I’m Jan Fortune and this is a blog becoming a different story. I believe writing is powerful and through writing and engaging with others’ writing we can reshape ourselves adn the world. I blog about life as a writer and editor living in a small village, the impact on writing of travelling and the impact of writing on the stories we tell of our lives and how we shape and live them.
I write poetry, novels and blog posts because I love words. Narrative gives shape and meaning to the world and witnesses to the resilience and hope of individuals and communities in every kind of circumstance. I’m passionate about the writing life and helping others to find their writing voice and the writing life that connects them more deeply.
I’m married to Adam and have four wonderful children plus a fantastic son-in-law and daughter-in-law and an adorable grandson.
I write articles about writing process, journalling, writing structure and the impact of writing on our worldview, motivation and the way we live. I home educated my four (now adult) children and have written widely on alternative education. I’m passionate about issues of equality (I have a PhD in feminist theology), about writing as a form of witness, about enjoying good food and nutrition, about building daily rhythms of life that nurture and support us to be our best selves and about living deliberately, valuing the distinctive and the independent rather than the conformist and mainstream.
I love to read, publish and (try to) write books that are engaged, raise questions, take risks with form or voice and push the boundaries of mainstream writing. My poetry is generally individual short poems or sequences and I’m interested in the use of life-writing and psychogeography and how they interact. My novels play with concepts of time and self and have strong literary influences.
I love to travel, particularly without flying, but I also love coming home to a tiny village, a quirky house with no central heating, no TV, but views of mountains and rain. I love to cook, especially for a large noisy family and friends and I cook like I write: in a trance 🙂 I do yoga most days and I love baths.
Lovely article. Thanks, Jan.
didn’t realise we had so much in common though we’ve met at the beginning of Cinnamon Press, which I appreciate so much – have just emerged from 40 years in a desert of feeling and compassion, shedding all the chemicals I’d picked up on the way.
Malta is a small place too, and I’ve chosen to live in a very small independent-minded village where eggs are still fresh, and sheep are kept in backyards by a woman whose father kept goats, who I’ve always preferred to the stupid sheep, who, as in Far from the Madding Crowd (and I’ sure Hardy chose the mistake) follow suicidal leaders to death. I too am separated but recently in love with a very stubborn Aries ram whose perspective on Eve needs to be changed 🙂 Great challenge, great fun :).
I’ll have lots of new poems soon, which I think you will enjoy publishing, as you have done with single items before now – I see to have an affinity of spirit with Welsh artists – Menna Elfyn is one of my dearest friends, and I have visited.
By the way, I know 2 women who were ordained priests, a maureen whose surname I have forgotten and a college contemporary at Girton whose first name I have forgotten, but was/is married to Elizabeth Bradbrooks. nephew – does that ring a bell? Or several 🙂
love
maria
It’s fascinating how lives intersect. I don’t know the names you mention, but I was also at Cambridge – read theology at Selwyn. Good luck with the ram 🙂
my ramming agent in Cambridge, though both still virginal in 1965, was Mark Selwyn Gummer, son of a High Church Minister, and a brother to Peter Selwyn Gummer, now Lord Something, and John Selwyn Gummer, whose first political eeting I attended in Brighton. Do I need to tell you which college they were in? Mark’s parents were most distressed I was Roman Catholic at the time, though John eventually embraced the more conservative faith when women were ordained priests 🙂 I have nothing in common with Mark anymore, though we were crazily in love at the time
Really enjoyed reading this. It has a wee typo that crept under your radar:
‘we can reshape ourselves adn the world’