Bristol writer Judy Darley launches new short story collection

Author and journalist Judy Darley has lived in or close to Bristol for most of her life, and is now based in Totterdown. As a former travel writer, her writing is often rooted in a strong sense of place.

“When the world stopped in March 2020,” she tells Bristol 24/7, “my focus shifted closer to home.”

Inspired by her daily lockdown walks, Darley began to write the short stories that would go on to comprise her third collection, The Stairs Are a Snowcapped Mountain, which is set to be launched at Waterstones on March 26.

“I turned my gaze, and my creativity, to Bristol’s variety and beauty, and all the pockets of wilderness offered by parks, cemeteries and rivers,” she reflects.

“Lockdown provided a chance to get to know the locations within walking distance from home, and to observe the people in my neighbourhood.”

For Darley, walking and writing became a vital tool through which to process her emotions about what was happening in the wider world at the time, and to channel the people that she saw on her daily strolls: “from the woman howling beneath a tree in Victoria Park, who features in Leaf after Leaf, to the child whose mum is a key worker in The Rules of Contagion, which includes a hopscotch grid drawn on a path in Perrett Park”.

Why Rivers Run to the Sea gives voice to rivers, a physical representation of the urge to escape that Darley occasionally felt during the early days of the lockdowns.

She notes that curiously, as a writer, the narrowing of her personal horizons actually served to add new depths and greater complexity to her work. It was a powerful means of escape, into an inner world. “Writing gave me a chance to zigzag through memories and daydreams, and allowed me to recast my anxieties in a form that I could adapt and control in the shape of fantasies that became short stories.

Victoria Park view of Totterdown – photo: Judy Darley

“The act of writing creatively presents opportunities to face our fears in a safe, imagined space and develop the resilience to manage real-world stresses.”

There are many Bristol-based stories in The Stairs Are a Snowcapped Mountain: Alone Doesn’t Have to Mean Lonely was inspired by a walk in Victoria Park; Rocked Awake by Arnos Vale Cemetary; Tunnelled by Redlcliffe Caves; Calamities of Varied Weights by St Nicks Market; Tidal Suck by Langton Street Bridge; both Skip Diving and Simmer and Steep, by the Totterdown streets.

“Inspiration is everywhere if you only think to look,” smiles Darley. “It’s what you do with those burgeoning ideas that matters. If you so choose, you can bring magic or simply a healthy sense of possibility to any location.”

The launch and literary night at Waterstones will feature Darley reading from the collection, alongside live music from singer songwriter Eva Appleton and poetry from former midwife turned writer, Helen Sheppard.

Bristol 24/7 is pleased to enclose the full text for flash fiction story Leaf after Leaf below:

Cover of The Stairs Are a Snowcapped Mountain (Reflex Press, 2022) – photo: Judy Darley

Leaf after Leaf

Root

You’re taking your Government-sanctioned daily exercise in the park when you see her: a woman with cropped, white hair strides towards a small-leafed lime tree and halts.

Your brain hisses with shuffling unease about the shrunken job market, your precarious health, the worsening climate emergency, the future…

The woman tips back her head and opens wide. Her long, low cry surges from somewhere deep and guttural. Leaves shiver. Squirrels freeze. A knot of sparrows unravels, stitching surprise against clouds.

Her roar wriggles under your skin. Your anxiety quiets in that moment.

You keep your gaze on her as she drops her chin, relaxes her shoulders and walks away.

Branch

You want that scream to make a difference. To spread across the city and beyond until everyone’s at it – walking onto park lawns, choosing a tree and allowing negative emotions to soar out.

You envision mental health helplines reporting dips in suicide attempts; police officers recording an all-time low in violent crime.

You picture doctors prescribing weekly ‘let it out’ sessions.

You smile as you stroll.

Arborists will report that the trees absorbing our shrieks are thriving, you decide, and your pace gains a jaunty bounce.

Tree

You emerge from the park onto the dusty roadside that leads home.

You think of the oak shoot sprouting from an acorn buried by a squirrel. Recently, it put out its first loop-edged leaf.

Later, when everyone else is asleep, and the Milky Way prickles the sky, you kneel in the flowerbed beside the tiny oak. Drawing in a breath of cool, still night air, you lift your face to the stars and open your mouth. You let out every shred of angst until there’s space in your heart for something that feels like hope.

The Stairs Are a Snowcapped Mountain is out now from Reflex Press. The book launch is at Waterstones, Bristol Galleries, on March 26 at 7pm. Free tickets can be reserved at www.waterstones.com. For more information about Judy Darley, visit www.skylightrain.com.

Main photo: Jo Mary Butler

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