Hamlet on the Titanic

April 14, 2025Art, Fiction, Good Things, Language, Plays, Psychology, Titanic

This 15th April is the 113th anniversary of the night RMS Titanic sank. My great-grandmother, Noël Rothes, was, ‘One of the lucky ones’, as she wrote three days later. Lucky not only because she survived, but because none of her beloved menfolk had sailed from Southampton with her. If they had, they would have died in … Read More

A Valentine to Life: What Does It Feel Like? Sophie Kinsella

February 14, 2025Art, Books, Creativity, Death and Dying, Fiction, Health, Hope, Kindness, Love, Psychology, Valentine's Day, Writing

Unlike forty-five million people worldwide, I’d never read a Sophie Kinsella novel until I picked up What Does It Feel Like? in my local bookshop a couple of weeks ago. But if, like me, you’re not one of the forty-five million and you think you might never be: read this one. It’s funny. It’s optimistic. … Read More

Our view of the world is distorted – so our worldview is distorted

January 14, 2025Allyship, Antiracism, Black History, Democracy, Education, Equality, History, Human Rights, Morality, Places, Psychology, Racism, Travel, White Allies

A big thank you to Black History Studies and Mark Simpson, Director of Operations, for the title of this piece and for his insight into the ways different world maps have been put together and how they affect our view of the world. On the first evening of the Introduction to Black Studies course Mark … Read More

A Blessing for our times

November 14, 2024Artists, Books, Creativity, Democracy, Equality, Good Things, Goodness, Hope, Human Rights, Kindness, Language, Love, Morality, Poetry, Politics, Psychology, Storytelling

Jan Richardson wrote this Blessing for her blog The Advent Door in 2014. It’s included in her book Circle of Grace published in 2015. Elsewhere Richardson talks about wild and stubborn hope. I love that phrase. A friend of mine sent Blessing when the World is Ending to me a few days ago. It feels … Read More

Black History Month; Black History Studies and Nova Reid’s Student Confession

October 14, 2024Allyship, Antiracism, Black History, Books, Equality, History, Human Rights, Kindness, Listening, Psychology, Racism, White Allies

October is Black History Month in the UK. But obviously Black History should be taught and celebrated every day of every year in history lessons in our schools, in everyday conversation, in stories, in music and song, in any way at all, everywhere in our lives. The theme this year is Reclaiming Narratives #reclaimingnarrativesbhm : … Read More

If the son of a Klu Klux Klan leader can become an Anti-Racist, everyone can

June 14, 2024Allyship, Antiracism, Black History, Equality, Listening, Morality, Psychology, Racism, White Allies, White Fragility

It takes 25 minutes to watch this video. It takes a lifetime to remain committed to anti-racism. But this person’s journey from white supremacy to anti-racism shows us just how essential it is that we all begin that journey. Click on the image below to get to the Hard Talk programme interview. The book is … Read More

Antiracism: Student Confessions Series, with Nova Reid

April 14, 2024Allyship, Antiracism, Equality, History, Human Rights, Psychology, Racism, White Allies, White Fragility

I took part in Nova Reid’s series of Student Confession Interviews after graduating from her deeply affecting, life-changing course: Becoming Antiracist with Nova Reid. The Course altered the way I live my life and transformed my attitudes and my core beliefs about racism. I discovered and dismantled so much both internally and externally, including the … Read More

I’m breaking up with my shame, on Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2024Allyship, Antiracism, Black History, Equality, Human Rights, Love, Mental Health, Psychology, Racism, Rejection, Shame, Valentine's Day, White Allies

There are studies that show what happens to couples on Valentine’s Day: the less attachment-avoidant among us fare better, as you might guess, and some of us break up. But what if the relationship is between a person and an emotion? My shame and I have been strongly-attached for decades. But now we’re breaking up. … Read More

Kindness

January 14, 2023Good Things, Kindness, Mental Health, Psychology

In Matt Haig’s The Comfort Book – reflections on hope, survival and the messy business of being alive – he writes: Life is short. Be kind. A beautiful thing to be. (The Comfort Book is also beautiful, full of ‘consolatons and suggestions for making bad days better’. I was given mine for Chrstimas … why … Read More

The Good Ally by Nova Reid

July 14, 2022Allyship, Antiracism, Books, Climate Change, Democracy, Education, Equality, Health, Human Rights, Mental Health, Psychology, Racism, White Allies, White Fragility, Women

When Claudia Rankine, a Black poet and playwright, was asked by a white man, after a reading from Citizen: An American Lyric (Rankine’s 2014 anthology about the collective effects of racism in our society) ‘What can I do for you? How can I help you?’ she replied ‘I think the question you should be asking … Read More

Reading Black Writers

May 14, 2022Allyship, Antiracism, Art, Creativity, Education, Equality, Fiction, History, Human Rights, Literary Prizes, Mental Health in Fiction, Morality, Psychology, Racism, reading, White Allies, Writing

Until George Floyd was murdered on 25 May 2020, I had not begun to acknowledge, let alone unearth, my inherent racism. That racism includes not reading or even thinking about the work of Black writers. But since that May I’ve been reading Black writers and my eyes, ears, heart and mind have been opened (about … Read More

Reading as a writer. Writing as a reader. And the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021

August 14, 2021Books, Creativity, Fiction, Literary Prizes, Psychology, reading, Writers, Writing, Writing Courses

Last week a friend of mine and I talked about the six books shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. We’ve done it before and it’s always illuminating (and fun) but because we both write fiction, our conversations are often also about the nature of reading fiction as a writer. Neither of us read – … Read More

Black Minds Matter (BMM) : donations #BMMUK21K

July 14, 2021Allyship, Antiracism, Fiction, Health, Human Rights, Mental Health, Mental Health in Fiction, Mindfulness and mental health, Psychology, Racism, Writing

I’ve been in therapy, but the reasons for my therapy have never included the trauma of racism, of living inside a black or brown skin in a white-supremacist society. Nor have I been misinterpreted because the colour of my therapist’s skin was different from my own. Which is why Black Minds Matter (BMM) is so necessary, … Read More

Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021

June 14, 2021Antiracism, Books, Creativity, Equality, Human Rights, Literary Prizes, Psychology, Racism, White Fragility, Women, Writing

This week is the week of the Women’s Prize Virtual Shortlist Festival. For the (almost invisible) amount of £12 you’ll have access to three evenings of readings by the shortlisted writers: there are some wonderful works to hear extracts from on Monday 14th, Tuesday 15th and Wednesday 16th. I have loved Piranesi by Susanna Clarke: she … Read More

October is Black History Month in the UK. But shouldn’t Black history be taught all the time?

October 14, 2020Antiracism, Democracy, History, Human Rights, Psychology, Racism

Black History Month began in America as an annual History Week, in 1925. That year, Black historian Carter G. Woodson, the Father of Black History, announced Negro History Week: A celebration of a people that many in this country at the time believed had no place in history. February was chosen because it marked the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick … Read More