Month: November 2022
HULUKU 2022: In conversation with Flordeliza C. De Vera of Mapua University Manila
by | Nov 02, 2022 |
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As part of our celebrations for the 2022 Huluku Competition we are showcasing the institutions, schools and universities that participate as a class or as an entity.
Huluku has, once again, been blessed by not only having epic artists and designers enter but also by having education champions like Mick and Jennifer from TAFE Sydney and Flordeliza from Mapúa University, in Manila.
Find out more about Flor’s work at the School Of Chemical. Biological and Materials Engineering And Sciences faculty and Mapua University itself. Here’s the marvelous Flor C. De Vera’s page if you’d like to find out more about her too. http://che-chm.mapua.edu.ph/content/flordeliza-c-de-vera
Q1: Tell us a little about yourself, what are you up to at the moment?
Flor: I am an assistant professor handling undergraduate chemical engineering courses in Mapúa University.
Q2: Does the place you live or are from inspire you in your work or life and if so how?
Flor: I live in the greater Manila area, where many opportunities lure those in the provinces to come and find their niche. It can be an inspiring place to have a quality life not just for myself but also for my family. I meet a lot of people who are good examples of great personality with talent.
Q3: Ambition, Luck or Talent? What matters most in the creative world but also within learning environments?
Flor: For me, all three are important and work hand-in-hand. Ambition pushes one to excel in the talent one possesses. With ambition, one does not settle on just the talent. One tries to learn more to improve their skill or knowledge base. Luck can sometimes be responsible for exposure and being discovered or recognized in the field.
Q4: What would you like to achieve that you haven’t been able to yet?
Flor: This is not related to art. I want to finish my doctorate program.
Q5: Who is your creative inspiration or mentor?
Flor: In terms of creativity and talent in the arts, my husband comes first. My son and daughter got from him their talent in creative and visual arts. My children are also good in performing arts. I also do not engage in the creation of artworks. I just admire and appreciate.
Q6: Do you have a favourite design, scientific or artistic movement? Why?
Flor: I do not have formal training in art and I do not have a specific favorite movement. But I appreciate the work of Filipino masters like Fernando Amorsolo, BenCab, Ang Kiuko, Vicente Manansala, and Botong Francisco. I also like digital art that I see my children explore or create. I also like the art of Van Gogh.
Q7: What style or technique in science, art and design makes you feel the happiest/or feel good?
Flor: I like nature, geometric designs, and still life. I also appreciate art pieces created using our indigenous and local materials.
Q8: How would you describe your approach to teaching scientific subjects in creative ways?
Flor: I try to include diagrams and videos when I teach specific concepts because most modern learners are visually motivated.
Q9: Tell us a little about MAPUA and the classes you teach?
Flor: Mapúa was initially known as a technological institution that specializes in architecture and engineering. It was in the year 2000 when it started offering a multitude of other programs after it applied for university status. It’s school year is divided into four (4) quarters, each with a contact time of eleven (11) weeks. I usually teach advanced mathematics in chemical engineering and chemical reaction engineering although I handle other majoring courses from time to time. I also regularly handle Methods of Research, Thesis, Plant Inspection and Seminars, and On-the- job training.
Q10: Do you always look for external events or comps to inspire the class or is this a new thing?
Flor: Beginning school year 2018-2019, students were required to have a global experience which could be in the form of participation in international seminars, conferences, plant visits, and contests, or conduct of thesis in partner universities abroad. Due to the pandemic, we had to find alternative activities that will allow the students to comply with such. Students participated in virtual international conferences, seminars, and contests. Some contests were technical while others were not.
Since we train our students to write good research manuscripts, we also encouraged them to write non-technical pieces when they participate in essay contests.
Q11: The class was successful with their entries. How did you find embedding the concept and the competition itself (timeline, entry requirements, platform access etc) into your class?
Flor: We started looking for contests that impart values last 2020. We had to make sure that the contest timeline is the same as the quarter when a specific batch of students will enroll. We also looked for contests where students do not need to spend in order to participate. The deadline of entries was set earlier than the actual contest deadline to give time for students to upload a copy of their work and proof of submission of entry to our learning management system.
Q12: Why do you think the class was so interested in getting involved in the competition?
Flor: The truth of the matter is that participation in the competition was made as a mandatory course requirement. Students are required to engage in any form of global experience in order to graduate. The usual avenues for them to have such experience were prohibited because of the pandemic. I, as course adviser of Plant Inspection and Seminars, need to find other platforms that can help the students comply with such requirement. For the past 3 to 9 months, I have been requiring the participation in essay contests. However, I am aware that not all can write well. I am also aware that there are a lot of students who are very creative even when their chosen undergraduate program is technical in nature. When I found Huluku 2022 from an online search, I knew that this is one possible option for my creative students.
Q13: Were the themes of inclusion, diversity and authentic representation something you were familiar working with prior to the competition?
Flor: Yes. Inclusivity, diversity, and authentic representation are matters that have been emphasized by different institutions in our country. Those are included in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aimed to transform our world as promoted by the United Nations. Those are the current topics in a number of technical conferences we attend and we are supposed to include them in the discussion in the courses we handle.
We have promising future partnership with foreign industries who inculcate and practice those in their organization and have assured us that our students will get fair treatment if they will join their company.
Q14: Have you any plans to continue building these concepts into your teaching and projects? (Maybe next year’s comp!)
Flor: Yes! As mentioned in the answer to the previous question, the SDGs are supposed to be considered in our lectures. Our performance as a university is measured in terms of compliance with the appropriate SDGs.
PERITO PRIZE 2022: AN INTERVIEW WITH 2022’s WINNER JOHN DRAKE
by | Nov 02, 2022 |
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As part of our celebrations for Perito Prize 2022 we invited our top 4 placed writers to share a little about themselves and their amazing work. In this interview we talk to John Drake who won the 2022 competition with the story ‘Blinkers’.
If you’d like to find out more about John and his work then please check out his author pages and also his proofreading service here – https://reedsy.com/drake-john https://twitter.com/johndrakewriter
Q1: Tell us a little about yourself, what are you up to at the moment?
John: Ignoring my office manager day job for the moment, I’m a comedy writer with four novels published through Three Ravens Publishing, an independent publisher in the US. I’m currently trying (and failing) to nail down one of the countless ideas bouncing around my head for the fifth novel. When it comes to short-form writing, I usually stick to more serious issues, with Blinkers being a good example of this. This stems from a difficulty I find in shoehorning my character-based comedy into such few words. Short stories benefit from an emotional punch to make the reader think, and real world issues are more suitable to this than stories about, for example, a caveman inventor or a time-travelling octopus.
Q2: CIEDA's very own time travelling octopus is a bit nervous over her usefulness now John. Help out by telling us what matters most in the creative world - ambition, luck or talent?
John: Certainly not ambition. If a writer inks his first line with an expectation that they will make the NY Times bestseller list, then they are likely to write for others rather than for themselves. Arguably the best lesson I have learned over the years is that if you write for yourself then the end product will be all the more authentic for it. Of course, some people will like your writing and some people will not, so just write what you want to write, let your personality shine through in the little details, and see where it takes you. This is especially true of comedy. Add in a healthy dose of dedication and you will end up with a body of work to be proud of, no matter its public success or otherwise.
Q3: What made you enter the prize and how did you find out about it?
John: In 2019 I was looking for an outlet to test myself with some non-comedy writing. I came across the Perito Prize and thought it was perfect – the polar opposite of the writing I had done to that point. I wrote a piece about a homeless man in Dublin and was surprised to learn it had been shortlisted for the award. This gave me the confidence to try again (and be shortlisted again) in the 2020 competition. My Mum had been diagnosed with dementia by this point, so I chose that as my cathartic subject. In 2021 my entry, Six Days To Eternity, centred around everyday grief and gave me my third shortlisted entry. Imagine my surprise then when this year’s effort, Blinkers, was not shortlisted but had, in fact, won. I’m still trying to get the coffee stains off my monitor.
Q4: Some people may not have read your story yet. Tell us what ‘Blinkers’ is all about?
John: Blinkers is principally a piece about the invisibility of people’s issues, and how common the seemingly uncommon is. People everywhere deal with issues that make their lives harder every day, but not all show up as starkly as others. If you were to line up the characters and ask someone to identify those who were likely to experience accessibility issues, the same one or two would be chosen, when in fact it could be argued they all do. I think that sums up society in a way that is often difficult to articulate in everyday conversation.
Q5: Tell us a little about who your creative inspiration or mentor is and why? This might be a favourite author or place to work.
John: In terms of my comedy writing, Douglas Adams and Sir Terry Pratchett are the authors I look up to most. Adams for his absurd yet thought-provoking style, and Pratchett for his unparalleled wit and sense of social justice. To some extent, I am my own creative inspiration too insofar as I judge my own comedy as I’m writing it and if it makes me laugh then it passes the test. For the less rib-tickling pieces, I draw on authors like John Boyne and John Grisham who are extraordinary in their ability to draw the reader into an emotional environment and then bring them along, almost involuntarily, right up to the last page.
Q6) Does the place you live or are from inspire you in your work or life and if so how?
John: It does to the extent that I live in a quiet coastal part of Dublin, so I have plenty of opportunities to stare at the horizon while I formulate my next project. I also used Dublin as the backdrop to my homeless story, Home. That said, my work has also been set in places like England during the Black Death, thirteenth century Mongolia, a remote planet, and Neanderthal forests, none of which I have yet come across in the Greater Dublin area.
Q7) As you know the Perito Prize is dedicated to inclusion, access and inclusive environments. Did you find the topic difficult to write about?
John: It certainly did at first, given the seismic shift in writing style required, but once I got into the flow I really enjoyed it and found it was a great vehicle for me to highlight a range of issues and to add more emotive scenes into my writing. It also made me think more about accessibility issues in general, and of the minutiae of problems that people face every day.
Q8) What was most valuable about going through this writing process for you?
John: I think it was the forced insight it gave me into an area of life that I hadn’t devoted much of my free thought to before. It is easy to become wrapped up in your own bubble and not see the problems faced by so many people around you, and turning my attention to that gave me a new perspective on many issues we face as a society today.
Q9) Has this prize made you think differently about how inclusive and accessible the world we live in is?
John: Absolutely. Going back to my 2019 story, Home, I found myself spending a lot of time thinking about how homeless people manage to survive each hour, let alone each day, each month or each year. My family’s experience with dementia, the inspiration for my story, Fading, suddenly threw accessibility issues into sharp focus too. Ultimately, that’s what led me to write Blinkers and to realise that accessibility issues are ubiquitous, not exceptional.
Q10) Are you planning on building the concepts you incorporated into your entry into more of your work? If so, how?
John: Yes. While it would likely be beyond my skills to write a comedy novel about such matters, it has certainly convinced me to continue with my ‘serious’ short story writing. I am now planning, in time, to collate them into a single-volume collection. While I have touched on homelessness, dementia, and grief, they are just a fraction of the issues that can benefit from a greater focus in the literary world. I’m excited to do my small bit to help.
PERITO PRIZE 2022: AN INTERVIEW WITH 2022’s RUNNER UP Ella Walsworth-Bell
by | Nov 02, 2022 |
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As part of our celebrations for Perito Prize 2022 we invited our top 4 placed writers to share a little about themselves and their amazing work. In this interview we talk to Ella Walsworth-Bell who was the runner up in the 2022 competition with the story ‘Knitting For Teenage Boys, 1988’.
If you’d like to find out more about Ella work then please check out Ella’s author page, twitter and insta at https://cornwallwriters.co.uk/ella-walsworth-bell/ https://twitter.com/bellwalsworth https://www.instagram.com/ellawbell/ and the People’s Friend Writer Of The Week interview with Ella here
Q1: Tell us a little about yourself, what are you up to at the moment?
Ella: For my day job, I work as an NHS speech therapist with children and young people with a mental health disorder and learning disability. As a carer for my autistic son, I am amazed by how he teaches me how to parent him, and to see the world differently as a result. Writing comes third but is no less valid. I’m proud to be running a women’s poetry collective and we’ve just created an anthology about the power of sea swimming to change lives: Morvoren.
Q2: What matters most in the creative world - ambition, luck or talent?
Ella: All three plus the tenaciousness to keep on trucking. I think women in particular (especially those who are also carers) have an innate ability to work hard and to make their own luck. Since Covid, the online world has opened up and created more opportunities to find those pockets of time that would otherwise slide away from us. I wouldn’t describe myself as ambitious but I do believe the reader (and listener, and viewer) is as important as the writer: if the words are heard, then they hold power.
Q3: What made you enter the prize and how did you find out about it?
Ella: I started writing at forty when I started an adult education evening class in Creative Writing. This changed my life – from then on, I wrote every moment I got. When the kids were asleep at night, early mornings before anyone woke up, in laybys, in lunch breaks...it was like the words came flooding out. My first writing teacher, Kath Morgan, later set up a writing school (the Writing Retreat). She emailed me the information about the Perito Prize and I immediately thought of this story. A prize that celebrates diversity and inclusivity makes me feel warm and joyous inside.
Q4: Some people may not have read your story yet. Tell us what ‘Knitting For Teenage Boys, 1988’ is all about?
Ella: It’s firmly set in the late 80’s, which is when I went to my local state secondary school. Times were tough and travelling by bus filled me with horror. We tried our best not to stand out and not be outed as ‘other’. And yet...what if that person at the back of the bus was something special, someone magic. What if ‘other’ meant beautiful difference, rather than a target for bullies?
The concept of taking up a hobby to fit in came from an old friend who masked her neuro-diversity. She sat in the staffroom, and the other teachers asked her what she was knitting. She smiled: ‘Combat hamsters.’ Nearly right, Jo. So nearly it’s wonderful.
Q5: Tell us a little about who your creative inspiration or mentor is and why? This might be a favourite author or place to work.
Ella: I’m awesomely inspired by my children. They are my bugbear – ever tried working in a busy family household?!- but also my muse. I need to have my laptop in the spare room, surrounded by piles of ‘to do’ and stuff that must be tidied away. This absolutely fuels my creativity. The noisier it is, the better I get at screening the world out and getting on with putting fingers to keyboard. I also read widely and wildly, late at night usually. This connects me to the conversations that poets and writers are having with the world through their writing.
Q6) Does the place you live or are from inspire you in your work or life and if so how?
Ella: We are all totally unique in our life experiences. I lived on a boat for the first five years of my life and I choose to spend a month of every year sailing, even now. Cornwall is my home and I was brought up in a small rural community. Nature and the sea is a backdrop to my family; there is a curative strength in taking a cold water swim or going for a restorative walk in wilderness. We all need to connect with the world we live in and we need to ensure this is accessible for all.
Q7) As you know the Perito Prize is dedicated to inclusion, access and inclusive environments. Did you find the topic difficult to write about?
Ella: No. My world has changed, as it has for so many, since the pandemic. At first, I thought it had shrunk. My son couldn’t leave his room, let alone return to school and I reinvented myself as his carer. I felt alone. Gradually, my thinking shifted and now I find myself a passionate advocate for inclusion across all environments. Perhaps I’ve learnt to empathise and need to shout about it. My writing voice has got louder and this was unplanned – I simply write what I know.
Q8) What was most valuable about going through this writing process for you?
Ella: Seeing from another’s eyes, thinking from another’s place. Not knowing but guessing. We can never be another person, but we can be kind and we can listen.
Q9) Has this prize made you think differently about how inclusive and accessible the world we live in is?
Ella: Yes, it’s crucial to value difference. As nature is such a healer for me personally, it’s important to consider how accessible the natural environment can be. If we are to save our planet, we need to value every speck of dirt, every leaf, every splash of water.
Q10) Are you planning on building the concepts you incorporated into your entry into more of your work? If so, how?
Ella: Let’s make more people laugh, rather than cry. As an NHS professional working within mental health, I’ve heard many fabulous and fascinating stories I can’t tell in my writing due to confidentiality. However, I trust my subconscious to come up with the goods: if I’m honest and true to myself, the words will emerge and out themselves.
PERITO PRIZE 2022: AN INTERVIEW WITH 2022’s JOINT THIRD PLACE – RHYS PEARCE
by | Nov 02, 2022 |
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As part of our celebrations for Perito Prize 2022 we invited our top 4 placed writers to share a little about themselves and their amazing work. In this interview we talk to Rhys Pearce who was the joint 3rd place in the 2022 competition with the story ‘The Parable Of The Glass Horizon’.
Q1: Tell us a little about yourself, what are you up to at the moment?
Rhys: Officially, I’m in my first year of studying English and Classics at Trinity College Dublin. As a writer though, I’m seeking a publisher for my short story collection: ‘A Changeling Sextet’, a memoir of neurodivergent and genderqueer adolescence. As a poet, I’m working on a collection – a kind of coming-of-age story for the creative process against the backdrop of personal and political crises. As a Spoken Word Artist, I’m always looking for festivals to perform at and am eagerly awaiting the late-November release of a successor to “The New World”, an album I worked on with ConFAB in 2021. As a person, I’m an 18-year-old from South Scotland.
Q2: What matters most in the creative world - ambition, luck or talent?
Rhys: Definitely all three. The internet has made opportunities from all corners of the globe more accessible, but obviously that increases the amount of competition you face for each opportunity. I don’t think it’s necessarily the most talented person who comes out on top, either, but whoever happens to resonate with the relevant judge(s) most. It’s a numbers game ultimately – the more things you enter, the higher the chance of some kind of success. It definitely takes luck in that regard, but of course you’d never get anywhere without some talent, and it takes ambition not to give up after your dozenth rejection letter!
Q3: What made you enter the prize and how did you find out about it?
Rhys: These days the amount of things out there to enter can be overwhelming – as someone affected on a daily basis by how inclusivity is implemented, I felt I really had something to contribute to the conversation with the Perito Prize. The folks over at Creative Scotland have a brilliant Opportunities search tool that you can use to find what’s most relevant to you – I’m pretty sure I found out about the prize on there.
Q4: Some people may not have read your story yet. Tell us what ‘Blinkers’ is all about?
Rhys: Narratively, the story follows a bird born in the body of a fish and the struggles they face due to that predicament. Thematically, it’s a response to the ‘social model of disability’, the idea that we are only as disabled (or neurodivergent) as our society chooses to make us; that disability consists not of an inherent lack but of divergence from the assumed default. My use of allegory is intended to universalise that concept, aiming to find a unifying social model for all marginalised identities. We have to look wholistically at inclusivity to truly implement it; not by trying to compensate for that divergence retroactively but by making it so that it doesn’t arise in the first place - by deconstructing the default that is diverged from.
Q5: Tell us a little about who your creative inspiration or mentor is and why? This might be a favourite author or place to work.
Rhys: The allegory my story centres on is rooted in the genre of magical realism, a style that blurs the boundary between fantasy and reality, and often between the personal and political too. It’s a post-colonial tradition that’s naturally disposed to discussion of inclusivity – popularised by Latin American writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, it has often been used to invert dominant power structures and give a voice to the marginalised. I think allegory is also great for inclusivity – allegorical fables exist across every country in the world and can be understood by people of all intellects and ages.
Q6) Does the place you live or are from inspire you in your work or life and if so how?
Rhys: Probably what’s most impactful is that I find it hard to think of myself as ‘from’ a singular place – I’m of Welsh-American parentage but have lived in Scotland all my life. Of course, I’ve been impacted by my environment though, both positively and negatively. Scotland has made amazing strides towards inclusivity of every identity but there are still lapses, especially in rural areas and spaces outwith general oversight like private schools and certain workplaces. I’ve been very conscious of this and gladly seen it raised by others – the Equality Network’s ‘Further Out’ report is a very insightful read that validates the personal experience that inspired my story with wider-reaching statistics and data.
Q7) As you know the Perito Prize is dedicated to inclusion, access and inclusive environments. Did you find the topic difficult to write about?
Rhys: I think what I found most difficult is that the ‘social model of disability’ I mentioned earlier has to be handled with care. If you use it the wrong way, it can help to contribute to this idea that ‘disability’ is somehow a dirty word, that we should say ‘diffabilty’ or ‘differently abled’, even though these terms hide the reality that disabled people do sometimes need assistance. To my mind, ‘disabled’ is perfectly accurate, as long as we mean it as a participle rather than an adjective - not that a person inherently ‘is disabled’ but rather that they are being disabled by society.
Q8) What was most valuable about going through this writing process for you?
Rhys: The thing about having a deadline for submission is that it makes you have to actually finish your piece within the foreseeable future. Writing for a prize can be stressful, but I’ve always found I work best under pressure – my laptop is cluttered with writing projects I never finished because I never had the impetus on me to complete them, and that can get discouraging when it feels like you’ve spent all this time writing but don’t have a complete piece to show for it. Being forced to actually go all the way through the writing process is a valuable thing itself for an emerging writer.
Q9) Has this prize made you think differently about how inclusive and accessible the world we live in is?
Rhys: I don’t think it’s made me think differently about it, but it definitely made me think more. The point of my story was to get across how it feels to be in an uninclusive and inaccessible space, especially one that’s being made out to seem natural and inevitable when that’s actually not the case. It’s not a feeling that everyone has experienced, maybe not even most people, and to truly capture it in my story I had to reflect on my own life experiences and how best to distil and communicate them. Being voted third place indicates that I have been able to make that feeling resonate, and maybe that it’s more prevalent than I thought.
Q10) Are you planning on building the concepts you incorporated into your entry into more of your work? If so, how?
Rhys: The Parable of the Glass Horizon was originally conceived in miniature as part of a short story within my unpublished collection, which is informed by similar themes and intentions. My protagonists are marginalised figures, coming up against the manufactured limits of their world and questioning them even when no one else shares their perspective. My writing is often experimental – Glass Horizon being composed entirely in future tense to illustrate how a lack of inclusivity persists until we do something about it – and this disorientating divergence from the accepted norms of writing is intended to mimic how it feels to exist outside the default, yearning to be included as who you truly are.
PERITO PRIZE 2022: AN INTERVIEW WITH 2022’s JOINT THIRD PLACE – Iona Wyn Chisholm
by | Nov 02, 2022 |
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As part of our celebrations for Perito Prize 2022 we invited our top 4 placed writers to share a little about themselves and their amazing work. In this interview we talk to Iona Wyn Chisholm who was the joint 3rd place in the 2022 competition with the story ‘The All Inclusive Club’.
Q1: Tell us a little about yourself, what are you up to at the moment?
Iona: I am married to James and the proud mum of four sons. I enjoy dancing, singing in a gospel choir, gardening, art and writing.
I worked as a Solicitor, specialising in personal injury litigation. After the pandemic, I pursued my dream of working as a writer. This year, I wrote, illustrated and published my first rhyming children’s book, ‘Jubilee Bee.’ As Jubilee Bee is red, white and blue, a primary theme of this book is being different and finding where you fit in.
I write regularly in Garden News Magazine and have also featured in Amateur Gardening, Garden Answers and Birdwatching Magazines.
I am currently illustrating my second book, ‘Jubilee Bee and the King’s Christmas Present,’ which I hope to publish on Amazon later this month.
Q2: What matters most in the creative world - ambition, luck or talent?
Iona: I think that a successful creative world is built upon a diverse group of open-minded people absorbing every detail of their surroundings and life experiences, to interpret and then express them in an ingenious and meaningful way for others to share. This expression can take many forms such as movement, paint, words, plants or music, but it should connect with other people, provoking a change, inviting empathy or sparking a significant and important response within them. Ambition, luck and talent are all ingredients for individual success, but I feel that a creative world needs a collective sense of inspiration, gives the freedom to follow your own path and provides the support that comes from a powerful feeling of community.
Q3: What made you enter the prize and how did you find out about it?
Iona: My friend Lisa Dean told me about the prize, having searched ‘writing competitions’ on Google. This followed a conversation that we had about how we would motivate, support and inspire each other in our writing by starting to attempt writing competitions on a regular basis.
I thought that the competition brief was an interesting challenge and immediately felt motivated to write about the important issues of inclusivity, diversity and accessibility.
Q4: Some people may not have read your story yet. Tell us what ‘The All-Inclusive Club’ is all about?
Iona: Grandpa John is telling his blind Granddaughter, Annie, her favourite bedtime story, which is about his life as a wheelchair user. He describes himself, but the world just sees a wheelchair. Grandpa John shares the struggles of his story in a way that allows Annie to experience it through all of her senses – listening to the rustling leaves, drawing her name on a damp and squeaky bus window or smelling flowers. As the bedtime story progresses, more people with needs call, listen and join John in what he calls The All-Inclusive Club. Numbers increase and the local park isn’t big enough for meetings, so a child asks might the world be big enough? The message is that from the struggles of one person, the club to build aids for accessibility, destroy discrimination, instil inclusivity and embrace diversity becomes worldwide. I hope that every reader that finishes the story wants to be a member, if they aren’t already!
Q5: Tell us a little about who your creative inspiration or mentor is and why? This might be a favourite author or place to work.
Iona: I go to a local weekly writing group with friend my Lisa, led by Joss Musgrove Knibb. Joss’ tuition and every person there are creative inspirations for me. The exercises that we are challenged to do help us to find new abilities and ideas within ourselves and the variety and depth of writing that members create from the same brief amazes me.
Our collective belief in the value and fulfilment of writing is very important to me, as I struggle sometimes to feel justified in spending my time writing whilst I am at the beginning of my journey, hoping that the steps I am taking now will earn me a credible reputation as a regularly published writer.
I like books that teach me something or reflect my interests. I have just read ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ by Anne Frank and ‘Anne Frank Remembered’ by Miep Gies. You cannot read these books without being truly moved. Before that I read ‘Earthly Joys’ by Philippa Gregory and enjoyed the historical accounts of gardening very much.
Q6) Does the place you live or are from inspire you in your work or life and if so how?
Iona: I live in Staffordshire, England. Anything I hear, see or experience at home or away seems to soak into my mind and be filed away to be recalled one day and feature in my writing.
My children are a constant source of inspiration. Children can see the world simply and with a clarity that adults miss and so I always endeavour to hear their voices.
My sister-in-law, Maggie, is blind. When I think of her and all that she has been through, I am inspired by her bravery, strength of character and quick-witted humour.
As a Primary School Chair of Governors, I remember meetings to make our school inclusive and accessible for Ollie and his wheelchair.
Maggie and Ollie both inspired my writing of ‘The All-Inclusive Club’.
Q7) As you know the Perito Prize is dedicated to inclusion, access and inclusive environments. Did you find the topic difficult to write about?
Iona: I celebrate the inclusion, accessibility and diversity featured in daily primary school life and I really enjoy programmes such as ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ which features increasing diversity - and so I did not find this topic difficult to write about because it is widely accommodated and discussed within our family and local community. However, I did feel a responsibility to be sensitive and write something of value to anyone who feels excluded or denied access and show that there is still work to do to improve matters that we can all be a part of. I wanted my story to inspire every reader to join ‘The All-Inclusive Club’ and believe that they can and should continue to make the world a better place.
Q8) What was most valuable about going through this writing process for you?
Iona: I think it gave me an opportunity to reflect upon the issues that the Perito Prize promotes; think about how times have changed since I was a teenager; to think about my family and friends and the people around me and remember their needs and to make sure that going forwards, these issues are at the forefront of my mind because improvements can still be made.
Q9) Has this prize made you think differently about how inclusive and accessible the world we live in is?
Iona: Yes, definitely. I have been fortunate enough to enjoy friendships with people with differing needs and those facing accessibility, inclusivity and diversity issues. But as an able-bodied person, I realise that I should think about these matters more. This prize has reminded me to find the best of myself to be the best friend and neighbour that I can whenever and wherever I come across anyone with these needs.
Q10) Are you planning on building the concepts you incorporated into your entry into more of your work? If so, how?
Iona: Yes, I think that there are more stories to tell, perhaps the stories of those with different needs to John and Annie who were joining ‘The All-Inclusive Club’ in this first story - and maybe writing a futuristic story of where the club is in, say, 1,000 or even 10,00 years from now would be an interesting exercise?
The topics promoted by the prize are worthy of inclusion in any stories written at any time around the world. Let’s hope that as time passes, more worldwide efforts in the areas of inclusivity, diversity and accessibility become successful and permanent, so that writing about this area gives an opportunity for many writers to record many happy endings.