Writers on the Storm

We are a loosely affiliated group of writers with varied interests. Poets, novelists, short story writers, crafters of flash fiction, journalists, translators, we all work with words. And now we are working from home with words.

The pandemic now taking hold all over the world is an event like nothing we have seen before. It requires a mobilisation of people and resources on a scale not seen outside war. Our certainties have been turned upside down. Lives, comfortable or otherwise, have been disrupted, locked down. Schools and workplaces are closed, consumerism halted, simple outdoor pleasures denied, sociability rendered dangerous.

Above all, there is the fear. It lurks everywhere. Our enemy is unseen, unseeable. Our fear is visible. It is written on our faces, in our masks, in our expressions, our gloved hands, our tentative edgings around strangers, and the new social manners required when we dare leave the home to join the lonely queues to enter the supermarkets.

Nor does that anxiety leave us when we return to the sanctity of home. We must wash our hands, our shopping, disinfect the keys, the debit card, before we can rest, or work. And at night unease haunts our fitful sleep.

But this is also a known quantity. Scientists have a good idea what it is, and how it is transmitted. Epidemiologists devour data to plot the course of what will be a finite event, either because we find a vaccine, or a cure, or because we develop sufficient immunity to treat it like any 'normal' virus. We have good reason to hold on to hope.

Fear, hope, and all the other emotions we feel will find a release, in all the creative ways at our command. The purpose of this intervention by Writers on the Storm is to share our experiences.

#publish #steps #checklist