Introducing Carla Scarano D’Antonio

An Italian in Surrey: My Italian legacy rooted in Britain

The Woking Writer's Collective is thrilled to be able to introduce you to Woking author and poet Carla Scarano D’Antonio, a lady with many talents. Here, Carla tells us about herself and her work...

"I am Italian and moved to England with my family in 2007. Food and family relationships are very important to me and interweave in my daily life. Preparing good food and cherishing family connections have shaped my personality and formed my identity. In Italy, I was an English teacher, and in England, I became an Italian teacher. The English and Italian languages, cultures and pieces of literature mingle in my everyday life and in my readings. I write in English though Italian inspires my work too. 

I started to write poetry a few years before moving to England, attending American classes online. When I moved to England (Lancaster), I joined workshops at the adult education college and readings in pubs and at The Storey. On Friday nights, we used to meet for the Spotlight event organised by Sarah Fiske and Ron Baker. There was always a featured poet or prose writer, music and open mic sessions. I could read my work and felt very much welcomed. Writing became very important as it gave me the possibility to communicate what I felt and to connect with people I liked. In Lancaster, I met two important poets who supported me, Sarah Hymas and Elizabeth Burns. Unfortunately, Elizabeth died of cancer just before I moved to Surrey in 2015, but I am still in contact with Sarah. In Lancaster, I attended the MA in creative writing at Lancaster University and decided to self-publish my first pamphlet, A Winding Road, in 2011. In 2016 I won first prize in the John Dryden Translation Competition. The prize was awarded for the translation of some poems by Eugenio Montale that Keith Lander and I co-translated. 

When I moved to Surrey, I attended the stanza group and joined the Woking Writers Circle and also went to readings at Write Out Loud in Woking, 1000 Monkeys in Guildford and Poetry Performance at the Adelaide in Twickenham. I met many poets and writers, made new connections and friends and enjoyed every moment of this new journey in poetry. I also started to write reviews of poetry collections and art exhibitions, which are regularly published in online magazines such as London Grip, Write Out Loud, South, The High Window, Tears in the Fence, Pulsar, Litro magazine and The Temz review. Links to my reviews and articles are on my website (http://www.carlascaranod.co.uk/?Publications) and are also available on the Academia.edu website: https://reading.academia.edu/CarlaScarano

Carla reading at 'Write Out Loud', Lightbox, Woking

Reading the collections of renowned and less-known poets has expanded my understanding tremendously and has inspired more poetry, and allowed me to form new contacts. My favourite poets are well-known names such as Coleridge, Emily Dickinson and William Carlos Williams and contemporary poets too, such as Hannah Lowe, Fiona Benson, Elizabeth Burns, Helen Mort, Pascale Petit, Kim Moore and Simon Armitage, among others. My favourite Italian poets are Giacomo Leopardi, Eugenio Montale and Alda Merini. Last year I completed a PhD on Margaret Atwood’s work at the University of Reading, so Margaret Atwood is my hero and, for me, the best writer ever. She has written poetry, fiction and non-fiction, reviews and essays; she has published about sixty texts in all, which is amazing! She is an inspiration to me.

As well as writing poetry, I also nurture my lifelong passion for painting. When I lived in the north of England, I took part in the Silverdale and Arnside Craft and Art Trail, and I ran workshops for children too. When I moved south, I was very busy working in an international school and researching for my PhD at first, but then I started exhibiting my artwork again with the Woking Art Society and Artists Open Studios, Woking Art Society and Artists Open Studios  (https://surreyopenstudios.org.uk/artist/carla-scarano-dantonio/) and took part in The Lightbox Christmas Fair and Chobham Festival. I have used tempera, acrylics and oil painting in the past, but at the moment, I mainly work with oil pastels, ink and watercolours, mixing the media to obtain unexpected and interesting results. I also love crocheting and have created a crochet installation for a local postbox in Chobham near Tesco. More information about my artwork and fairs is on my website:

http://www.carlascaranod.co.uk/?Paintings

http://www.carlascaranod.co.uk/?Readings_%26amp%3B_Fairs

http://www.carlascaranod.co.uk/?Art_%26amp%3B_Craft

'Gerbera in a Pot' by Carla

My first collection, Negotiating Caponata, is mainly about food connected with family relationships. It was published by Dempsey & Windle in July 2020. At the time, I also wrote a sequence on my father’s death (he died in April 2016 of pancreatic cancer in less than a month after the diagnosis). I tried to communicate his pain and my affection for him even though our relationship was not easy. I was so excited and happy about this publishing opportunity. The launch was online because of the Covid restrictions. About fifty people attended the launch from the UK, Italy, Canada and Australia. It was wonderful.

I write poetry regularly, prompted by workshops I attend online with Second Light and Tears in the Fence and by my everyday experiences: what I do, feel and make. 

I read poetry not only for the purpose of writing reviews but also read it in magazines that I am subscribed to. Poetry has become central to my practice and study. I am also a member of Ver poets and attend their online workshops. For two years running, in 2021 and 2022, I took part in the Tears in the Fence festival in September in Stourpaine, Dorset, which was engrossing and inspiring. Here is the link to this unique experience: 

https://tearsinthefence.com/2022/09/13/tears-in-the-fence-festival-bewilderment-bewildered-be-wild/#like-8528. 

Currently, I am carrying on with my research and studies on Margaret Atwood’s work too. I attend conferences and write and publish articles on her work in academic journals. 

At the end of September, I went on a fantastic Maddogyoga retreat at a youth hostel in Totland on the Isle of Wight with my yoga group. I wrote a piece about it that described all the exercises and activities we did and the good food we had on the 4-day trip. It was an exciting and rejuvenating experience that made me feel fit and happy. I felt accepted and valued in this community and made valuable connections during the retreat. We had walks together, helped each other to prepare dinners and clear up afterwards and had long, relaxing chats about our worries and joys. In addition to the delicious dinners and exceptional cakes, we had good fun too and even had a games night and a fancy-dress party. Shena Grigor, our yoga instructor, was entertaining and professional as ever. I read poems at the beginning and end of each yoga session which I had collected from online magazines and printed them in a booklet. It was an enthralling experience I hope to repeat. Here is the link to my review: 

https://wokingwriters.wordpress.com/2022/10/28/body-combat-sessions-evening-swimming-fancy-dress-and-plenty-of-cake-all-this-and-yoga-too/ 

Workwear, Carla's latest collection of poems

Last but not least, my new collection, Workwear, has just been published by The High Window (https://thehighwindowpress.com/the-high-window-press/#Workwear). In this collection, there are poems about my mother and my grandmothers and some about food and family ties, as in my previous book, Negotiating Caponata. However, Workwear has a wider perspective and includes more poems. Besides a section on the pandemic, some of the poems respond to other poets’ work, such as Sylvia Plath’s, and to social and political issues, such as Trump’s wall, immigration, otherness, abuse and ageing. There is a sequence on my autistic daughter Valentina that retraces her story and the story of our family from her adoption to the diagnosis of autism in 2008 and her move to a residential school in 2016. Every time I read the sequence, it seems as if it is happening again, and when I visit her at weekends and see how lively and how happy she is, I feel we did the right thing. The collection is dedicated to my granddaughter, Violetta, who is a joy and a blessing. My daughter Irene created the painting for the front cover; I think it is brilliant and reflects perfectly the spirit of the poems in the collection. 

Here is the link to a new web page on my website where you can learn more about my work and purchase a copy of the book: https://www.carlascaranod.co.uk/?Publications&normal

The launch will be next year both on Zoom and at The Lightbox. The book is also for sale at The Lionsheart bookshop in the centre of Woking, at 67 Commercial Way, GU21 6HN (https://www.lionsheartbookshop.co.uk/).

I also write a blog, carlascarano.blogspot.co.uk/, where I publish recipes, my artwork, travel journals and opinions. I especially like the atmosphere of poetry gigs, where so many different kinds of poetry are read, all good and entertaining. I love this feeling of diversity and inclusion. I am co-compere at the Write Out Loud open mic at the Lightbox with Rodney Wood and am the representative for Woking Stanza, a Poetry Society group that meets online. I am very active on social media, too and use Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I post about what I do daily, my impressions, opinions and readings, and I also post pictures I take that move me. I enjoy being in constant communication with people I know or don’t know in person – and concerning the latter, I value this link with them all the same. We share what we love, and above all, we stay creative, which keeps us alive and lively. I enjoy the process, that is, the relationships and connections we establish, more than the product, that is, the poems I eventually complete, though the two things go hand in hand. So, poetry is important, but people are more so, and poetry helps me connect with them. It’s a fantastic opportunity!"

An earlier collection from Carla

 

The Assassination of Hilary Mantel

In September this year, the country lost one of its greatest authors, Dame Hilary Mantel MBE. Although most famous for Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, another of her books was the controversial The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, which caused quite a stir. 

In 2015, the late Toby J Cole, a near neighbour of Mantel's during her time living in Knaphill, Woking mischievously created a book of short stories, The Assassination of Hilary Mantel & Other Brookwood Asylum Shorts. 

One reviewer describes the book as a fantastic set of gothic modern-day short stories - all with a common theme: they are set in and around a Victorian asylum (now converted to luxury housing) whose walls and grounds still echo its dark past. Each story is unique, with each having a tightly-written plot and strong individual protagonists.

Cover image of book originally appeared in the London Illustrated News

 

About the book:

A famous author upsets the establishment by writing a book. They come gunning for her. Can you write what you like as fiction without repercussions? Can she survive? A woman has a nervous breakdown. Can she walk backwards to happiness? The Asylum Bats have been feeding for a hundred and fifty years and are still hungry. These and other tales from The Brookwood Asylum show that the soul and secrets of an old building continue to echo through the years. This was novelist Toby Cole’s second and, sadly, his last book.

The short stories... 

 

1 The Assassination of Hilary Mantel

2 The Woman Who Walked Backwards

3 The Asylum Feeders

4 The Asylum Nurse

5 Electro-convulsive Therapy

6 The Hospital Barber

7 How to Dispose of a Wizard

8 Asylum Superheroes

Buy the Book 

Toby J Cole

 

Toby J Cole spent the first six years of his working life as a registered nurse. He later went on to conduct police mentoring in Iraq and armed protection in Afghanistan. Toby died in September 2020. His first novel, Beyond the Pales, a crime novel, is set at Brookwood Cemetery, the largest cemetery in Western Europe. A sequel was intended but was never completed owing to his untimely death. Sad to say, when an independent author passes away, in time, unless the family or someone else has had the good mind to harness their legacy, a whole body of work could be lost forever. More About Toby's Writing

 

The Death of Dame Hilary Mantel

Former Knaphill resident and author Dame Hilary Mantel dies... I am sad to report the death of Dame Hilary Mantel in Exeter, Devon, on Thursday, 22 September, writes Mal Foster.

Aged 70, she was the acclaimed author of the Booker Prize-winning novel Wolf Hall and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies. The trilogy's final book, The Mirror & The Light, was published in 2020 and became an instant Sunday Times bestseller.

Hilary Mantel, 6 July 1952 - 22 September 2022

Mantel had strong Woking connections, living with her husband, Gerald McEwan, in a penthouse at Florence House, which was once part of Brookwood Hospital in Knaphill. Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies were written during her ten years at the iconic residence.

The couple later moved to Budleigh Salterton in Devon but would often return to the Woking area to visit friends when travelling to London and the home counties to appear at various functions and in the media.

Indeed, I last saw Hilary with Gerald in January 2019, in Sainsbury’s, Knaphill, just before the Covid 19 outbreak whilst they were on one of those visits. In earlier days, I had corresponded with Gerald, who had always taken an interest in our local community.

Florence House, Knaphill
where Mantel lived with her husband, Gerald

in the early 2000s

In 2014, Hilary famously brought about the attention of the police following the fictionalised account of the murder of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1983. The short story entitled, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher led Mantel to respond to allies of Thatcher by saying, ‘Bringing in the police for an investigation was beyond anything I could have planned or hoped for because it immediately exposes them to ridicule.’ And it did!

Mal Foster

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

 

1926-2022

The 'impact' of sculptor, Sean Henry on Woking

The Woking Writers’ Collective has enhanced many of its posts here on the blog and on Twitter with photographs of the sculptures by Woking-born Sean Henry that are situated around the town. These are now on permanent display.  Sean Henry is married with three children and now lives in Winchester, Hants.

Sean Henry with two of his works which are now on display in Henry Plaza at Victoria Place, Woking
Pic: Courtesy Sean Henry 

 

It’s time for The Woking Writers' Collective to fully acknowledge Sean Henry’s impact on Woking and his fine sculptures, which are crafted in the human form...

 

Sean Henry's, The Wanderer

One of the sculptures is ‘The Wanderer’, which many would have seen outside the town-side of Woking railway station. In 2013 he was originally on display in Bad Homburg, Germany. A couple of years later, the statue popped up in Sydney, Australia, before being transported to its current location here in Woking.

Sleeping Man, Woking

The addition of Sean Henry’s statues to Woking town centre has given the whole place a cultural feel, complimenting the already popular The War of the Worlds Martian tripod as depicted in the famous H.G. Wells’ novel, and of course The Lightbox museum along Victoria Way.  

 

Greg Freeman and Henry's The Standing Man
Pic: Courtesy Woking News & Mail

The statues have also inspired West Byfleet poet Greg Freeman to put pen to paper, writing a series of back-stories which were published in his 2021 collection, Marples Must Go, under the subtitle, All the Lonely People. 

Above, Walking Woman, Commercial Way, Standing Man, Jubilee Square, 

Seated Man, Woking Railway Station,

and Standing Woman, Peacocks Centre, Woking

You can find out much, much more about Sean and his work on his website @  https://www.seanhenry.com/

Original photographs by Mal Foster

“What now? I’m at the fictional crossroads…”, says Mal Foster

My latest novel, Fluke’s Cradle, was published in April, a book I’m very proud of, but one I fear is also very difficult to follow...

Signing copies of Fluke's Cradle at its official launch in Knaphill, Woking

 

It’s my fifth novel and, Eddie Noble is its protagonist. Like, Tommy Compton, Jack Compton and Harry Rogers from my other books,  they’re all what you might call vulnerable types, the kind of lost souls my lovely loyal band of readers have always endeared to. 

Now though, do I break the mould? Change direction, genre? Do I write from a different perspective and change the protagonist’s voice?  

The idea for a new novel is very much in its infancy. A crime and mystery affair, linking two very true but separate stories as I combine a missing person’s case in the south with a shocking murder in the north. 

As with any good fiction based on a true story (or stories), there's always a need to take reality and give it a full makeover. During which period do I set it? There must be subplots and a backdrop. Who will be the supporting characters, and where will they come from? From there, poetic licence and the imagination can run riot!

My subconscious has always acted as my spirit guide, told me what to say, and showed me where to put the words… It feverishly combats any fatigue or writer’s block, as some people might call it. It creates and fuels direction. 

I’ve always found that the battle is virtually won once the first chapter is written down. Then, after a few months, and with something that resembles a finished manuscript, I experience a sense of semi-achievement, whilst knowing that the arduous editing process and the tricky route to publication is yet to come. 

After each book has been sent to the publisher, I've always wondered, how the hell did I write that? How? 

Now though, this person, this voice inside my head, matters as I need him to make the next book happen. The same voice that once told me, “The pen is mightier than the sword!” Even though I write using a laptop, of course! 

www.malfoster.co.uk