In conversation with Laura Besley

Laura Besley was a finalist in the short story category in Hysteria 2020, a reader for Hysteria 8 and a reader for Hysteria 9 as well. She is a full-time mum to two young boys and squeezes her writing time into the bookends of her day.

She has recently been listed by TSS Publishing as one of the top 50 British and Irish Flash Fiction writers with her story ‘On Repeat’ (Reflex Fiction). Having lived in Holland, Germany and Hong Kong, she now lives in land-locked central England and misses the sea. Her flash fiction collection, The Almost Mothers, was published in March 2020 and her collection of micro fiction, 100neHundred, will be published in May 2021.

Listen to the interview

https://lindaph.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Laura-Besley.mp3

Key takeaways from this episode:

1. Laura is active in the Twitter writing community

2. She is a very prolific writer, starting out around 13 years ago

3. Laura finds writing a good escapist activity and as a result, wrote a lot during lock down as she wrote through her own anxieties.

4. Making time to write every day is very important and is what allows her to be prolific

5. Laura also spends around 15 minutes each day writing a version of Julia Cameron’s morning pages

6. Ideas are great as inspiration sources but not necessarily as they were when they first appeared in our thoughts

7. The topics and themes Laura is drawn to include motherhood, belonging and home

8. Inspiration is elusive and is often found in ordinary life events and circumstances

9. It’s easier to write what you know about and then embellish it with imagination

10. All writers can only ever draw on things that are inspired by our lived experience as humans, even fantasy and science fiction is anthropomorphic

11. Writers always leave a little of themselves in everything they write

12. Storytelling is a journey into the human experience of life and we experience life through our emotions

13. Julia Cameron’s The Artists Way helps to make you more aware of yourself and what is going on around you

14. Context is particularly important to writers as it helps to add depth to stories and events

Mentioned in this episode:

• Hysteria 7

• Hysteria 8

• Hysteria 2022

• Bullet journal

• The Artists Way by Julia Cameron

Meet Laura

• Catch up with Laura on Twitter @laurabesley

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If you have any general questions or comments for Tracy or the show leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you.

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