Memorandum is a haunting collection of poems that summons voices from the shadows of the First World War. Vanessa Gebbie transforms prosaic records of ordinary soldiers, and the physical landscape of battles, war graves and memorials, into poignant reflections on the small and greater losses to families and the world. Vanessa Gebbie is a writer of prose and poetry. Author of seven books, including a novel, short fictions and poetry, her work has been supported by an Arts Council England Grant for the Arts, a Hawthornden Fellowship and residencies at both Gladstone's Library and Anam Cara Writers' and Artists' Retreat. She teaches widely. www.vanessagebbie.com "From the idea of a shell reverting to its unmade, peaceful state to dead men buried in Brighton and France being mourned by their mother in Glasgow ... heartrending images such as the Tower of London's ceramic poppies seen as callow recruits, doubts about a corpse's identity and how dregs at the bottom of a cup can be reminiscent of the deadly Flanders mud. This is a modern view, wise and compassionate, of Europe's fatal wound." Max Egremont, author of Siegfried Sassoon and Some Desperate Glory, The First World War the Poets Knew "Vanessa Gebbie is that rare breed of poet who understands the trials and tribulations of the ordinary Tommy." Jeremy Banning, military historian and researcher, battlefield guide "The dead who linger around memorials and battlefields slowly step again into the light. History may remember them collectively, but Gebbie's achievement is to present, with sensitivity and without sentimentality, lives rooted in the particular rhythms of hometowns, families, and memories." John McCullough, author of Spacecraft and The Frost Fairs "These poems rise like ghosts from a scarred landscape." Caroline Davies, author of Convoy

Memorandum: Poems for the Fallen

Literature & Fiction

Gebbie, Vanessa

Poetry

Cultured Llama

Nine-year-old Laddy Merridew, sent to live with his grandmother for reasons he does not understand, stumbles off the bus in a small Welsh town where he begins an unlikely friendship with old Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins, the town beggar-storyteller. Through Ianto, Laddy learns of the collapse decades earlier of a coal mine called Kindly Light-a disaster whose legacy has echoed through generations, shaping lives in unexpected ways. And while Ianto spins the lively stories of so many men and women in this town, it's his own history in Kindly Light that is the story he can't tell.
Like Richard Llewellyn's beloved classic How Green Was My Valley, Vanessa Gebbie's The Coward's Tale richly evokes the tightly bound communities of old Welsh mining towns-their loyalties and betrayals, loves and losses. Like Llewellyn, Gebbie was brought up by Welsh parents in England. Unlike him, however, she took every opportunity to spend time in Wales throughout her formative years. Her sense of place is evoked with an authentic, dark beauty and a heightened, almost magical charm. Her prose is steeped in the cadences that surrounded her as a child. This rich tapestry of a novel is spellbinding and unforgettable.

The Coward's Tale: A Novel

Literary

Bloomsbury USA

Words from a Glass Bubble (Salt Modern Fiction)

Salt Publishing

This passionate new book gathers together for the first time many of Vanessa Gebbie's award-winning stories. Described by Maggie Gee as 'a prodigiously gifted new writer', this is a natural storyteller; her narratives unfold with a deceptively light touch, exploring with compassion what it is to be human and flawed. 'Words From a Glass Bubble' is about coming to terms with the cards we are dealt. The stories pivot around the recognition that those who seem powerless can prove to be the strongest catalysts for change, both in themselves and in others. Vanessa Gebbie never shies away from difficult subjects, creating an intensely emotional and at times distressing world, but it is never totally dark or despairing. Sparks of the unexpected and flashes of humour light the whole collection with an indefatigable optimism.This is a writer with a boundless imagination, who breathes life into the most unlikely characters and events. Batty Annie fishes for her son's soul in a disused railway tunnel. Tom's grandmother flies on a circus trapeze. Spike relates to cacti better than people. Eva Duffy befriends a statuette of the Virgin Mary. Pepito pretends he is a priest and suffers the consequences. Shelly has a colonic irrigation to rid herself of the past. Billy hears stones when he shakes his head. Dodie from The General Stores falls for a man who teaches her 'to think', and Mikey mourns his wife through graffiti.From Ireland to Czechoslovakia to Wales to Alaska to Ibiza, from contemporary New York to a clinic in the future, this collection will take you on a journey. And Harry? He just goes fishing.

Words from a Glass Bubble

Short Stories & Anthologies

'Short Circuit' is a unique and indispensable guide to writing the short story. A collection of 24 specially commissioned essays from experienced writers and successful teachers of the short form, this new edition has been updated and is an intensely practical, generous book. Each expert discusses their own writing processes, sharing tried and tested writing exercises and lists published work they find inspirational.

Short Circuit: A Guide to the Art of the Short Story. Edited by Vanessa Gebbie (Revised)

Reference

Writing, Research & Publishing Guides

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Books by Gebbie, Vanessa