What inspired me to write One Green Bottle? The story started
out as a tale of a lonely old woman who talked to the clothes on her washing
line believing it to be her son back from the war. I knew I wanted to write
about dementia but that also I wanted to find a way to infuse it with humour,
even where that humour has an undertone of sadness. I also knew I wanted to
write in the Lancastrian/Mancunian dialect, as I think it’s a dialect that lends
itself to a strong narrative voice. I used the metaphor of her son, as a green
bottle and the song as a theme for a soldier in the war before I realised that
the song Nine Green Bottles actually was used in that context historically! The
rest of the story came out of that idea, that the focal point was mortality,
that sense of waiting for some kind of release.
I found out about Café Lit through Duotrope, which I have
used to submit short stories.
I enjoy reading short stories; I particularly love the
children’s stories by Oscar Wilde as they are so beautiful, really coming to
life through the sharpness of the tales told. I also enjoy the stories of the
horror writer Ramsey Campbell, and Henry James. For me, the appeal of short
stories is that, as readers, we get a little glimpse into a world that is
briefly presented to us, but when written well, a short story leaves the reader
with an image, or an idea that stays with them because of how compact and
focused they are.
I know of a creative café at Phoenix, Leicester, where people
meet up in order to write, though I have never used it.
I began writing before I could read, literally at about two
years old, when my mother would come in in the night and take down things I
wanted to say. I have no idea if she kept them or what they said…I write mainly
Women’s Fiction/Humour and humour is important to me because of its cathartic
value, maybe especially in the face of struggle or tragedy, but I am also
inspired by the wit of Oscar Wilde, Victoria Wood, and Alan Bennett. I grew up
with Coronation Street and northern humour continues to play a part in my
writing even when I am not writing in a northern dialect. For me , humour is
anarchic, playing with life, playing with the rules, turning things upside down.
Although I don’t consider myself a ‘political’ writer in any direct sense, I
admire writers who use humour as a weapon to deconstruct societal norms because
if people could take themselves less seriously the world would be a better place
and there would be no wars.
Here is a link to the anthology, In the Kitchen, in which my
story, Written in Soup is included.
https://amzn.eu/d/8XFv6rT
This link is for the Dark and Light anthology, in which my
story, Daisy and Dolly’s Amazing Lockdown Adventure appears.
https://amzn.eu/d/1tXZaQD
Julia's bio
Julia Wood holds
a Masters’ Degree in Continental Philosophy from Warwick University and has
previously published a non-fiction book, The Resurrection of Oscar Wilde: A
Cultural Afterlife (Lutterworth Press, 2007). She is a writer of Women’s
Fiction and short stories, many of which have been anthologised.
Her women’s
fiction/ comedy novel, The Adventures of Jenny Bean, aged 49, and an Awful
Lot was longlisted for the Fiction Factory First Chapter competition
(September 2022) and the Yeovil Literary Prize (June, 2023). The sequel
novella, Jenny Bean, Calamity Queen, was short listed for the CWIP Prize
(February 2023) and will be published in The Book of Witty Women
anthology in September.
Her short story,
One Green Bottle, has been selected to appear in The Best of Café Lit
Anthology, 2023, and will be published in August this year.
Other short
stories that have appeared in anthologies, include - Exhausting a Place in
Leicester, (Lulu, September 2019), Songs for the Elephant Man
(Mantle Lane Press, October 2019) and In the Kitchen, (Dahlia Press,
2020), Dark and Light Anthology (Rulers’ Wit, 2021) Resolutions (Bridge House
Publishing, 2021), the Cafe Lit Online Magazine, The Anansi Archive, The
Writers’ Foundry Review (2022) and Cerasus Magazine (Ed, John Wilks, Cerasus
Poetry, London, 2023).
She has had
stories shortlisted for, No Spiders were Harmed in the Making of this
Anthology, 2020 and the Hastings Short Story Prize, 2020, and of course,
the CWIP Prize (2023). She has been a regular contributor for Journals of a
Pandemic, and Pendemic and has had a monologue performed by Make
It Write. (September 2022)
She is a
longstanding member of Leicester Writers’ Club.
