A new book by a local author takes inspiration from the Sussex and Kent coast near Rye.
Longshore Drift is written by Bronwen Griffiths, who was born and brought up in the West Midlands but has lived in East Sussex for the past 25 years. She has won prizes and awards for her flash fiction. She has had two collections of flash fiction and two novels previously published.
The book began taking shape many years ago when Bronwen attended a Diploma in Creative Writing at the Hastings University Centre. The novel, originally titled, Mermaid at the End of the World, got her an agent but sadly it was never published and it ended up in her bottom drawer until she decided to re-write and revive it last year.
The Point, featured in the novel, is based on Dungeness, and the coastline west towards Rye and Hastings Country Park is also featured.
“I first began the novel when I was working with troubled adolescents in a school in Hastings,” she says. “This gave me a window into how young people navigate chaos, isolation, and the search for identity. At the same time, I made my first visits to Dungeness, a place that feels like the end of the world. The landscape there became a kind of mirror for those inner worlds and it shaped the mood of the novel.”
She was been a member of the Rye Harbour poetry group for many years, which takes an active interest in the area. “My father was a geologist and geophysicist and I learned a lot about rocks and continental drift at an early age. The book then grew out of all of these things: the landscape, the young people I worked with, and a lifelong
fascination with how the natural world shapes the people who live in it.”
The novel features climate change, a mermaid who might or might not exist, an unstable mother, young love, loss and trauma and the healing power of friendship and the natural world.
Bronwen took the photographs for the cover, the overall design is by Erica Smith of Wordsmith Design.
Longshore Drift’s book launch is on 26 March 6-8 pm at Grounded, 8 Lion Street, Rye where Bronwen will be selling her books and giving a short reading from her novel.
Copies of the novel, in paperback or E-book form, are available direct from the publisher or from Amazon
https://troubador.co.uk/bookshop/contemporary/longshore-drift
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Longshore-Drift-Bronwen-Griffiths/dp/1806341603
Image Credits: Kt bruce , Bronwen Griffiths .