten days, in England and Wales, a child is killed by a parent; in 52% of child murders the parent is the chief suspect 66% of these are under 5 years of age. 97% if callers to Rape Crisis Helplines knew their rapist the most common perpetrators being husbands and long-term partners, and 25% of women experience some form of domestic abuse. There are 3 times more suicides than murders per year. The majority of these truly violent acts are carried out by members of the victims trusted inner circle yet we still assume that rapists and murderers are strangers in trench coasts in dark alleys, not somebody that you might invite into your home, trust, maybe even share a life with. The cruel irony of teaching our children stranger danger is that, statistically, they are far more likely to be hurt by somebody you met and made small talk with over dinner, or harm themselves, than be abducted by a stranger and never seen again, yet so little thought is expended on the very real danger of a trusted one betraying that trust. It is interesting that so much modern literature devoted to this subject is written from a biographical point of view, or at least based on real experiences and characters. The collection of morally repugnant men in Try by Dennis Cooper, where the characters broken lives seem
to exacerbate each others situations are actually based on real characters; Ziggy is a real person who was adopted by two gay men and while Dennis Cooper was working on the book based upon his real life friend Ziggy, another friend became addicted to heroin and in trying to help him stop, Cooper developed what he describes as a deep and strong, although non-sexual relationship with this drug addict friend which he also wanted to portray, as well as the way in which the different relationships interlocked. If Ziggy had not been molested by his fathers raped by both but apparently loved by one - would he have developed this sort of relationship with his uncle? If the closest people to him did not selfishly destroy him as a result of what they claimed was love, would he have developed such destructive relationships in the rest of his private life? Throughout the book he attempts to come to terms with how his life has turned out, either by speaking about it in such a blas manner that the reader almost thinks that maybe he believes this kind of existence to be normal, or by reaching out to people like him through his magazine and friendships with boys who are just as confused and afraid. Maybe a better known (and perhaps less graphic) portrayal is A child called It by David Pelzer, whose brother also wrote a book about Davids abuse and experiencing it as an outsider. The third worst case of child abuse ever recorded in California (although, I find it difficult to see how you can classify child abuse as first, second and third worst cases). The book opens with his rescue at the age of 12 and, while it is a comfort during Pelzers descriptions of being stabbed by his mother and attempting to treat the infected wound himself, it is astonishing that it took so long for anybody to take action. The book is
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accompanied by police reports and various statements which support his story as an attempt to hammer home the fact that it is not just a horrible story which can be forgotten after it is read; the actions, the pain, the child is real. And the paper and ink document the reality so that thousands of people over the years will know of the terrible deeds committed, in the same way that our daily newspapers inform us of real tragedies. But unlike journalism, which is often written in a hurry and as a spectator, the stories are from a first person point of view, written years, sometimes decades, after the story had come to an end with the advantage of hindsight and retrospection from the point of view of a survivor who was not entirely destroyed by this, but nonetheless as the affected; a man who can not shake the experiences regardless of the time and distance standing between him and his abusers. While daily reports about abuse, objective lists of the violence committed and declaration of the jurys final verdict still shock the audience and call the legal and social systems which failed the victim to attention, reportage does not have the effect that literature does. A book is nursed for several days at a time and not just read on the tube on the way to work, and a first person point of view makes the violence seem more personal. More vivid. Which is exactly why the story of Ziggy is so controversial and why Pelzer managed to put a real face to the concept of child abuse; these stories are far too real to ignore. We do not read about the boy but about the I, and process which follows the abuse when they attempt to come to terms with the actions of the very people who were meant to protect them. Yet once we have accepted that parents
can potentially do far worse things to a child than a stranger (imagine the violence coupled with the psychological shock when the victim realises that this person should be protecting them), what can we do? There would be uproar if every family was checked up on at regular intervals to ensure that no abuse went on unseen. It would be even more unthinkable to teach our children to fear us or the ones we trust, or that there is a chance we may hurt them; no parent would dream of such a thing since we are there to protect our children from the world, and every negative influence and experience within it. Despite statistics, it is impossible to believe that such atrocities are actually commonplace and completely implausible that they would take place under our roofs. It would be unnatural to spend our time trying to protect our children from ourselves, or not trusting our closest friends or spouses because somebody elses spouse beat them. We need these people, and we need to trust them in the same way we need to trust ourselves. While maintaining the idea of violence committed by unexpected perpetrators, themes of suicide or self harm may be riveting for very different reasons. Books such as Sylvia Plaths the bell jar and, more recently, Susanna Kaysens girl interrupted are first person accounts of, what most people would deem, severely disturbed women. Their stories are riveting but not because they are so alien, but because there is a small grain in every reader, the tiny part of them, which knows the feelings all too well, how it hurts to smile, how you try to fit in but cant, just how much it hurts to be human sometimes; as Kaysen writes, People ask, How did you get in there? What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up there as well. I cant answer the real question. All I can say
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is, its easy. While it would be an overstatement to claim that the average person experiences suicidal feelings at some point, it is true that a staggering proportion of the population suffers from depression or some sort of mental illness at some point in their lives. Current statistics number these people as 1 in 4. Like the books by Cooper and Pelzer, the first person is an important aspect of this literature, but this is second to the analysis. Kaysen has been committed to a mental institution with borderline personality disorder, but continues to rationally discuss and analyse her thoughts and surroundings in a manner which makes her seem sane. We assume that self harm is the result of an irrational mindset, detached from the reality of what the person is doing, the reality of the pain and damage they are inflicting. Within Kaysens biopic it is clear that she was sometimes completely unaware of how much she was damaging herself, or that the reality of physical damage was not something that occurred to her while she was doing it, since she sometimes suffered depersonalisation and did not believe she had bones or blood and needed to cut to make sure. At other times she seems to rationalise her actions, in a way that almost justifies them, claiming that you hurt yourself on the outside to try and kill the thing on the inside. We associate a suicidal state of mind with either completely insane people who have lost touch with reality, or those going through such anguish that living is no longer bearable, but is it really likely that that is true in all cases? It is rarely a rash act, and in cases of mental illness is clearly precluded with self mutilation in the long term and possibly several attempts closer to the eventual death. That is to
say, it has been thought out, planned, with precision and what would have to be sane methods to achieve the results. In Girl Interrupted, Kaysen writes that It isnt something you do the first time you think of doing it. It takes getting used to. And you need the means, the opportunity, the motive. A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind. At least now failed suicide attempts do not necessarily result in institutionalisation.
While being afraid for a moment in the dark when we pass a stranger is bearable and natural, being afraid of our own spouses, family and ourselves would be unbearable
As mental health issues are being diagnosed on a more frequent basis there is more honesty about effects such as self harming, but also more stigmas attached to the act. In the past these people were shunned for being crazy, but now there is the further accusation of faking mental illness to seem more interesting. As ridiculous as it seems, the honesty of public figures about their traumas and how they attempted to cope, such as Fiona Apple attempting to explain how she cut and stopped eating as a result of her rape and an attempt to gain control again, or those who simply felt the need to due to depression, has been blamed for self harming in younger more impressionable teenagers. Surely people would eventually admit to simply being copy cats? Accusations such as these
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seem to be a knee-jerk response by people who have no experience with mental illnesses, personal or otherwise. Pelzer managed to put a face on child abuse, and force others to acknowledge its existence, stories in newspapers do the same thing albeit for a shorter amount of time but stories such as Kaysens or Plaths which characterise a generation of women suffering from illness compounded by outdated sexist beliefs which treated women as ill for acting in ways that are acceptable for men do not seem to have had the same effect for mental illness. There have been advances in mental health, but is there really an increased acceptance, or even understanding? Unfortunately, while people can empathise with rape victims and children who have been abused because somebody else is inflicting their pain upon them it is harder for people to empathise with those who seem to be inflicting pain upon themselves. The illusion of control is too great; the idea that they can stop if they really want to overrides any feelings of empathy. Does that same instinct kick in when a beaten wife stays with her husband? We like to believe that we are too strong to allow these things to happen. In the same way that we need to believe that the people closest to us are too good to do us harm; that they will protect us. We need these beliefs. While being afraid for a moment in the dark when we pass a stranger is bearable and natural, being afraid of our own spouses, family and ourselves would be unbearable, and unnatural if it does not have the necessary grounds or experience. We read about people who have those experiences and maybe contrast them with ourselves, hopefully we learn something new or change our view of these people and the violence that they endure.
There have been advances in mental health, but is there really an increased acceptance, or even understanding?
Valeria Kogan is a writer, student and artist based in Oxford and London. She has been published on both sides of the Atlantic in various poetry and art publications and is currently working on a poetry collection. She is the Articles Editor for Incorporating Writing.

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Issue 6 Vol 2 VIOLENCE

John Darwell - Andrew Taylor - Daniele Pantano

Interviews Andrew Taylor Articles Uberrogue

Caroline Drennan explores the work of this prolific crime writer.

Daniel Pantano shares his secret.

A Good Place to Die

Ian Kenworthy explotes the North.

A violent reaction to violence

Helen Stacey responds to violence.

People Across the Road

Valeria Kogan tackles our growing paranoia.

Columns Notes from America

Writing with Light John Darwell

Janet Aspey introduces new books from publishers.

News and Opportunities

Why one is a magic number

A Writers Secret Passion Uberrogue: A Self-Interview

Short Article by Daniele Pantano

Notes from America: Problem With Violence?

But Americans arent stupid; after all, we watch TV

Interview by Alexander Laurence

Writing with Light

A Good Place to Die?

Article by Ian Kenworthy

mans land, a place where no one really belongs.

Prolific Crime: Andrew Taylor

Lisha Aquino Rooney

The UK biggest PDF Fiction & Poetry Magazine

A violent reaction to senseless violence

This is Helen Staceys first article for Incorporating Writing.

Industry News and Opportunities

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People Cross the Road

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