The Show On The Road

The Beloved Children author Tina Jackson on how the women from Wide Open Writing are going to hit the road to bring writing where it’s needed

In the late summer of 2018, I was wrestling with the manuscript that was to become my debut novel, The Beloved Children – a story of carny insiders in the dying days of UK vaudeville informed by my own experience of show life. Along the way, I had created a character – Rose – and imposed a storyline that wasn’t right for her, or for the book. I’d poured everything I had into this book – time, love, care, research – and hit the wall. 

When I attended a writing retreat in glorious Tuscany, I determined to take the retreat’s name – Wide Open Writing – as a mission statement. I’d be wide open to anything. I wasn’t expecting a solution to my manuscript problem – if anything I was anticipating a break from it. A break from everything. I’d see what happened. Meet some new people, eat some food, soak up the rays. Maybe write some poems or something. I’d always fancied trying my hand at poetry. Or a new short story. But not the novel. I was on holiday.

So there I was, the lone, snarky, snaggle-toothed Brit in the company of a group of wise, gracious, welcoming Americans. Mostly women, and a lone man. I’m going to like this, I thought. Wonder what happens next.

Well, what happened next was early morning yoga with Nancy Coleman, serene and inspiring. Then silence. Then the first workshop session with WOW’s guiding spirit, the fierce and fabulous Dulcie Witman. And as she led us through a workshop which was one of the most transformational experiences of my creative life, there it was. The voice that changed everything. A sardonic, knowing voice that belonged, distinctly, to Dolores, the formidable wardrobe mistress at the heart of The Beloved Children. Putting me straight. Telling me, as my grandma would put it, what for. ‘You think Rose is just a fluffy little chicken,’ she sneered.

That line is still in the book. Thanks to that creative breakthrough, I finished, polished and submitted it, and it was published before Christmas by the amazing rebel indie Fahrenheit Press. 

It goes without saying I kept in touch with Wide Open Writing. Why wouldn’t I? Imagine Patti Smith and Joni Mitchell running writing retreats – that’s the energy WOW generates. And one of the themes in The Beloved Children is people finding their tribe – it couldn’t be more fitting. During lockdown WOW’s retreats are on hold but Dulcie and Nancy have moved their operations online, offering weekly writing workshops that have provided a beacon of creative focus, the chance to play with ideas and riff on new writing projects, and above all, a sense of a writing community. 

And then one day, chatting across several time zones to Dulcie on Zoom, she said, ‘I want to show you something,’ She turned her laptop round and there it was. An RV, parked in the drive. Not just any old RV either. The WOWMobile. ‘When this is over,’ she said, ‘we’re taking WOW on the road.’

With Dulcie in the driving seat and Nancy riding shotgun, the plan is to take Wide Open Writing to wherever it’s needed – to writers who want to share that creative truth-telling spirit and find the words to tell the stories that matter to them. It’s a project that’s a creative response to what the world, and America, have been living through in the last year. Dulcie and Nancy took the time to explain what this will entail

‘It’s a bold move and at the same time a natural outcome of the spirit of adventure and expansion that fuels Wide Open Writing,’ said Dulcie. ‘We want to reach out to participants who Iack a way to bring home what ignited in them during retreats, and to help them grow that flame where they live. Additionally, we’ve lamented that we couldn’t offer this life-giving, healing work to people who for whatever reason couldn’t come to a retreat in Tuscany or Mexico or Maine; we wanted the creative spark to reach further and deeper. And COVID offered us the strange gift of time, in these unprecedented times, to invent another way of bringing creativity and connection to a wider audience, by coming to people where they are and meeting in parks, on lawn chairs, under the sky, and writing the hell out of what demands their attention.

Originally, WOW answered Dulcie and Nancy’s own wants and needs – ‘By creating a way for us to travel and write with people who also wanted to travel and write,’ she said. ‘For seven years, 16 retreats in 9 countries, we learned how to do this and do it well, becoming a creative beacon and a magnet for writers around the world. Over time, we recognized that once we got home, we wanted to stay connected to the energy that was sparked during the retreat times together. That, combined with the world news of the pandemic and our restrictions on traveling and writing, birthed WOW Writes Together an online membership. Of course, when you bring a bunch of artistic creative types together, all hell breaks loose and you end up with classes, a publishing imprint, a book about creating your own personal writing retreat, and eventually – why not! – a WOWMobile. ‘

The plan is to drive to cities and towns across America. ‘We’ll stay in each venue long enough to offer public generative writing groups and individual meetings as well as to collect the stories written there. We also intend to bring with us the newly completed WOW The Book. When we leave a town, we’ll leave behind seedlings of on-going writing groups as well as a guide for how to keep them going. We’ll take with us the inspiration of a growing community of writers, and the raw stories from which we intend to generate a published anthology.’

The intention is to begin with a month-long tour, stopping in Washington DC, Nashville/Chattanooga Tennessee, Detroit, Michigan, and Portland, Maine, followed by trips to cities and smaller towns across the continent. ‘We’ll go where we’re called, where we’re invited, where the burritos are good, or where we get a flat tire. We’ll write our way toward healing,’ sas Dulcie.

The WOWMobile tour will be set up in advance with local communities. ‘As we travel, some of the WOWMobile itinerary will be created in advance with the help of local parks and libraries, community centers, organizations for youth and for the elderly, and the already existing network of Wide Open Writing participants, members and staff. Some of our stops as well will be generated from the response of people who join us in our fundraising campaign and as we travel.’

WOW’s practices are rooted in the transformative power of connecting in community with positivity and skill. ‘We’re a living, breathing organism made up of eight staff, hundreds of seekers, writers, adventurers, poets, idealists, introverts, truth-seekers and truth-sayers; bad-asses with good taste who have made their way to our retreats and into our membership and remain connected through heart, mind and creative spirit.’

Alongside the WOWMobile, Dulcie and Nancy will be collecting and sharing writing. ‘Our first book, WOW The Book, travels with us on the WOWMobile tour, making itself available as inspirational fuel, foundation, guide and partner on the writing journey,’ said Nancy, who has written and edited the book. ‘As we travel, we’ll collect stories from the living mosaic of people across the continent, stories of what moves them and what challenges them, of where they’re from, what hurts and what heals, a gathering from which we will generate a published anthology.’

Nancy and Dulcie, both therapists as well as working writers with deep experience as authors, editors and creative writing teachers, are looking to create outlets for diverse, authentic women’s writing that enables voices to be heard and healing to take place. ‘The voices of women are the voices of life itself, the energy that both gives birth and connects us to one another. That kind of power can be threatening, as it has been, enough so that authentic women’s voices have been muted and even silenced for centuries That loss manifests across the planet in authoritarianism, poverty, racism, and violence at home and in the streets. Our intention is to be part of a healing wave that returns us to balance, word by word. It takes a blend of permission, safety, encouragement and connection to foster that creative genius that lies within each of us as women. And that’s what we’re about.’

Oh and by the way. I did write some poetry on my WOW retreat – one was the first poem I’ve had accepted for publication. There’s magic in the moonshine these pioneer women take with them on their travels – I can vouch for its effect.

 

To find out more about WOW and the WOWMobile Kickstarter campaign, visit:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wideopenwriting/wide-open-writing-the-mobile-retreat

https://wideopenwriting.com

Tina Jackson is a writer and journalist from the UK. Her debut novel The Beloved Children is published by rebel indie Fahrenheit Press and she is the author of Stories from The Chicken Foot House (Markosia, 2018), a collection of grungy transformation tales illustrated by Andrew Walker, and Struggle and Suffrage in Leeds: Womens’ Lives and the Fight for Equality (Pen & Sword, 2019). She has an MA in Creative Writing from Sheffield Hallam University and her short stories and poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies. Tina has worked as an award-winning writer and editor specialising in the arts and books for The Big Issue and Metro and her journalism has appeared in many publications including the Guardian, the Observer, the Independent and the Mail on Sunday. She is now Assistant Editor of Writing Magazine. Tina is also a dancer and variety performer.

To find out more about The Beloved Children, visit: tinajacksonwriter@wordpress.com

Nancy Coleman, PhD, RYT, psychologist, writer, yoga teacher, singer-songwriter, has been part of Wide Open Writing with all her heart since the beginning. She’s staffed almost every retreat WOW has offered, she wrote WOW THE BOOK, and she’s riding in the truck. She’s written two novels in consideration for publication, and her poems and essays have been published in several journals and in Voices of Maine, An Anthology.

Dulcie Witman, LADC, MFA, therapist, writer, co-founder of Wide Open Writing and Minerva Rising Women’s Literary Journal. Dulcie serves as the director of WOW, tossing out ideas as fast as she can think them up, and seeing what comes of them. After a long time working career of all sorts of things, Dulcie received her MFA from Goddard College and has not looked back. Her work has been published in Pitkin Review and Rawboned. She’s completed a novel, Crooked Love, that is currently under consideration for publication and a professional memoir, Confessions of a Therapist. She is currently working on Shoes, a collection of short stories.

 

THE BELOVED CHILDREN

“This gloriously offbeat tale has shades of Angela Carter, with its beguiling characters weaving a magical spell.” – Kitty Marlow, The Mail On Sunday

The vivid setting and beauty of Jackson’s prose is only part of the enchantment. The author has also woven an intricate and compelling plot in which revelations come as rapidly as disappearing ace cards and rabbits from the maestro’s hat. Every fresh reveal tells us something new and unexpected about each character, so the multiple layers of connections and secrets between them all are gradually – and satisfyingly – revealed. The only disappointing thing about this whole dazzling illusion is when it finally has to come to an end. This was a world I never wanted to come out of!” – Cathi Unsworth, Crime Squad

“There is some really atmospheric storytelling and joyful language at play here, with Jackson as an entertaining mistress of ceremonies.” – Ben East, The Observer

What can we say about this book from Tina Jackson except that it’s something very special indeed.

Three young women; Chrysanthemum, Rose & Orage are thrown together performing as The Three Graces on the stage of Fankes’ Theatre during the closing days of the Second World War.

It’s there they come under the spell of wardrobe mistresses Dolores and Janna – a chance encounter that will guide and change all of their fates forever.

Set in the dying days of vaudeville theatre and laced with mysticism, fortune tellers, ghosts, and evocative descriptions of the closing days of the War – The Beloved Children will literally make you laugh out loud and perhaps even shed the odd tear.

The Beloved Children is wise, funny, heart-breaking, joyous, poignant, and entirely entirely enthralling.

Tina Jackson has conjured characters that you will fall unapologetically in love with and placed them in a world that you won’t want to leave. If any Fahrenheit book is ever going to be nominated for The Booker Prize it’ll be this one.

“Who wouldn’t want to spend time around the fire in the company of these crazy, wonderful, naughty, knowing, flawed, soulful people?” – Nick Triplow”

This book genuinely weaves a spell around the reader and once you make friends with Janna, Dolores, and The Three Graces you’ll never want to be without them in your life again.

BUY HERE

Tags: featued, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips