My latest piece of short fiction, The Leaving of What’s Left is live over at the quixotic Metazen.
I find what’s left of my love asleep at the kitchen table, arms folded under a lolling head, face hidden, red hair tumbling over pale skin – a contrast so severe it nearly breaks me to see it…….
I am also interviewed by editor Christopher Allen as part of his excellent series of ex-pat author interviews over on his blog, I Must Be Off.
Hope you enjoy both.
Dan Powell 
4 Responses to The Leaving of What’s Left @ Metazen
Dan, that’s a great story and an interesting interview. Someone asked me the other day what my fiction was about. I was stumped. I reckon I could just copy what you said, as it sums me up well too: “I would describe my work as moving between realist and magical realist fiction, dealing with the themes of love, family, parental-child relationships, and the loss of those things.” !
I guess your MA must be distance learning, given that it’s in Manchester. How does that work?
Thanks for taking the time to read my story and for your kind words. Looking at your Eggbox Eyeballs story I would agree that my description might well aptly describe your work. Probably a fair explanation of why I like that story of yours so much too – it spoke to me both as a reader and a writer I think.
The MA runs through an educational web service called Moodle, and we have forums, chat rooms and areas for resources. We have a weekly seminar, this term focused on reading novels, next term on our own writing. The chatroom discussions work surprisingly well, for the most part running in exactly the same way as an in the flesh seminars. The hard part of the course so far for me isn’t the distance learning aspect, the internet makes that easy, but fitting it in around three kids, running a house and working part time. I’ve become proficient at juggling lately. And at leaving the ironing until the pile threatens to fall and bury me.
Dan, that all sounds very familiar. In the mid-2000s I studied writing at Birkbeck for two years, attending one evening a week in term (a 3-hour round trip). At the same time, I took a distance learning MA with the Open University (in cultural studies), which took four years. And I was the sole breadwinner as a freelance writer, with three-kids under five. Looking back, I think I must have been insane. I know my wife thought it was crazy. I don’t know how I stuck with it, or how I found the time. But I got distinctions in both qualifications. Not looking to show off here, just empathising. Keep juggling!
Yowzer. My hat is off to your, sir. At least I don’t have to juggle being the main breadwinner along with all my other stuff. Very lucky to have a wife who, quite frankly, is so much better at that than me.
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