Writing Hope - Chat with Fiona Linday - by Liz Carter

Count Our Blessings - image made with 3D book creator + Canva

One of the things I appreciate most about being a member of ACW is the mutual support between writers. I also love delving down into the motivations and themes behind writing. Today I’m so pleased to be chatting here on the MTW blog with Fiona Linday. Fiona’s new book, Count Our Blessings, published by Onwards and Upwards, is out now. Fiona and I realised that we’d both written a book of short stories and poetry with the theme of hope, and thought it would be interesting to ask one another about our writing.

I found Fiona’s book fascinating and compelling. Our styles and content are very different, yet both take the reader on a journey through the realities of darkness and towards glimpses of light. Fiona wrote a variety of short stories spanning decades, bringing out various societal issues which made for a challenging read at times, highlighting instances of injustice and oppression. Yet these stories were tinged with hope, looking further outwards from the pain and sadness. The poems are lyrical and enticing – it’s a book I want to take time over, to dip in and out, to read again – there are layers to the poetry and prose that catch hold of you, moments of beauty that captivate and devastation that rips at your soul. It’s not a book to rush through, but to sit with a while.

Fiona Linday

Liz: I very much admired how you brought certain modern day social issues to light in your short stories and poetry - your writing very much highlighted something of the pain that people are facing in different areas of the world and of suffering in general. Could you tell me a bit more about why you choose to write short stories which include social issues?

Fiona: I try to avoid surface talk. As someone who prays about issues close to my heart, for me what I lift up to God prioritises what really matters. My life is blessed by a family and colleagues who point me towards learners’ real struggles and internationals who fill me in about world issues around equal opportunity.

Liz : For me, your stories are ones to go back to and re-read – and yet, some were written almost as a stream of consciousness from the point of view of the narrator, so are also page-turners. Tell us about how you write – do you plan, or do you write in a more seat-of-your-pants way?

Fiona: I’m motivated by what moves me. I often research and join in volunteering, like for my YA novella ‘Get Over It, Adventures.’ That came after years of volunteering at a day hospice and a child support centre for loss and bereavement. I do plan the beginning and middles but sometimes allow my narrator to lead the way in holding their hands and considering their options for resolution. I find fiction is a safe place to consider the consequences of protagonist’s actions. Temptation is there for us all to avoid finding the best outcome can often be through trial and error. It’s nice when I learn something new too.

Liz: You include some non-fiction among the fiction and poetry – tell us why you choose to do that, and what has been your readers' response to this way of working?

Fiona: Non-fiction alone can appear quite heavy even with good endings. I originally write a rant then try to progress it! I don’t wish to come across as a light weight but for me prose non-fiction writing helps to process tough times... However, much of my fiction has more than a hint of truth in it to be authentic. I often use things I’ve heard said or reported in fiction. Poetry is more immediate often written as a welcome distraction by wearing my heart on my sleeve. So, I brought together material out of my computer to one focal point, as a legacy. My readers have reported that the book provides reassurance at bedtime.

Liz: We both write about the pandemic through our poetry and prose - I found some similar themes in your work about the grief and loss, about moving on and facing what had happened – was it helpful to you personally to write out something of how you felt in the worst of lockdown?

Fiona: Over lockdown, I concentrated on collaborating to write with others to ease my loneliness and overcome inconsequential feelings. That involved my heritage poetry being included at local museums and in a Leicester time capsule. Edgehill University’s Lockdown Wow festival included my reflective work, too. A series of Writing East Midlands workshops about the menopause produced a book called ‘Women’s Things,’ edited by Leanne Moden and Anna Cotton. That captured life experience where my writing was included. Some family history prose non-fiction is included in ‘An East Midlands Coalmining Anthology’ by Natalie Braber & David Amos due for publication by Five Leaves Books, Nottingham later this year.

Fiona: We both engage with our Lord’s hope as a main theme. Our titles infer that, too. I show this in detailing how I came through miscarriage and nearly losing my sight in prose non-fiction then more playfully with a bible story modern day retelling. I think I did that in the most accessible manner in my lockdown poetry. Where do you show this best?

Liz: Drawing readers to hope is my main focus throughout the book, but I think that the Easter section probably does this most of all – the great journey from darkness into light, as told through the eyes of some of the eyewitnesses at the resurrection, and the poetry that attempts to capture that triumph. I’ve also been told the final poem in my book, Omega, is bursting with hope.

Fiona: We both stop pretending things don’t hurt in our narrative. We allow ourselves to travel to places of doubt to show how God pulled us through to restoration. I do this in the prose nonfiction Love Story and some fiction with much truth in the mix about legacy and chronic illness. Using my family situation in later years, I wrote about my new normal and identity. Where is yours best shown in Treasure in Dark Places?

Liz: Yes, one of the things I appreciated reading yours was the fact that you faced pain and struggle full on. I found Love Story one of the most profound in your book. I think that in my book honest struggle is represented throughout, but especially in some of the poems I wrote when struggling with my own pain – my poem Agony Cage lays out the depths of pain, in an echo of the psalmists who also bring their raw pain before God.

Fiona: I admire the structure of your book, cleverly following the seasons to allow it to be used as a study guide. Mine also has a mixture of poetry and prose. Yours has a useful prayer space. Have readers feedback on how they are enjoying it? My readers are finding peace in my work where I am truthful about struggles. Your book cleverly retells bible stories in modern language, often as a stream of consciousness of the protagonist. The present-day poetry shows how those historical truths apply during different seasons of life. I particularly enjoyed Drops Like Rubies where you describe how Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding, to save a mother's from shame, " a reckless benevolence that takes my breath away."

Liz: Thank you. Yes, I’ve had similar feedback that readers appreciate it when I’ve been honest about suffering. People have said that the work has ignited hope in them, and as an author that’s such a great privilege.

It’s been really interesting to read your book and to get to know you a little, Fiona – congratulations on its publication!

Liz Carter is an author and poet who writes about finding gold in the painful bits of life. Her latest book is Treasure in Dark Places: Stories and Poems of Hope in the Hurting.