Jennifer Pittam

This week I had an interesting dilemma in my daily writing practise. I had to shift the location of a story I was busy writing. It's to be set in 1939 and I badly wanted the action to take place in the same part of London, down in the shadow of the Tower, as one I've just finished - but that was set 100 years earlier. However, there are some parts of the world that have just changed too much. The people I wanted to write about would not have lived in dear old Griffin's Wharf in 1939. So Walthamstow it is, then. Photo by Jennifer Pittam I was charmed this week to be invited to a book launch on Zoom. Mel Wardle Woodend was the 'Staffordshire Laureate' during Covid Lockdown, and one of several touchstones for me during that awful time. I had been used to mixing with other writers in person; evening classes at the City Lit, writing groups, a talk and a glass of wine in Daunt's Bookshop.  All that ended abruptly in March 2020 of course, and when I saw an advert ...

Who would have thought that a year after Lockdown we would still be in it?  Photo by Jennifer Pittam Still in Lockdown, Human? We've had some easements, true, but in essence, I am writing this from home in London, with currently 127,000 deaths in the UK. A tragedy to 127,000 families, naturally - but as with war and other tragedies, there is incidental progress in science and technology - new treatments for acute respiratory illness, the painstaking work to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, the development of every possible kind of face mask and even a much more user-friendly form of video-link software called Zoom. Photo by Shutterstock As a Clerk of the Court I used the video-link only for vulnerable witnesses before 2020, but now it's routine in courts all over the land. I also attend classes in literature and creative workshops on Zoom. This week I got out my writer's notebook read from my short story, 'I Remember Very Well' at a World Book Day event hosted by Staffor...