.
In the last two weeks, I took delivery of my first ever solo-authored book chapter, in the wonderfully named tinfoil hats: stories by mad people in an insane world. The contribution that I made was hard-won life experience; it talked about some really difficult unpleasant and often traumatising experiences that I had when my son was much, much younger than he is now and I knew far less about myself than I do now.
The publishing press ‘Autpress‘ and the fabulous editor, Phil Smith were incredibly supportive. They have also extended other opportunities to publish in their ‘Spoon and Knife Anthology‘ series, however I am going to have to focus on some PhD study work for a little while before I consider doing any other independent writing.
The day in April, when I sat and read my chapter, was quite a strange experience. The act of holding a book in one’s hand, with your own writing contained within it was quietly powerful. The words took on a greater meaning than when I had sat and read them back during the editing process on google docs.
I guess the reproduction of them, in a printed (rather than a virtual) format also contributed to this, however the act of acceptance of my words, my thoughts and my perspective, as worthy of sharing was strangely validating. It kind of made up for all the crap I have dealt with in the last two years, which I am slowly emerging from. As I am discovering, like when I wrote ‘bleeding insanity’ that there is often meaning in the challenging and difficult periods of one’s life. It’s not always obvious at the time, so you simply have to keep going until the beauty and meaning reveal itself. I’m discovering that living, and PhDing is like that more generally. I don’t have a bloody clue half the time if I am spending my time on the right things, but you just have to keep moving forwards and hope for the best.
If you’d like to purchase a copy of the book, a link can be found here.
