A month on from publishing, and a slice of Welsh summer...
How has it been four weeks already?
First of all, I can hardly believe a month has passed since the launch of Death of a Clown. How is that possible? Why don’t the winter months fly by as quickly?
Those who follow my socials will have most likely seen the pics I post from my coast path treks around my own county, Ceredigion, and my neighbouring county, Pembrokeshire, but I thought it might be nice to post a few here for followers who are not on my socials.
I’m fortunate in that I live within a 20 to 30 minute drive of much of the Welsh coast path, which is wonderful when the weather is good but not less of an advantage in winter. One of our absolute favourite walks is from the tiny seaside village of Llangrannog to the peninsula known as Ynys Lochtyn.
As you can see, it’s a bit of a climb, but the payoff is immense. We often find we have the whole peninsula to ourselves, and we always take a picnic. We have our favourite spot overlooking the sea and the tiny island, where we sit and listen to music or to a story. Sometimes we spot dolphins or seals, especially if there happens to be boats nearby. Last week, the water was teaming with jellyfish.
If you’d like to find out more about the West Wales coast path, here’s a link.
The tiny island is associated with a local legend which goes like this:
In the days of King Arthur there lived a giant named Bica who suffered an agonizing toothache. A man named Lochtyn helped remove the offending tooth and in return he asked for an island of his own (ynys = island). The giant, Bica, ran his finger along the peninsula, thus creating the tiny island we see today.
The whole area is inspirational, and I’m currently writing a speculative short story set on this very peninsula. I’ll let you know how that goes in a future post.
And now on to Death of a Clown…
As I mentioned earlier, it’s been a month since it published, and over the weeks I’ve received personal messages of gratitude from readers who have felt such an affinity to the main character, Chester, that they simply had to share their stories with me. I wish I could share some of them, but they include some intimate details which I would never divulge. Suffice it to say, I’ve been truly touched.
Link: Death of a Clown
A strange thing happened yesterday, something which also reminded me of the reason I wrote Death of a Clown. Some of you will know that I taught for twenty-seven years, with my specialty being English. I loved my profession, but most of all I loved the quirky kids, kids who I knew had creative flair or potential, and I tried my best to foster that talent in them. The town in which I taught was in a deprived part of Wales, a post-industrial town in the Welsh valleys where such kids, in truth, have little opportunity to pursue their interests or achieve any kind of career outside of the norm.
Yesterday, I discovered that a boy I taught, a boy who had a real love of and aptitude for drama, had snagged the role of Jimmy Fox in Danny Boyle’s recent release 28 Years Later. And honestly, to see the boy (now a young man) achieve his dream made my day, my whole weekend in fact. I could not have been more thrilled! I sent him a message to tell him how proud I was, and we reconnected. He said how he remembered me nagging him and his peers for the way they peppered their speech with the word ‘like’ and how I had ‘drilled it out of him.’ Very amusing, but I hope he now understands why I did it. I wanted those kids to have the opportunities they deserved, and part of that involved opening their eyes to the importance of good communication.
If you’re a fan of the 28 Days Later franchise, connect with Sam here because he also has a bigger role to play in the sequel. He’s an absolute treasure!
As for the connection between this anecdote and Death of a Clown, well it’s an obvious one. Follow your dreams and never allow your culture or the beliefs of others to determine your destiny.
One life, folks, that’s what I believe. Live it to the fullest!
Thank you for reading!
Yours from Wales,
Catherine McCarthy
I always look forward to your beautiful photos, Cath, and doing a little armchair traveling 🖤
And what pride you must feel for your former student!
I’m thrilled (though not surprised) that Death of a Clown is striking so many notes. It’s such a treasure.
xx
Thank you for the update, and I hope Death of a Clown is also paying off financially too! I am now going to go back and watch the movies in the 28 Days Later franchise, and wait for the latest one to come out on Prime. Good work as a teacher trying to inspire, because it seems the reverse is almost too often the case.
I recall seeing an interview with Tim Burton some years back, where he said you could see how imagination was slowly drummed out of most children by visiting almost any elementary school in America, public or private. You would look at the drawings posted inside and outside classrooms from art class. The Ks,1s, 2s would be wild and full of all kinds of strange creatures, but by the time you got to Grade 6, you could see that a kind of uniformity had set in, and a lot of that imagination was lost because it was simply not nurtured or encouraged.
Got one series rec for you - I am watching a British SF drama (2 seasons) called The Rig.
Thank you!