BLOG POST: Writer In Residence (Jane- no longer tame)
A blog. Written by customer and friend of Red Lion Books, Jane Herd
Jane- no longer tame
Writer in Residence- Red Lion Book Shop, Colchester High Street, 5 th to 23rd August 2025
As Jane- no longer tame I am a feminist writer. My nom de plume arose spontaneously at the end of one of a series of poems using the metaphor of birds to explore the need to fly the nest and break from the gilded cage. One of my friends on hearing this title joked when had I ever been tame, I may speak out but I have always been limited by the experience of having been bullied and tormented for not conforming to how I was meant to be as woman. This alias allows me to push at the boundaries of my own fears to offer something beyond the published word. My novel, (A) Woman in Pieces arose spontaneously from yet another experience of being the only woman standing up against male abuse in an organisation that just wanted everyone to be nice and for it to go away. The book is an exposition of how women’s abuse, and their creative, spiritual and trauma responses are often actively and deliberately misinterpreted as madness to allow men to disallow such women’s experiences and maintain their power and control.
Whilst I was writing so many well-meaning people told me how the book had to be. How long, how it needed to be structured, what the publishing world wanted in order to let me in. Once it was finished I was then meant to go through years of purgatory following more things I had to do, find an agent, send 10,000 words and a summary, enter competitions, go to events, all in the expectation of repeated rejection. I decided not to engage in this dance, of competing to be heard in a system that is built to exclude me and even if I do get in to leave me with a small percentage of the proceeds, and to take away my ownership of my writing. I questioned the value of fixing my words forever as something individualistic, static and dead, for someone to sit with alone in their bedroom, reading silently and then discard once finished. Instead I went back to the origin of story as an oral tradition of millennium. I intend
as authors have done for centuries to share my work as oral story and hand written text as performance. The intention is to allow my work to live and grow, to be active and influential as a communal, shared, living and evolving activism through interaction and collaboration.
The first person who I approached with my intention of taking my writing out in the world in an unusual way was Jo Coldwell of Red Lion books who responded in her usual excited and generous way asking me to tell her what I wanted. So I said I wanted to sit in The Red Lion Books in Colchester for 3 weeks, August 5 th to 23rd, 2025, as the writer in residence where I would handwrite and talk to visitors to the book shop about my and their love of reading and what my writing wants to say and what I can learn from their responses to it. I know it is a paradox for someone not seeking publication (at least not in the standard way) to sit in a bookshop and handwrite text but Red Lion is a temple to story and I am delighted to sit as it’s priestess for just a few weeks.
Jane no longer tame offers workshops, storytelling, virtual and in person readings, writer in residencies, installations and individual and group growthfulness.
Our own event with Jane can be booked here
http://www.redlionbooks.co.uk/events/how-to-be-radical
Please contact her on
jane-nolongertame@outlook.com to learn more and receive her regular newsletter.