Skip to main content

My Parents

My parents are bookbinders and quiet devotees of Girl Glittergold. They never preach.They live.  

They follow Garl Glittergold the way some folk follow good manners: instinctively, with warmth and a twinkle of humour, and a firm belief that life is improved by cleverness used kindly.

Their devotion to  Garl manifests in small ways; they leave a coin somewhere unexpected each week, they value curiosity over certainty, they believe laughter can disarm cruelty faster than anger ever could. They taught us that happiness is a form of resistance. 


Their bookbinding shop is The Gilded Margin; it is a a narrow, crooked place smelling of glue, ink, and tea. Corvin rebinds holy texts, travel journals, love letters, and the occasional contraband pamphlet. Pella illuminates margins with tiny jokes hidden among the flourishes; faces peeking from leaves, a gold coin tucked into a capital letter.


If you knew where to look, you could always find Garl smiling in the margins.


We were raised with firm expectations, generous forgiveness, and humour as a teaching tool. They encouraged Gladness’s practicality, Jubilance’s exuberance and my sensitivity. 


Gladness learned that care is a craft.

Jubilance learned that joy multiplies when shared.

I learned that words can change how people feel, which changes what they do.

Pella noticed my writing early and never read it aloud without asking permission. That mattered.

Every year on the anniversary of the Day the Bell Rang, Pella leaves a tiny gilded bell charm on the shrine outside town. It never rings. Garl, it seems, enjoys the joke.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Coming soon: The Things We Were Warned About A trilogy of interconnected tales, drawn from half-remembered folklore, village cautions and the quiet rules passed down at hearth and bedside. Each story follows ordinary people, who chose to listen (or not), when faced with old warnings about love, loss and what's waits beyond the safe edge of the world.  Moving from candle-lit kitchens, to liminal crossroads at dawn, the trilogy explores why such rules endure, what they cost and how tenderness exists even in the presence of fear. These stories are about restraint as an act of love, courage as a form of listening and the fragile, luminous hope that survives when warnings are not discarded, but are understood and broken regardless.  With grateful thanks to my literary circle, "TCM", who provide inspiration,  intrigue, investigative insight and unasked for critique!
Post a Comment
Read more

Coming to Logres

After  The Warmest Promise of Morning  became a success , I found myself in a peculiar bind. My  books were being read aloud in parlours by people who had never spoken to me and my  words were being cited by clergy who misunderstood them, and worse, who sanitised them.  At the same time, letters began to arrive from overseas. Readers in a different, louder country wrote things like,  “Your heroines hesitate, and it makes me feel seen,"  and, “Thank you for letting love be difficult.” One letter came from a small publisher across the ocean in Logres who didn’t ask me to soften anything.  They asked me to  write more honestly.  The letter was the first thing I packed. I booked passage on the  SS Auroral Grace , a grand but slightly old-fashioned ocean liner with sweeping staircases, a string quartet and a chapel tucked away awkwardly between the smoking room and the library.  I travelled  second class  on purpose. ...
Post a Comment
Read more