Patricia M Osborne

Y is for You

Y is for You the reader. I hope you’ve enjoyed this A-Z blog and if there’s anything you’d like to know about my writing then please ask.

Y is for YEW

Now I do have a poem about the yew tree but unfortunately I can’t share it with you at this stage. What I can do is tell you about the collection I am compiling to fulfill my portfolio for my MA dissertation.

I am looking at Fairy and Forestry Folklore so knee deep in a number of books. My favourite to date has to be Tree Wisdom. It has many wonderful details about the Yew which involves fairies and folklore stories. Watch this space.

Other books I am studying for my MA Dissertation:  (including Tree Wisdom) – luckily I’ve managed to pick them all up secondhand.

Tree Wisdom – The definitive guidebook to the myth, folklore and healing power of trees – Jacqueline Memory Paterson (if this sort of thing interests you then this book is a definite must.) Don’t you just love trees? I know I do.

The Folklore of Sussex – Jacqueline Simpson

Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore – Steve Roud, Jacqueline Simpson

Folklore – Tim Atkins

Fairies and Chimneys – Rose Fyleman

Sussex Folk Tales – Michael O’Leary

The Forest IN FOLKLORE AND MYTHOLOGY – Alexander Porteous

The Complete Book of the Flower Fairies – Cicely Mary Barker

Wildflower Folklore – Laura C Martin

The White Goddess – Robert Graves

I can’t comment recommend all of the above books because some of them I still have to dive into but they certainly look like they are going to be resourceful.

I also plan to pick up:

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream (I’m hoping to go and see this at the local theatre)

Shakespeare’s Sonnets

And I’m sure there’ll be more to add to that list once I get into the study more. As you can see from the above list this is an exciting study time for me.

Y – Why

You as a reader may wonder why my writing is mainly fiction. Very rarely do I write life writing. Why? Well up until a few years ago I struggled with fiction writing and used to write poetry from my own experience. However, once I started to explore fiction I loved it. I can still use what I know from my own memories or stories I’ve been told plus research but the bonus is that I can escape into any world I want to be and I can become anyone I want.

When I first started my MA I had just lost my mum and understandably I wasn’t in a very good place. The strange thing I found though as I no longer had a mum or dad alive was I didn’t know who I was. I questioned my identity. For this reason I explored Lost Identity in my first assignment for the Narrative module and what I uncovered was by giving these characters pain it kind of took it away from me. So writing is a great therapy.

Anything else you’d like to know about my writing then please ask.

I hope you join me tomorrow with ‘Z’ when we will Zip up this A – Z blog challenge. After that, what is there you might like to see on my blog? Do let me know.