Underground Rivers (15 page)

Light in the Darkness

This series of work is mainly shot in Luton and depicts a number of locations and more importantly events where light and dark are captured in tension with each other. These almost magical moments reveal something extraordinary and demonstrate how something exceptional can happen in the most unlikely spaces.

I used over two minute exposures, torches, flashguns, assistants and lots of jumping up and down to create these fictional events. The images are carefully assembled from pre-conceived ideas and I've chosen simple compositions to not distract from the colours and shadows revealed in the long exposures.

The process of painting with light forces me to slow the image creating process down. This gives me the opportunity to engage with the scene directly. The mad and random movements I use to remove the ‘ghosting' effect of my presence make the whole experience feel like a performance.

The illumination is intended to give a sense of something mystical and spiritual
. The fundamental differences between light and dark are most easily understood in our conscious by the age old struggle between good and evil. Fiction often springs from this tension and here I explore this with each picture linking to the other in a way that encourages us to overlay a narrative and meaning in that battle; a past and future: a story.

Some of the images see the introduction of people. They find themselves in dark places where the weight of despair, regret and loss form a shroud from which they seems no escape. The light, although untamed and unfamiliar, seems inviting, somehow good. There is always hope and the inherent desire in us for the goodness to prevail is demonstrated in the collection as the eye is drawn repeatedly towards the light.

Ben Hodson

September 2012

Luton Writers' Group

Luton has already produced such novelists and writers as Stephen Kelman, Colin Grant, Arthur Hailey, as well as the scriptwriter David Renwick and film writer and director Danny Cannon. That's not to mention others who have been associated with the town.

The Luton Writers' Group hopes to add to that list and is led by local author and editor Mike French in conjunction with Luton Libraries and Luton Culture.

The group meets at The Kitchen café at The Hat Factory, Bute Street, Luton, on the first Friday of each month. Meetings begin at 8pm and finish at 10pm. Sessions cover all prose genres, including novels, short stories and non-fiction projects. The group will appeal to new writers or more experienced writers.Meetings are friendly and supportive. LWG develops writing skills and techniques and writers learn how to present their work to publisher and agents.

It welcomes new members and can be contacted via

[email protected]

About the Authors

Jean Mutch
is a good deal older than she'd like to be. Born and brought up in Hertfordshire, she spent many years in Wiltshire, living a random life dictated by someone else's bipolarity. Somewhere along the line she produced three wonderful children and acquired a degree in creative writing. Realising late in life that happy endings exist only in fairy tales, she set off to seek her fortune, but being a slow learner, she gambled the lot on the love of an alcoholic psychopath. Poorer and wiser, she now teaches English and spends her quieter moments writing tales about dysfunctional relationships.

Vicky Woodhatch
has dabbled with creative writing from an early age and has a keen love of literature. She took on a job in a library to ‘be close to all the books' and mainly writes short stories for friends and family. She recently finished a Creative Writing course and hopes to expand her audience and continue to write longer pieces of work. Her only work to reach the public eye was a short play called ‘The Only Way is Bestbuy' which was a parody on ‘The Only Way is Essex' and set in a supermarket. This was performed by Harlington performs earlier this year.

Mary Baker
was born in Luton in 1983 and attended South Luton High School, where she was encouraged to write creatively. An avid reader, she was introduced to Luton Central Library at an early age and studied A-level English literature at Queensbury Upper School in Dunstable. Writing poetry remained a constant through her training in history and horticulture, and she has expanded more recently to allow her poetry to flow into her short stories. Being an estate gardener she has beautiful surroundings to inspire her, which she hopes her writing reflects. Now working at Luton Hoo Walled Garden, her gardening column can be spotted each month in the Herald & Post. She likes Russian literature, Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers films, Sussex, and popcorn.

Mike French
is the owner and senior editor of the literary magazine, The View From Here. His debut novel,
The Ascent of Isaac Steward
came out in 2011 with Cauliay Publishing and was nominated for The Galaxy National Book Awards which due to an unfortunate clerical error was awarded to Dawn French. Born in Cornwall in 1967, Mike splits his time between his own writing, editing the magazine, running author workshops and working with atp media in Luton. Mike is married with three children and a growing number of pets. He currently lives in Luton in the UK and when not working watches Formula 1, eats Ben & Jerry's Phish Food and listens to Noah and the Whale. Mike's second novel
Blue Friday
is published this year by Elsewhen Press.

Jon Owen-Thomas
is
a recent graduate from the University of Bedfordshire where he developed a passion for scriptwriting. His favourite experience was writing a short play from scratch and working with actors to produce it. He enjoys writing short scripts, which he describes ‘almost like doodling', and in the future hopes to sell a script to a theatre.

Muriel Nicola Waldt
worked for 17 years at Ampthill Library. After taking early retirement, she now finds herself in the enviable position of being able to potter endlessly in her garden, is able to read even more and above all, write. Since starting to write poetry nine years ago she has had several poems published in small press anthologies, three humorous rhyming poems in the Daily Mail and experienced success in competitions. Words is her first short story.

Shane Laing
is a writer/actor born in Cheltenham Gloucestershire in 1993. He studied performing arts at Bedford College, then became motivated by others around him to put pen to paper in order to show the world his imagination. Shane has written two short stories, many scripts and is currently in the process of writing his first novel entitled Protocol 9.

Judi McKay
is a retired civil servant. She is married with two cats and spends her days reading, going to the cinema and writing. As yet she has had nothing published, although she has been short listed in a number of writing competitions. She currently has two novels mouldering on her hard drive waiting to be edited, but is choosing to spend her time finishing The Return, her current project.

Rob Sherriff
is normally a writer, director and editor of short films, some of which can be seen on his Youtube page - RobSherriffMedia. Recently he has decided to try his hand at short fiction. He graduated from the University of Bedfordshire in 2009 with a 2.1 in Media Production. Currently working on a number of writing protects, he hopes to one day create a feature film. Rob was born in Essex in 1986 and has been living in Luton since 2006. When not writing or filming shorts he will be searching, generally unsuccessfully, for paying work and playing Xbox.

Neil Rowland
went to Stopsley High School and Luton VI Form College. His is a Community Librarian with Luton Culture, based at Luton Central Library. He has organised literary and writing events, both with Luton Libraries and at the Arts Council. This year he completed a novel
The Big Deal
about a City whistle blower disgraced by a corrupt financial system. Included here is the opening excerpt from a second novel in progress,
Living in the Past.
He co-edited a poetry magazine called
Under the Bridge
, in conjunction with Bloodaxe Books. Neil began his writing career as a music critic for
Melody Maker
,
Blitz
and other publications. Recently he also wrote fiction reviews for
Time Out
London. He gained a BA Hons at Newcastle and an MA in Post Colonial Literature from the University of Leeds. He enjoys a life-long passion for fiction and discovering exciting writers, new or past.

Paul Harrison
is a local writer who has previously had a short story published in the ‘Words Take Flight' anthology produced in conjunction with the Cheltenham Festival of Literature. He works as a Careers Adviser at the University of Bedfordshire and enjoys reading many genres of fiction and non fiction.

Graham Webster
is married to Hazel and has two grown up children, Daniel and Loren. He was born in Luton in 1949 and spent his childhood as a villager in Hockliffe. Later, when they married, he set up home in Dunstable where he still lives. In the 60's, as a youth he worked for his father delivering coal to the people of Luton. “It was a dirty job, my face was always covered in coal dust. My Jamaican friend Stan used to call me ‘The black-faced white man'.” Later, for many years he was a car transporter driver, delivering new vehicles from the Vauxhall assembly plant in Kimpton Road. Graham is a committed Hatters fan, his love affair with the club starting in 1958, when he used to go and watch his late uncle, Bob Morton play. His first attempt at story writing was to enter the Luton Libraries short story competition in November last year, which he won.

Bernice Gayle
is a member of the
Luton
Writers' Group and
Luton
Poetry Society. She is a qualified teacher with many years of teaching experience and has a Master's Degree in Primary Education. Because of her love for literacy, her thesis was based on Children's Responses to Humour in Literature which can be viewed in the library at the University of London Institute of Education. Bernice has four children, one girl and three boys. She has six grandchildren and enjoys cooking special Jamaican meals for family and friends. To keep fit she goes to the gym three times a week to burn off the extra calories. She lives in
Luton
. She is currently writing her first novel. A chapter of it will be included in the
Luton
Writers' book in 2012.

Lucy Meroge Mwakulegwa,
who is also known by close family and friends as ‘Nessy', was born in England. Her parents studied at Leeds University on scholarship. Her father studied law and her mom, children's nursing. Lucy returned to Kenya when she was four years old, her mother passed away shortly afterward. After college, she worked as a Clinical Officer for thirteen years. Her work exposed her to “the other side of life;” poverty and suffering, this left a mark on her which made her reflect on life and its meaning, especially as she was from a far more privileged background. This has greatly inspired her writing. Lucy currently lives in England with her daughter. She continues to work in the medical field with a specific interest in Public Health in which she has a Masters Degree from The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Tahieuba Latif Chaudhry
was born in Luton in 1991 and is the last of 9 siblings. She is currently studying English Language for Business BA(Hons) at the University of Bedfordshire. In December 2006 she won the
Start-Up
project for her awareness of racism through a series of illustrations on banners which was displayed around The Mall. Writing fiction is her passion, along with dancing to Zumba, listening to Birdy and seeking adventure with the world. Tahieuba joined the Luton Writers' Workshop in February 2012 and is keen to release the first chapter of her upcoming novel
Little Ms Cynical.
She dedicates this story to her late father Mohammad Latif Chaudhry (01/03/1946 - 04/11/2011) R.I.P.

Rory Auld
is a writer, director and editor of short films. He graduated from the University of Bedfordshire in 2010 with a 2.1 in Media Production. He is working on a number of scripts and hopes to one day turn them into short films or online web series. R
ory was born in Essex in 1986 and moved to Luton in 2007. In his spare time he likes to write short scripts and is currently working as a freelancer in a digital library and starting up a business with some friends from university.