I will take a blog break over the bank holiday weekend 25th -27 May and will then head down to Hay for the literature festival the following weekend where you can see me at an event on Sunday 2nd of June. Back here in full blog flow 2nd week in June.
A few years ago I got stuck on the question: Why do we live in houses? Of course I understand the practical side of living in buildings. But why
and how did our brains ever conceive in the first place of building shelters.
I’m not barmy. Honestly. Peirene is with me on this by the way. As an ancient Greek Nymph she, too, couldn’t get her head around buildings. However, she eventually found the answer in a book:
‘The archetypal house repeats the architecture of the universe; a ground below, a space between, a vault above, in which there is an opening corresponding to the solar gateway by which one ‘escapes altogether’ out of time and space into an unconfined and timeless empyrean. Functional and symbolic values coincide.’ (Ananda Coomaraswamy)
The quote solved the riddle. Since then I haven’t wondered once why we humans live in houses.
This weekend Peirene’s first ever novella-writing masterclass took place In true Peirene style: not in an anonymous office but in a kitchen. In Shelley’s kitchen. Shelley is our creative writing tutor.
For two days from 10am to 5pm Shelley and her students gathered around her big kitchen table. They studied our Female Voice series, dissecting the texts in order to understand how the writers had achieved a unique narrative voice (Beside the Sea), conveyed an entire life story of a woman in less then 120pp (Stone in a Landslide) and created a real sense of place (Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman). Moreover, they didn’t just talk, they also worked hard. They had to write scenes from the perspective of nine-year old Stan, one of the children in Beside the Sea, and had to imagine pursuing Margharita from Portrait of the Mother through the streets of Rome in 1943. And finally they were provided with the chance for individual tutoring on their own pieces of work.
Peirene and I can’t really take credit for this course. We turned up at 4.30 on Sunday afternoon in time for the Prosecco and walked right into a buzzing creative atmosphere.
‘I think they had such an inspiring course because it took place in a kitchen,’ Peirene mused as we walked home. ‘The solar gateway – the hearth and chimney – were originally in the kitchen. It is from this room that one escapes out of time and space. And that is precisely what a writer needs to do in order to produce great stories.’
I liked her interpretation. But I know my Nymph just a tiny bit too well. ‘You are jealous.’ I laughed. ‘We could have held the class in our kitchen but my children wouldn’t have received any food all weekend long. I do think Shelley offers the students a better “solar gateway”.
Peirene pouted before adding ‘She is also a more patient teacher than either of us’.
Maternal guilt sometimes takes bizarre forms. But one thing is sure: competing with a domestic goddess doesn’t help.
I am working slightly too hard at the moment, and often on weekends too. For a few weeks now I’ve been telling myself I should safeguard the weekends. But that’s easier said than done. This Sunday I gave a talk about Magda at the South Bank Centre, next Saturday I will have to man the Peirene Roaming Stall.
Therefore, guilt feelings towards my family – not necessarily justified – occur more frequently than usual.
Knowing that I won’t be around for lunch today, I decided to serve a glamorous breakfast with home-made smoothies and American pancakes a la Nigella Lawson. My children love them. Nigella cooks them with white flour. My ambitions, however, went further. Not only did I want to serve my family what they love but I also wanted to provide them with healthy nourishment. So I used wholemeal flour instead. The end result you can see on the left. Not very pretty I had to admit. Nevertheless I put them on the table. A pancake is a pancake I told myself.
My family nibbled at a couple and then quietly opted for the croissants my husband had bought from the corner shop.
I didn’t blow my top. No I didn’t. But I could have. Oh yes. And they knew.
There was once another occasion, many moons ago, when I had laboured for hours with love and affection over a meal for my family. I can’t remember the recipe. But I know it was exceedingly healthy - probably involving a combination of beetroot, spinach, liver and perhaps a few chickpeas. Our son in his highchair threw the food on the floor. Our daughter closed her mouth and put her head on the table. My husband asked politely what we were having for pudding. And I blew my top. I took food, plates, bowls - the lot and threw them into the bin. Then I rang my mother-in-law. I told her that her son had refused to eat my food. I handed the receiver to my dumb-struck husband and stormed out of the kitchen.
I went for a run and calmed down and, later, I asked my husband what his mother had said to him. ‘Oh dear,’ were her only words. What a wise woman.
So the moral of the story: 2013 is still my husband’s lucky year (as I have mentioned on a number of blogs in recent months): His mother did not receive a phone call. As for my children: they headed out for their Sunday well-fed on croissants. And I? I have decided to never second-guess Nigella again.
Ladies, take off your clothes. Everything please. Now move away from the mirror. And look down on yourself. What do you see? Don’t be shy, we
are all the same: Huge breast hanging down on a sticky-out belly with thick thighs protruding underneath.
If you were to do a self-portrait with that gaze in mind, you might come up with something similar like the female figure in the picture, wouldn’t you? Well, I would.
I went to the Ice Age art exhibition in the British Museum on Saturday. Standing in front of a glass cabinet filled with small female figures made 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, I heard the voice of a female artist through my audio guide talking about how she felt quite strongly that these figures were probably made by women. Moreover, that these were self portraits. Women looking down on themselves. Before the invention of mirrors. Before the invention of the male gaze.
For many years now I have loved examining these female figurines. Whenever and wherever I visit a museum, I look out for them. And there are lots of these images around. Only a few months ago I went to Moscow and discovered three showcases filled with them in the State Historical Museum. I had always interpreted them as protective charms against death during pregnancy and child birth. Alternatively I could understand them as fertility symbols – mankind trying to understand through art the inexplicable mystery of the immaterial turning material. But it never crossed my mind that the figurines might be female self-portraits.
I am amazed to have missed this insight up to now.
Ever since I set up Peirene I’ve been thinking a lot about self-expression. In my eyes, Peirene is not just a publishing house. I employ the Nymph to explore issues that are important to me: female creativity, home versus public life and language. The Peirene Salon, the support for the Maya centre all form part of this exploration. Perhaps I should go further? I could add authenticity by taking down all the mirrors in the house? Would that help Peirene and me to look down on ourselves and into ourselves like our ancestors?
I’m afraid I didn’t get very far with the idea. ‘And how would I put on lipstick before leaving the house?’ The Nymph vetoed my suggestion straight away. ‘You hadn’t thought about that had you? Luckily you have me to remind you that culture has moved on since the Ice Age.’
(Image: Female figure, Yellow steatite, about 22 000 years old, Barma Grande, Italy)
‘For all the weight training you do,’ Peirene loves teasing me, ‘I can’t really see much of a result. Where are your Michelle Obama arms?’
I often wonder the same. I stand in front of the mirror in a sleeveless top. I lift my arms and tense my muscles – and there is not much to admire.
I go to the gym twice a week. I hate every minute of it. I started because I love running. Five years ago my hips and knees became painful. I was told I needed to do weight training if I want to continue with jogging to maintain equal muscle strength throughout my body.
Each time I attend the gym, I do three machines for the legs, three for the torso, three for the arms and one for the neck. With summer and short sleeve dresses just around the corner, I’ve been eyeing my biceps, however, more with hope than expectation. But then this week my arms suddenly revealed their inner strength and gave me one mini-triumph and helped Peirene HQ avoid a mini-catastrophe.
First the triumph: I’ve beaten my 13-year old son in arm wrestling – twice. He’s just outgrown me by a centimeter and thought he’d have me under his thumb. Well, not yet. He’s distraught and has intensified his push-ups.
Then I saved the Peirene Masterclass from drowning. On Thursday, during a Masterclass marketing meeting, Shelley, Claire and I suddenly heard water dripping from behind the fridge. It’s a big free standing fridge-freezer. With the kitchen in imminent danger of flooding I got up and pulled the fridge away from the wall. Without batting an eye lid. Nearly. Shelley, our Masterclass tutor, was impressed. ‘Do you work out?’ she asked.
So, my dear Peirene, I hope you no longer mock my arms, nor my weight training. In fact I advise you to join me at the gym. After all, I run across the Heath like a young goddess, you huff and puff next to me like an Ancient Greek Nymph.
Our daughter turned 18 on Friday. Since Wednesday I’ve spend a lot of time staring at a photo that shows my husband and me two days before
her birth. It’s a beautiful picture. Sunny, blue sky and we both are smiling into the camera, I am slightly turned sideways showing off my big belly.
I can’t believe where the time has gone. I can’t believe that the beautiful young woman we took out on Friday evening was once my baby. Only yesterday, so it seems. And I can’t believe that I am 18 years older. I still feel the same.
That’s what I want to say. But it’s not true. I don’t feel the same, nor am I the same. And I am pleased I am not.
Although I wanted to have a baby, when my daughter was born I struggled for two years to embrace motherhood. I couldn’t make a connection either to my daughter or to the mother inside me. I eventually became quite desperate. In one sense, though, my daughter was lucky. When my husband held his new-born baby for the first time in his arms, he was amazed she didn’t cry. It was at that moment that he fell in love with her and rose to the challenge of being a father. And it was he who held her emotionally in the first couple of years.
I was lucky too. Because he gave me the time and space to work on myself. And since then I’ve learnt a lot about myself. I’ve also learnt to become the woman and mother I wanted to be.
If I had stayed the same person I was 18 years ago, I would not be able to run Peirene. I could not have written Magda. I would not have taken out for supper an impressive person - a beautiful young woman – my own daughter.
It has been a privilege to bring her up. I am so delighted to know her. And I am excited to watch her find her own way over the next 18 years. I am a lucky woman.
Running a business from home has clear advantages. You save time on commuting and don’t have to look impeccable each morning.
On the days where I have no meetings and it’s just the Nymph and me in the office, I don’t waste time with brushing teeth or getting properly dressed. I fall out of bed, put a jumper over my nighty and pull up my old comfortable trackies. I live in this outfit for the rest of the day.
On Friday I woke up at 5am and I worked on my next novel until 8am. I then had breakfast with my son and sent him off to cricket training. I was back at my desk by 9.15, now on Peirene duty.
I looked at my diary. I had an appointment at 11 with a lady from the Council of Europe in Strasbourg to discuss the possibility of running a Peirene salon there, followed by lunch with Jan van Mersbergen’s Dutch publisher and a dinner in the evening with Maria Barbal’s agent, Cristina Mora. The international publishing world has descended onto London for the bookfair this week.
I answered a few emails and started to prepare a slide show for a speech I will give at the bookfair on Tuesday. I kept an eye on the time and then just after ten the doorbell rang. It was the lady from the European Council. She had misjudged the commute and arrived early.
I quickly realized I had two options: I either let my guest wait for half an hour while I sort myself out in a hurry and under pressure. Or we have a meeting, I pretend to be wearing heels and lipstick, and then I can have a peaceful shower afterwards. I took the second option. After all I was looking decent. I just didn’t look very glam. We had a very productive meeting.
Just as my first appointment of the day was leaving, Claire, our intern, turned up. ‘It looks nice what you are wearing,’ she said, without any irony in her voice.
Admittedly, I felt slightly proud as I was standing under the shower. I had delivered a professional meeting in pyjamas and had not only managed to let myself forget about my appearance but also everyone else.
Although, I must say, I am pleased that Friday was Peirene’s day off. She would have been first embarrassed, then critical and finally mocking – and that for the rest of the day. She is sitting beside me as I write this blog and I’m pleased to inform you that we are both wearing heels and lipstick.
The year 2013 is undoubtedly turning into my husband’s lucky year. He has received a lot of positive write-ups in my blog recently. And today
I owe him another thanks. Although the man clearly doesn’t know his ‘palate’ from his ‘pallet’, his weak proof-reading skills have revealed that Peirene’s newsletter is indeed read with huge interest world-wide.
On Thursday evening I asked him to proofread the April newsletter. He claimed he did, so on Friday I sent the e-mail into the wide world with the sentence ‘Our German Mussel Feast continues to excite the Anglo-Saxon pallet.’ I had a funny feeling about this newsletter but couldn’t put my finger on it. I didn’t have to wait long though. It took exactly five minutes and I received the first reply from a kind reader pointing out the typo. Since then there has been a steady stream.
I usually don’t get much response to the newsletter, one or two emails at most. So this is very exciting. People do indeed read our news carefully. I am thrilled, not least because they will now all know about the forthcoming first ever Peirene novella-writing masterclass.
The masterclass was Peirene’s idea. ‘If Faber and The Guardian can do it, we can do it too.’ She announced a few weeks ago. ‘And besides, no one offers novella writing classes. Aren’t we the experts in this genre? Let’s do it.’ I hesitated, worried from the beginning about the marketing. Would we get the word out to enough people? But The Nymph had no qualms. ‘Who wouldn’t want to be taught by an ancient Greek Nymph.’ And when she found an experienced tutor, Shelley Weiner, who teaches for The Guardian …I was persuaded.
Since then we have printed and distributed flyers at places with the right target audience. We have contacted institutions and people who might help us to spread the word. We have spoken to friends and sought advice. But after a gratifying initial rush we still have a few places remaining and, currently no new takers. Peirene remains full of confidence. ‘Don’t you worry,’ she pats my hand. ‘We still have a few weeks to go until the 18th of May.’ She pauses, then adds: ‘And let me do my part to promote the course: I will give up my Saturday morning on the 18th of May in order to welcome each course participant personally.’
What an amazing kind Nymph- offer. So, dear readers, help to spread the word and mention the masterclass to friends, colleague and relatives. This is your unique chance for an inspirational encounter with an Ancient Greek Nymph.
I am on Easter blog break and will be back here Monday 8th of April. Happy Easter. 
As an entrepreneur and small publisher you need many skills. In fact you have to play the all-rounder. From deal brokering techniques, via
editing skills to spreadsheet expertise – you should be perfect and move with ease. Ideally.
It’s the art of spreadsheeting that causes lady-like perspiration. Now, don’t get me wrong. I pride myself in my own competence. After all, I operate an impressive monthly spreadsheet where I record in detail Peirene’s outgoings and earnings.
However, once a year around this time, I reach my limits. The royalty statements are due to foreign publishers, agents and the Peirene authors. Three spreadsheets have to be amalgamated – from our book distributor, ebook distributor and my own spreadsheet with the subscription, stall and website sales. And that’s not all. They then have to be divided by individual titles. Frankly, when I set up Peirene, I didn’t reckon with this. And once a year I shed bitter tears of frustration.
Luckily I have a spreadsheet superman living with me. My husband. He loves them. And I love him when he helps me with the Peirene royalty statements.
But this year there will soon be even more love in the air. Authors will be delighted this week when they receive our statements. Payments are coming their way. We’ve done well last year. In fact the spreadsheet shows that each year we are doing a little better. Our brand is working its magic. The Nymph is a rising star.
‘Thank you.’ Peirene smiles at me. ‘I guess that means a pay rise for me. A rising star can’t dress in last year’s fashion.’
I pause before answering. I don’t like to disappoint. But I have to. ‘Paying out royalties makes the authors happy. However, we will experience a temporary cash flow issue.’
The Nymph pulls a face.
‘Anyway,’ I continue, trying to cheer her up. ‘Judging by the snow and ice outside, spring will be late this year. So no need to rush to buy a summery wardrobe.’ The Nymph leaves the office muttering that small publishers who can’t manage spreadsheets shouldn’t even try to deliver weather forecasts.