This is David, pretty well the only remaining active member of the Forest Radio team, but hopefully the new year will bring a few more of us out of hiding.
Every time I have announced the upload of new material I have invited you the audience to send in examples of your own creative work, be it short stories, poems, non-fiction articles, novel extracts, musical performances, songs you have written, paintings, photography, views that you hold and would like to talk about, suggestions about what you would like to see on Forest Radio,or whatever. Contributions from people "out there" have become a very scarce comoddity, which is a pity.
But it occurred to me that I write short stories myself and I have hardly ever put any of them on Forest Radio. To Hell with modesty, I'm going to do it! .
A letter I received from a lady named Marta who teaches English as a Foreign Language in Latvia reminded me of this fact a few days ago. She wrote to ask if it was OK to use one of my stories as a teaching aid. This is, I think, the third time a student or teacher of English has asked for permission to use something that I have written. I have always eagerly encouraged them to do so. I love the idea of someone studying my words as closely as that. I always ask for feedback on whether the lesson or lessons went well, and Marta has promised to keep me informed. I am particularly impressed by the way she wants to use it. She chose "Celia's Shrine", which is one of my favourites and one of the most reprinted and "anthologised".
The format is monologue and the speaker is an old man talking to a young couple who have come to look over his cottage with a view to a possible purchase. He wants to tell them about his life, and that makes up the main body of the story.
Marta's idea is to ask her students to rewrite the story from the point of view of the old man's wife, whom he mentions but we don't meet. Martra has gone straight to the subtext, which I see as the most interesting and important part of the story.
Please take a look yourself and see if you agree. And do please give me feedback on my story as well as one or two samples of you own creative output.
Below is a video recording of the first reading of "Celia's Shrine", which was at the 2007 annual live meeting of the ukauthors.com writers' website which was held like most of them in London.
I think that In general it's best to include video or visual material of some kind in anything you want to appear,on Forest Radio. Podcast audiences are no longer willing to take the time to read through dense blocks of text.
Do please send somehing in, and iIf you run into any problems doing so just email me at sirat@davidgardiner.net
Celia's Shrine Reading
Running time: 12 minutes 43 seconds
Use the following link to download or link to this film: Celia's Shrine Reading
