Words on a Page

None of these stories are to be trusted, for they are stories of the dead told by the living and the living always lie. Leafing through a box of postcards at a Parisian market stall, the narrator of Douglas Bruton’s exquisite novella finds a distinctive blue postcard which he recognises at once. The colour is International Klein Blue (IKB), created by the avant-garde artist Yves Klein, and the postcard is an invitation to a 1957 exhibition of his monochrome paintings. Such a seemingly simple postcard, but within it is a marvellously intricate meditation about the way memory reshapes itself over time and how truth is often found in fiction. Bruton weaves together three fragmented narratives to create a story filled with passions that are never fully realised: that of the narrator, and his fascination both with Yves Klein and the colour blue; the lonely tailor, Henri, who sews a string of twisted blue Tekhelet threads into a seam in every suit he makes to bring the wearer luck; and Yves ...

  After my interview with Fairlight Books author, Douglas Bruton , discussing his latest publication, Blue Postcards , and his approach to writing, he turned the tables on me and posed some questions of his own. Here, we continue our discussing about reading, writing, and my literary novella, MissingWords , which will be published on 5 th August. ~ Douglas:   I tried writing in my teens and then again at university – nothing I wrote was worth the ink. It was not until I got a computer (aged thirty) that I found a way to write that worked. When did you know you could write and that it was something you wanted to do? Loree:   I remember dreaming up stories a lot when I was a kid. I’m an only child, and spent a lot of time entertaining myself. I know that I wanted to be a writer long before I ever wrote anything down on paper. In that way, I think I was very typical of a lot of the students I’ve worked with who want to write, but don’t yet have the tools to do so. I...

  ‘Is it enough to be remembered? Or do you have to be the one remembering?’ Bit by bit, Tito is fading from existence. He has lost weight, and he is shorter than he was. Sometimes his body flickers like the pictures on an analogue TV. And sometimes he disappears altogether. At home in Miami, Tito’s young life is in turmoil. Each of his parents seems to have rejected him, letting him know his birth was ‘an accident’ and referring to him as ‘your son’ when they argue. Finding refuge with his Cuban grandmother, Nana, he begins to learn about magic and the art of creating illusions. Illusions, she tells him, are meant to do good – to help others or oneself to see a situation more clearly. She warns, however, that there is also potential to do the opposite and to cloud or confuse a person’s ability to see at all. ‘In America, as an immigrant, we had to be invisible.’ Tito’s greatest desire, like that of any child, is to feel loved and valued. But his parents are distracted by...

  In the third of this series of interviews with Fairlight authors, I have the pleasure of talking to Debbi Voisey. Debbi’s novella Only About Love will be published on 5 th August, the same day as my own, in the Fairlight Moderns list of literary novellas. ~ Loree:   I’m really looking forward to reading Only About Love when it comes out in August. I believe it’s described as a ‘novella in flash’ – which sounds really intriguing. I wonder if you could say something about your involvement with flash fiction, and what it is about the form that attracts you. Debbi:   Thanks, and I am so chuffed we are sharing a publication day. I can’t wait to read Missing Words . I started writing flash fiction when I was trying to avoid working on a novel! I love it for its immediacy. It allows you to get your thoughts out, and for people to read them, far more quickly than when writing a novel. It also really helps you to be economic with words and to tighten your prose. O...