This was not exactly the blog that we planned to write. We were going to share a post about our Ghost Story Competition (which this still is), but it has suddenly become very pertinent and personal. On Saturday, only a day after sharing our Puplishing blog, we lost our founding publisher, Orlando. We are all utterly devastated, and Crowvus HQ has become very quiet. It is truly strange not to see him at the bottom of the stairs, or not to have him sitting at my feet while I write this. It is the little, everyday, routine things where his death is most acutely felt. Nine years ago, in our first ever Ghost Story Competition , we received a story entitled Black Dog . I admit, I had preconceived ideas about this one, based on its title, thinking about baying hounds and the Black Shuck. Nothing was further from the truth. A. J. Black's beautiful story was a journey of grief, a coming to terms with a loss of more than life, but of a companion. I remember reading it and ...
This was not exactly the blog that we planned to write. We were going to share a post about our Ghost Story Competition (which this still is), but it has suddenly become very pertinent and personal.
On Saturday, only a day after sharing our Puplishing blog, we lost our founding publisher, Orlando. We are all utterly devastated, and Crowvus HQ has become very quiet. It is truly strange not to see him at the bottom of the stairs, or not to have him sitting at my feet while I write this. It is the little, everyday, routine things where his death is most acutely felt.
Nine years ago, in our first ever Ghost Story Competition, we received a story entitled Black Dog. I admit, I had preconceived ideas about this one, based on its title, thinking about baying hounds and the Black Shuck. Nothing was further from the truth. A. J. Black's beautiful story was a journey of grief, a coming to terms with a loss of more than life, but of a companion. I remember reading it and looking at Orlando, knowing one day the narrator would be me. Now that day has arrived, there is something comforting about knowing others know and understand this peculiar void which is so painfully present. Black Dog won 2nd Place in our competition, and it has never strayed far from my thoughts.
As many of our readers will know, we are big fans of Lucy Boston's book, The Children of Green Knowe. That is, after all, where Orlando's name came from. This book is all about ghosts and the timelessness of things, but there is one line in particular which has played through my head since our own Orlando's death. Seven-year-old Tolly has just been told that the children who he has come to know as his friends had all died 300 years earlier in the plague, and only their grandmother survived. Mrs Oldknow then says:
"After all, [...] it sounds very sad to say they all died, but it didn't really make so much difference. I expect the old grandmother soon found out they were still here."
That has been what happened here. Things have been happening at Crowvus HQ, things which Orlando used to do. It is nice to know he - like the children in our beloved Christmas story - has chosen to stay here, and there is nothing frightening about it.
So, I'll end this blog by reminding writers that a ghost story can take many forms. It might be frightening, it might be heart-warming; it could be gothic, it could be contemporary; its ghost might be human, or its ghost might be an animal; it may be funny, it may be tragic. All we ask is that the ghost is very definite there, and our judges look for a story which wants to be believed - a story which reminds us to believe.
Orlando John-the-Rebel
2013-2026
Comments
Post a Comment