Featured Writer
Rowena M Love
Listen to many a writer and they’ll tell you how they’ve been scribbling in notebooks since before they could talk. Not me. Although I’ve always had a love of words, I didn’t even think of a being a writer until 1997. Yes, I can be that exact.
That year, three elements coincided to provide the genesis for my writing career. Firstly, I was finishing a Maîtrise at Paris X (Nanterre) University and my research paper or ‘mémoire’ proved I could write at length (albeit in a different language).
Second: some English creative writing, when an old teacher was looking for copy for a book she was editing in celebration of my school’s centenary.
What brought those two elements together was sharing accommodation with a French student called Sandra, who loved writing. Long were the discussions we’d have about writing and the creative process, which fired my own enthusiasm.
So, when I came home to Scotland, I decided to try my hand at it. Keen though I was to put pen to paper, the writing seed might well have shrivelled had it not been for discovering Ayr Writers’ Club shortly after my return; the encouragement and support that I received from AWC members ensured its healthy growth.
Although I intended writing fiction, I attended every workshop AWC ran and had a go at producing something for all genres. By December, I had my first poem accepted for publication (The Feartie Cat in The Scots Magazine), although it wasn’t actually the first in print. D C Thompson’s long lead times meant that a small poetry press called Helicon published another of my poems first. That one, entitled Our Place, was originally written as ‘homework’ for the poetry workshop.
Within that first session I also had an article accepted in Scottish Memories.
That pattern of poetry and non-fiction publication has continued ever since with my work appearing in a wide range of magazines and newspapers both here and abroad. It has also been read aloud on the radio.
Although I wouldn’t consider myself a dramatist, winning a club competition did mean getting a one-act play produced in 1999 at the SeptembAYR Festival.
By 2004, with the volume of poems I’d had in print, I really wanted to produce my own collection. Having been knocked back by many publishers on the grounds that ‘poetry doesn’t make money’ I got together with two fellow members of AWC and a friend to form Makar Press (www.makarpress.co.uk). We published a book each in 2004 (mine was The Chameleon of Happiness ISBN 0-9547084-0-7), then a joint collection in 2006 (Running Threads ISBN 0-9547084-4-X). We do a lot of group poetry performances and are rapidly gaining a name for ourselves throughout Scotland. And, yes, we are making a profit.
Makar Press also published a book for Ayr Writers’ Club this year, which I co-edited with Ann Burnett, as part of its Ayr 800 celebrations.
I was President of the Club in 2001-02 and have been its poetry workshop leader since then.
My own website www.rowenamlove.co.uk has more details.