Introduction
Hello, and welcome to my blog.
I’m Anne, and I’m the author of The Space Between the Stars, published by Pan Macmillan, and The Theatre of Glass and Shadows, which Bonnier are publishing in May this year.
The Theatre of Glass and Shadows is set in an alternate version of London, in which a vast Theatre District has grown up on the south bank of the Thames. At the heart of the district is an immersive show which has been running for centuries, inspiring generations of dedicated fans to try to uncover its secrets and piece together its stories. Into this closed and secretive world comes nineteen year-old Juliet, searching for the truth about her family, and for a place to belong.
The initial seed of the idea for this story was planted after my first ever visit to an immersive theatre production – Punchdrunk’s The Drowned Man – and writing it allowed me to explore some of the things I’m really interested in, both as a writer and as a reader.
As an author, I tend to think of novels as the default way of absorbing stories, but if we look at the history of storytelling, printed, mass-produced fiction, purchased and read as a solitary activity, is actually a relatively recent development. Historically, the sharing of stories has been much more immediate – through oral storytelling traditions, theatrical performances, serialisations in magazines and newspapers – and with the rise of social media, it feels as though reading is becoming a much more shared experience once again. We’re also seeing a lot of experimentation in the way stories are delivered. Immersive theatre is one example of this, but there are many others.
For me, there’s something really wonderful in stories as a collaborative experience, and a lot of that joy is about realising that there are stories everywhere. We are, fundamentally, storytellers. We always have been, and we always will be.
So that is what I’ll be talking about on here. Stories and storytelling. I’ll be sharing tips and tools for writers, reviews of books I’ve enjoyed, news about theatre and other events, details about my own writing and what I’m up to, and anything else that jumps into my head.
I hope you enjoy reading.
Anne
I’ve always been drawn to the idea of stories and storytelling – why we tell stories, how we tell them, what it is about them that draws us in. Since I’ve been talking about The Theatre of Glass and Shadows, in the run-up to publication, I’ve realised that the books that engage me the most tend to be those where there is a sense that the story on the page is part of a much bigger world. I love books where there’s a sense of untold histories and half-glimpsed stories; books where you feel that the characters had a life that began before the first page, and that will continue beyond the last page; books where you can allow your imagination to spiral out beyond the main story into all the possibilities of the fictional world.
For me, immersive theatre raised all sorts of questions about the way we tell – and experience – stories.
