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The Birth of Juniper Joan

I have always kept things. Hoard is too strong a word, though my mother would use it. I’ve kept symbols of people, of events, of seasons in my life. Plays and films I’ve been a part of. Cards and letters. Dried flowers. Pieces of costume. Boxes full of journals. Representations of a meaning and sentimentality I should feel, but more often than not, don’t.   My keepsakes are out of guilt, if I’m honest. This is something I should care about. This is something I should physically remember. To discard the motifs of a season or experience in life feels […]

Performing the Role of the New Mother

I went back to work a week after the caesarian.   It wasn’t by choice. The drafts were due. They were doing test shoots, two weeks later. I was the sole writer, and the birth was so mind-bogglingly unexpected, that nobody really knew what to do. The two blokes at the helm of the project placated me: It won’t take you long. Just an hour of work on each scene, if you do it by next week you can forget about it for a while. I couldn’t say no. There was no-one else to write them, and I didn’t want […]