Jan on writing life

the real L’Autre Rive Every novel I’ve written has been a love story — not a romance, but about those connections that are so deep that they change us, those connections that can unravel as well as transform us. smiling at grief in a house in a forest where life grows is no exception. The […]

Every book is like birth. It’s exhilarating and exhausting, it’s a delight to see something new emerge and yet feel full of fear for this fragile being out in the world. And every time, I think there will not be another one. Every time, after the burst of creativity, I emerge from dwelling in the […]

We are approaching midwinter. Some of us will be keeping the season of Advent, others anticipating Solstice or perhaps simply savouring the winter quiet and looking to find the still point of the year. It’s a time to hibernate, a time for rest and restoration, a time for going inward so that new seeds can […]

We’re deep into winter. In Brittany it’s been an incredibly wet autumn into winter after an unseasonal burst of heat in the first part of October. Like many areas we’ve had a succession of storms, with Storm Ciaran doing massive damage across the region. The wreck of woodland just as the trees hunker into winter, […]

We are living in an extraordinary times. Even those who have decided not to listen to or watch news cannot be unaware of the current situation in Israel and Gaza or that elsewhere other conflicts continue to rage. Most people are still reeling from the global pandemic that has set of a global wave of […]

In my last blog I wrote about transcendence, about how all humans reach beyond ourselves and have a sense of spirituality, irrespective of particular faith traditions. Part of writing about transcendence and acknowledging it in our art comes from our awareness of mortality. Our atoms will be returned to the universe. Living in cycles We’re […]