To A New Dawn E-Book

• Herausgeber: The Emma Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 127

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature brings you a series of heartfelt letters from the young voices of Nottingham in this brand-new anthology. To A New Dawn: Letters of Solidarity sees over forty young people recount their unique experiences of the first Covid-19 lockdown and the events that took place within it. Their stories are as heartbreaking as they are hopeful, looking towards a better tomorrow.

Leseprobe

To A New Dawn

Letters of Solidarity

Editor’s note

The following letters are published largely unedited. We have, however, made some soft edits to clarify meaning where required, for the benefit of the reader. We have not sought to alter the voices represented in this anthology, and we have taken measures to preserve the powerful, thoughtful and insightful voices of the young people whose letters are featured within these pages.

Copyright

Letters © individual copyright holders 2021

Selection copyright © Eve Makis 2021

Cover art © Kira Betts 2021

The right of Eve Makis to be identified as the editor of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Project administered by Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature, with funding and support from Arts Council England, Nottingham Castle Trust, Nottingham Trent University and the Thomas Farr Charity.

All rights reserved.

Print ISBN 978-1-912915-76-7

eBook ISBN 978-1-912915-77-4

A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the UK by Imprint Digital, Exeter.

Typeset by Emma Dai’an Wright

Published by The Emma Press

theemmapress.com

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

EMANI, 19

RAE, 16

DANIEL, 25

BEATRICE MUNRO, 17

DEANNA EL KHOURY, 18

HOLLIE, 19

MATTHEW BENTON-SMITH, 16

CHARLIE DAWN-SADLER, 23

ZOE CHINDA, 17

EMMA SPORTON, 17

FREYJA HOLLINGTON, 15

JAMES COWTAN, 17

ALEX CANE, 18

ELSPETH WHITE, 15

BECK SEWART, 16

RICHARD BROMHALL

ABBY STAFFORD, 17

CHARLOTTE LANES, 16

DANIEL MACDONALD SMITH, 25

LUCY PHILLIPS

LEANNE MODEN

EMILY, 16

LAURA STANLEY, 22

CHINENYE OKOLO, 16

MEGAN TURNER, 23

LIAM SKILLEN, 22

ANASTASIA M, 14

MARTA SILVA, 18

MILLIE BONFIELD, 16

NINA MOELLER, 25

PATRYCJA SKRZYPKOWSKA, 25

TEO EVE, 23

TY HEALY

RACHAEL HAMILTON-PEARL, 16

CJ, 17

CHRIS STIRLAND, 17

STACEY SMITH, 17

YERENNY CA, 25

LEWIS, 16

AMY BRADBURY, 19

RYAN LOUGHLIN, 16

ELLA MUSGROVE, 17

RED SMITH, 20

LATOYAH, 17

LUCY HILL, 18

RHIANN, 17

HEKMAT HASAN, 18

FAITH, 22

SOPHIE GREEN, 16

ELLIE GREEN, 16

AMINA, 16

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the writers who contributed letters and extracts of letters to the Letters of Solidarity project and to this anthology: your words are moving, insightful and hopeful, and we’re delighted to showcase your work. We are grateful to Richard Bromhall for organising the Letters of Solidarity project and to Ruby Tyler for making the website look incredible.

To Eve Makis for her excellent work editing the anthology, and to our volunteer editing assistants: Anna Friel, Callum Roome, Daria Paterek, Emma Stirland, Kishan Ganatra, Marie-Laure Corben, Katie Moore, Molly Whitford, Rijuta Lutchegadoo and Zoe Nevin – thank you for your thoughtful and empathetic editing support on the project. To Emma Dai’an Wright and the team at the Emma Press for putting together such a beautiful publication that fully celebrates the voices of the writers within it. And to Dr Sarah McConnell and Chris Brown at Nottingham Trent University for supporting Kira Betts to design our fabulous cover art for the anthology.

We are deeply grateful to receive funding and ongoing support for this project from Arts Council England, Nottingham Castle Trust, Nottingham Trent University and the Thomas Farr Charity. Thank you for allowing us to elevate the voices of young people in our city.

We are also unbelievably grateful to you, the reader. 2020 has been an incredibly challenging year but, as this project has shown, there is always hope.

Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature, December 2020

This anthology reflects the creative writing and views of young people from across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. Readers may not agree with all of the opinions expressed by the young people in this collection, but Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature has a commitment to dialogue and freedom of speech and expression in all our activities.

www.nottinghamcityofliterature.com

Introduction

There’s something wonderfully unique about young voices. An honesty and fearlessness, a strong belief in a better future, anger expressed without apology, a desire to spearhead change. Hope shone through the letters in our anthology, even when very dark emotions were expressed. We have letters to and from Covid-19. Letters of appreciation to mums, friends and key workers. One writer escaped lockdown through literature, another through her obsession with online maths. An NHS father wrote to his unborn son.

Many young people expressed concerns about racism, the environment and the prospect of joblessness. We received letters about depression, loneliness and a funeral in lockdown, the healing power of FaceTime with friends. In these pages you will find empathy, humour and wise words in abundance.

To A New Dawn was written and edited almost exclusively by young people. Our team of editors discussed what solidarity meant to them, and here’s what they had to say:

Solidarity is a catch-up over a cup of tea and a gentle nod of understanding. A rejection of the things that divide us and a celebration of what makes us individual. It’s connectedness: through experience, through values, through standing with others in their struggles. It’s resilience in the face of adversity. A feeling that you are not alone: a smile, a reply, an acknowledgement. The willingness to provide aid as well as make people feel safe. It is all-encompassing, from small acts of kindness in student communities, to coming together to fight injustice. Solidarity lies in the little gestures – the small things we do every day to show people we love and support them. It’s sending a text to check in with a far-away friend, and calling grandparents to brighten their day.

Our anthology is an act of solidarity, capturing a singular moment in history and reflecting the irrepressible spirit of youth.

Eve Makis, December 2020

About our editor: Eve Makis is the author of four novels, a screenplay and a life writing guide. She teaches fiction on the MA in Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University, where she is writer-in-residence for the Postcolonial Studies Centre.

EMANI, 19

To a New Dawn,

When lockdown hit, we were all plunged into darkness. Not as a creeping shadow – we did not get the luxury of time – but rather a plunge into an icy lake with rocks around our feet. Rocks that were built from our fear of the unknown, the loss of loved ones and ourselves.

Everyone’s icy lake looked different, but mine took shape as a room with four simple walls. My home was 5,215 miles away, so the four walls of my accommodation became my new family. At first, they kept me safe, my protection against the darkness that blanketed our city, cradling me in their warmth and standing there with unfaltering stability.

They saw me laugh, they saw me cry, but then I stopped doing either; although the walls kept out the darkness, they did not stop it from budding inside the empty landscape of my heart and mind. It sprouted as spring moved into summer and within days it was an impenetrable, twisted wall of ivy, wrapped around me like the duvet I called my new home.

The thought of no foreseeable future plagued my mind, a plague that had become, perhaps, even more contagious to the minds of students than the virus that had placed us in isolation. Then, as I tossed and turned with restlessness into the early hours, the four walls felt as though they were betraying me, and in a desperate escape I went outside. That’s when I saw that the darkness that had filled the empty streets had been broken by you.

You rose, a beacon of hope and solidarity. Claps for the NHS and music in the park became our Aubade, the sounds of which filled my ears and consequently filtered out the dark clouds of my mind. We were all reciting the same words, singing the same tunes, and because of that the streets of Nottingham were never truly empty when they were greeted by you.

Together we know that, when the night comes back to claim us, we will create a new dawn to pull us out once more.

Love from us.

Emani

“I love the sensitive exploration of the mental toll of lockdown in this letter, as well as its emerging hopeful message. The depiction of the people of Nottingham coming together in the final paragraph is a beautiful image of local solidarity.”

Molly Whitford, Volunteer Editor

An aubade is a poem or a piece of music appropriate to the dawn or early morning.

RAE, 16

The silence has changed me and maybe it has changed us all. Change is scary, untrusted, but it is not as terrible as it appears; it gives us opportunity, growth, creativity, freedom.

DANIEL, 25

To my Unborn Son,

I wake up in the mornings, frosty and cold. Where did the night go? I rub my eyes; it doesn’t help. Never does. I’m still tired, vision blurry. I put on my glasses. Better. I fumble for the lamplight. A warm, orange glow, just enough to function but careful not to disturb your mum. She’s snoring. You’re kicking; I can feel your thumps as I whisper good morning to my little man. I rip off my PJs and pull up my work slacks. The cold was never my friend. I remind myself: there are more lives to save.

I stuff lunch into my rucksack bag. I make a mental note to thank Mum for making it when I get home. Automatically, I tip cornflakes into an old, chipped bowl and splash in milk. I munch and prepare. Joints stiff, brain still foggy…What now? Shirt! I button up my shirt in reverence. This is my uniform. I don my NHS lanyard and slide on my grandpa’s old Clarks. Comfiest shoes you did ever know. I hope he’d be proud. Management plans for my patients edge slowly to the fore. I’m fond of them; I hate to see them admitted but love to see them leave. I pray I can help reunite more with their families today. Grasping the doorknob, I boldly step across the threshold demarcating my flat and the outside world. At home I’m Daniel, a husband and expectant father. I love to goof off, and dad jokes come naturally. But as I look up, seeing only the stars pinpricking the pitch blackness, out here I’m a medical student. The gravitas of which sometimes feels too heavy.

The keys fumble in my numb fingers. I promise myself one day I’ll buy a car with remote locking. Folded into the car, the engine brums to life. Cooed by the engine’s ancient rhythm, steady judder, and the smell of old furniture, the old dog comes to life.

I have little over a year to go before I’m a junior doctor, but already I feel the trust people put in me. I ask them questions and they give me intimate answers, unflinchingly. Affairs, misdeeds, regrets: I delicately hold them all. Mould them into diagnoses I proffer to my consultants. I hold his hands as the retired doctor prepares for chemo. He looks up at me for reassurance; I squeeze tighter. I listen as a woman tells me she has months to live; her husband’s face tenses, pained. It hangs low. I dedicate my break time to looking into palliative care; my textbook is dotted with tear marks.

So many have died recently, and I have felt so useless. Covid-19 has scorched communities, scarring countries like the bushfires did in Australia. Political calamity is divisive, spurring national in-fighting; children are starving during a pandemic, while ethnic minorities are fighting to simply… matter. I’d hoped to welcome you into better circumstances. I want justice, I want healing, I want a world as hungry for equality as for dominance.

I slow into my parking spot. In the midst of despair, I remember: I can’t lift the world, but I can lift where I stand. I look forward to lifting you up to reach your dreams. Suddenly, my world is alright. I can’t be everything to everyone, but I can be something to someone. I double-check I’ve got everything and rapidly open the glove box to find my stethoscope smiling at me. I wondered where it had gone.

I’m greeted by Annabelle at the door, offering a crisp blue mask and hand sanitiser. I smile. She can’t see it, but I think she smiles back. I’ve crossed another threshold. My home away from home. Even in lockdown, our voices cannot be shut down. Our actions ripple, albeit subtly. As humanity ever-incessantly grinds at the limits of possibility, so must I donate my might, hoping one day, not far from now, I will save lives and you can be proud of me.

Love always,

Your NHS Dad

“The profoundly moving nature of this NHS Dad’s letter caught me off guard: from the narrator’s role as an expectant father to a dutiful and attentive medical student, it is their care that has helped so many during this pandemic. Examples of such devotion are the greatest display of solidarity.”

Anna Friel, Volunteer Editor

BEATRICE MUNRO, 17

When I thought what a ‘letter of solidarity’ might entail, I was struck by the enormity of such a task. I cannot possibly hope to encompass a universal experience. So I will stick to what I know, and hope that my individual experience might be enlightening.

Lockdown was inequal parts anxiety to calm. It was like strong squash: more enjoyable than it had any right to be, but nevertheless pungently overpowering. I am now in my last year of school, and so watched this year’s exam results fiasco with trepidation. Autumn brought the tumult of students going to university – where I hope to be next year – and that only increased my fear and anxiety. Returning to school has been a blessing, however. I have been reminded of a useful mantra: worry about what you can control; do not fret about what you cannot. Thus I am in the process of creating a zen-like state to attempt to salvage my mental health as the days draw in.

But I don’t entirely fear the longer nights. Waking up to a dark window in the morning has its magic; walking to school under a rising sun wondrous. I also relish the brisk and still air of winter, rosy cheeks and ruffled hat-hair being the marks of a good walk. I also enjoy seeing the world at night, despite how afraid I am of it sometimes. Everything is set in a mellow light, a sepia tone rendering it magical. Night-time walks have become a fixture to banish my grown-up night terrors.

In solidarity, I offer my story, my experience and my hope for the future. Nottingham will always be a love, its people unique. So I raise my cup of squash in solidarity; tentative, but not fearful, of what is to come.

“Solidarity… in one letter? It’s exactly what Beatrice highlights here: an enormous task. But what she writes, her individual experience, is enlightening and serves as part of the whole anthology connecting people’s lives to express our solidarity. Beatrice makes me feel invited to also enjoy life’s simple pleasures, and her running metaphor of a strong squash adds a comic yet heartfelt tone as she closes her letter, hopeful of the future.”

Katie Moore, Volunteer Editor