Karen Stevens, "Brilliant Blue"

 

Karen Stevens writes short fiction and has been published in a variety of anthologies and journals, including The Big Issue, Fish Publishing, Salt Publishing and Valley Press. She was runner-up for the prestigious ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award in 2023. Her edited collection of essays Writing a First Novel: Reflections on the Journey was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2014. Her co-edited collection of short stories High Spirits won a Saboteur Award for Best Anthology in 2019. Karen is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Chichester and lives in West Sussex. Brilliant Blue is her first collection of short stories.

About Brilliant Blue, by Karen Stevens
Welcome to the infamous Duncock Estate. Nestled on the South English coast, it is a place where identity matters; where people hold down jobs and do their best. Where taboos are broken, adultery is committed, and problems can’t be wished away. But even tragedy can be tinged with fragile hopes and humour.

You can read more about Brilliant Blue on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read an excerpt from one of the stories in the book. 

 

From Brilliant Blue

Extract from ‘Among the Crows’

It was knocking on four o’clock when Andy decided he’d had enough. There was no end to it: road after road of council houses with verges that he needed to strim. He’d taken his time again; just couldn’t be bothered. A full hour for lunch and several tea breaks, while Maciej – Mac, they’d nicknamed him at work – kept on going. The man was a machine. Intensely efficient.

The heat was doing Andy in; his throat felt scorched. He switched off the strimmer, removed his goggles and ear defenders. The sudden stillness alarmed him. He glanced behind, half expecting a drugged-up maniac to lunge and nick his strimmer. Mac was on the opposite side of the road, further on, heading for the finish line. For health and safety, the council’s rules were that workers must stay in pairs, but it was impossible for Andy to keep up with Mac, and impossible for Mac to slow down.

Andy watched Mac’s automated motion. His biceps were loaves. He swung his arms from left to right, chopping swathes of nettles and grass, getting the job done. No work, no cake, he’d say simply, whenever Andy griped about being sent into the dark heart of the Duncock Estate.

He sat on the verge and took in the council houses, their concrete walls bleached dirty-white from the sun. Objects poked out from the parched grass of a ramshackle garden opposite.

A rusting fridge revealed its mouldy interior. A child the same age as his Cora could fit in there, closing the door to hide, suffocating within minutes. He kept his eye on the fridge and felt relieved that he lived on the outskirts of this sprawling estate, where things were less desperate and hostile.

Chris Westoby, "The Fear Talking"

Chris Westoby is the author of The Fear Talking, published December 2020 by Barbican Press. He is Programme Director of the MA Creative Writing (Online) at the University of Hull. Outside of facing down his own fears in his debut book, Chris is interested in the untold stories of others. He leads a Writing from Life module and has conducted narrative research exploring gendered barriers in higher education and how social media impacts the aftermath of a death by suicide. He believes in the power stories have to improve understanding, practice and the wellbeing of the storyteller.

About The Fear Talking
By Chris Westoby

I'm a thirty-year-old who has had a severe anxiety disorder for my whole life. Growing up, I kept my illness secret, even from my parents. Partly through the shame of the things I thought, the things I was afraid of, my hidden behaviours, but also because it was the 00s and nobody talked about these things. I had no idea what was up with me. That secrecy, confusion, isolation, avoidance is what The Fear Talking is all about.

I know there are others out there who feel as isolated as I did, so I wrote the book I always wish someone had handed me. This is not a book about getting better, or turning my experiences into something positive. There are enough success stories out there. Not everyone does recover, and I want that position to be better represented. The Fear Talking is written in the confused and terrified voice of the sixteen-year-old me who didn't know what the hell was wrong with him. It's a book about breaking through that wall, someone learning about anxiety from the very bottom, learning to communicate it. It's about the damage it causes to others, but also the moments of real connection that come from finally understanding each other.

Below, you can read an excerpt from the memoir. 

From The Fear Talking

‘What’s the matter?’ Mum says. Her voice restrains itself. It’s almost formal. She puts two slices of bread in the toaster and pushes the lever down. Tops her cup of tea up with a little kettle water. Every movement faster and louder than usual. 

‘I couldn’t get on the bus.’ 

‘Why?’ 

‘I didn’t feel well. Still don’t.’ 

‘I’ll have to take you in, then.’ She turns over a jumper that’s drying on the radiator. The toast pops up. I keep my head down until she takes her breakfast through to the lounge, then I tread quietly upstairs. 

For ten minutes I hope she might forget me and just go to work. 

‘Let’s go, then,’ she calls from downstairs. I hear her plate and mug go in the dishwasher. The hollow clop of her shoes marching down the hall. The jingle of her keys. My mind is made up. She can’t seriously think I’ll come down. 

‘Go without me,’ I say from the top of the stairs. ‘I can’t go.’ 

Down by the front door, she looks up at me. Her voice coiled and sharp, her eyes shining. ‘Get your bag and let’s go. I’m going to be late at this rate.’ 

‘Then just go.’ 

She looks around, her head doing little shakes. 

‘I can’t, Mum.’ 

The snap I was waiting for. Her voice raises, ‘Then get changed and get your arse down to that workshop, and at least make a living for yourself if you’re throwing your education away.’ 

I don’t reply. 

Her voice cracks into a high-pitched shout, through pressed teeth. ‘I’m wild!’ 

What an odd thing to say. 

She comes storming up the stairs. I move out the way. 

‘I’ve got one son who avoids me and another who’s deceptive.’ 

She does something in her room and then runs past me, down the stairs again. She’s still shouting as she picks her bag up and makes for the door, but it’s the slight muffle through gritted teeth and the wobble in her voice I hear more than the words. The door bangs in its frame. Through the obscured glass, her Fiesta’s little engine revs like a boy racer’s car as it reverses out the drive. 

I sit on the stairs for a long time.  

What do I do? What the fuck do I do?