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This haunting book focusing on motherhood and post-natal depression is small enough to slip into a pocket, yet the 48 pages really do pack an emotional punch. The narrator quietly builds a picture of her childhood before the story subtly moves in an altogether more chilling direction. A photograph sits centre stage, with memories constructed to fit a need, a want. The supernatural tone builds as the story continues, while the reality of post-natal depression hits home. The Haunting of Strawberry Water is part of the Spotlight collection of books. Spotlight is a collaboration between Creative Future, Myriad Editions and New Writing South to discover, guide and support writers whose voices are under-represented. A ghost story with a difference, The Haunting of Strawberry Water slips into thoughts and throughly provokes feelings.
A gripping tale of post-natal depression, this short story reads like a modern retelling of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and has much in common with Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger in its realisation of psychological distress as a supernatural phenomenon.
A new mother, traumatised by an arduous labour, tries to come to terms with being abandoned as a baby by Olivia, the mother she never knew. Set in the eponymous `Strawberry Water', a mysterious 1920s country bungalow which overlooks a fast-flowing river, the story begins with a faded photograph of the woman our narrator assumes to be her mother.
Spotlight is a collaboration between Creative Future, New Writing South and Myriad Editions to discover, guide and support writers who are under-represented due to mental or physical health issues, disability, race, class, gender identity or social circumstance.
In the same series: Stroking Cerberus by Jacqueline Haskell; Memories of a Swedish Grandmother by Sarah Windebank; Summon by Elizabeth Ridout; Crumbs by Ana Tewson-Bozic and Cora Vincent by Georgina Aboud.
Closing date: 30/11/2020
‘This dazzling series shows that if the barriers can be vaulted there is true beauty to be had from the lesser-walked streets of literature. These works are both nourishing and inspiring, and a gift to any reader.’—Kerry Hudson
ISBN: 9781912408504
Publication date: 29/01/2020
Publisher: Myriad Editions
Format: Paperback
| ISBN: | 9781912408504 |
| Publication date: | 29th January 2020 |
| Author: | Tara Gould |
| Publisher: | Myriad Editions |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 64 pages |
| Genres: | Family Drama, Shorter Reads, Spine-Chilling Fiction, Thriller / Suspense, |
| Categories: | Short stories, Horror & ghost stories, |
Tara Gould studied visual arts at Brighton University and an MA at Sussex University. Her short stories have been published in anthologies including the Asham Anthology for Women Writers, and her plays have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. In 2016 she was Writer in Residence at Creative Futures. She lives in East Sussex.
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