This story was worked up in the Litopia Lab from draft to final version within a week. It’s a real testament to the power of combined viewpoints and expertise. It’s my story, but I couldn’t have made it so good without Litopia.
It’s one of my favourites, and the fact that it soon found a home with Thin Skin, whose acceptance rate is only 2%, makes me love it all the more.
My first short story, featuring characters from Songs for Beginners, is published in the the current issue of Mslexia (issue 107) along with an author interview. The story forms part of the Mslexia Showcase on the theme of Blue, judged by author Amy Key.
“
Rachel McCarron's 'The Craft of Half-Remembering' is a moving story of a woman with dementia grasping for what she knows. I loved this as it was so unusual to read an account of dementia written in the first person... It is a story that reaches towards blue. - Amy Key
”
The Back Story
This was my first ever submission of a short story, and I was amazed that it was chosen for Mslexia’s Showcase. I wrote it specifically for the Showcase with the theme of Blue as a starting point. As usual, I started with the final scene and worked towards it. As usual, Neil Harper insisted on a guiding role. But this is Lillian Harper’s story.
For all the mess of their lives, singing together still made sense, the two of them, locked in harmony the way it had always been.
When Hannah is accused of being a lesbian, she ignores the bullies at school. She’s had bigger problems since the suicide of her dad and the breakdown of her mum. Besides, she’s the singer in a rock band, and the lads have got her back, especially guitarist Neil Harper. Hannah surprises everyone, including herself, by falling in love with her best mate and believing that she and Neil can face anything together. But grief has a way of twisting what’s left behind, and Neil recognises the truth in those rumours. Hannah leaves town in search of answers about her dad’s death and to explore the other side of her sexuality at the risk of losing Neil and the person she thought she was.
“
A masterpiece in coming-of-age fiction, exploration of human character, sexuality, and relationship dynamics – Claire Gallagher
”
The Back Story
Songs for Beginners blends the messy first love of Sally Rooney’s Normal People with the eccentric, spicy secret-keeping of Big Swiss by Jen Beagin. Add a passionate seventies soundtrack as in Daisy Jones & the Six (Taylor Jenkins Reid), and you get the vibe.
It’s the first in a trilogy of interconnected but standalone novels about Hannah and Neil, together and apart, spanning the 1970s to the brink of the millennium. A short story featuring characters from Songs for Beginners was featured in the Mslexia Showcase along with an author interview (issue 107).
