I love the writing. I don’t like the hustling. I’m 73 and had my so-called first novel published when I was 70. My second will be out this fall I hope. Now I’m starting one that will be as fearless and unencumbered with any expectations from the outside as I can manage. I remember reading Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - my heart pal and I relishing the gorgeous audacity of your writing.
I turn 40 in December and have been/am dreading it. I think when you have spent most of life in survival mode, birthdays can trigger feelings of grief for a life that never was or can be. Your positivity, despite all you have endured, is inspirational and I hope get to that point myself someday x
A birthday present in reverse. I find this more useful and potentially inspiring than any of those writers’ manuals that I have abandoned by the end of chapter 1. I will read it again.
Thank you! Thoughtful and positive, as always. I needed that today. To treasure what I have done, and keep working on the slow project at a pace that makes it real. Oranges was terribly important to me, even if it wasn’t my story. You showed me that it was possible to escape from what wasn’t good, and make a life for oneself.
Oranges … and Why be normal … are some of the most beautiful books I read in my lifetime ( so far) - and they have been changing me with every reread - so looking forward to your next one .
Finding a way to Not-Write is as important as finding a way to write.
i discovered Jeanette Winterson is not dead! i discovered Jeanette Winterson was born in the same year as me, 1959! i was both delighted and horrified thinking she was alive. i have relied on authors who i admire to be dead. i have a fear of the living author, not the writing itself, but afraid of meeting a writer. i cannot explain it, nor will i try. To the writer who has written a book that moves me, that has changed something in me is ultimate.
you see! i have not been a reader for long. i started late in life. keeping to the theme 40, i started reading forty years ago. this leaves me with twenty six year deficit of no active reading. including no writing. the matter with me is, i have had no license to a language because of my migrant background - my family and many like us, here in Australia in the 50s onwards, us new Australians, were not helped to read and write. i was born in Tasmania, and considered second generation to my parents, who were naturalised in the 70s were then considered first generation. i have always felt somewhere between not being Dutch and not being Australian. my parents were encouraged to give up their language, and so they did. there were no conversations of either English or Dutch in our family. Nor were we read to. nor were there english language books in our den. Then at school, a catholic primary school, us migrant children were treated like misfits. unintelligent and problematic. in high school, a public school, i remember, i was made to read a novel in my own time, and then in school time write an essay about that novel. regardless what the questions related to that task was, i had not read the book. i couldn't read the book. i knew what words were, but joining them into sentences, paragraphs, little alone a story was an impossible task. so i made it up. this is my memory of how i read that novel and how I wrote that essay:
i looked at the pictures on the front and back cover. - pictures inside were now nonexistent.
i read the title on the cover and read the blurb on back. i read words within the sleeves.
i'd read the odd sentence within the book - the first few pages and a few lines throughout. i gathered clues about the books content.
i asked my sisters what they thought, as we sat around the dining room table doing our homework.
then the essay. i wrote what came to mind, but there was little to draw from.
the marking of the essay then. it would have been clear to the teacher i hadn't read the novel. but at least i had written the essay. this was an attempt. i'd always get a pass for trying. i remember the school system. i relied on that system. no student failed a subject, everyone was passed and moved into the next grade.
i made it and that's all that counted. i was not the dunce, i was someone just above it, wading.
that's What-no to do. but what-not to do is what i remember. just as i remember all the other times i wanted to know what was in a book, and the feelings arising of not knowing how to read. by 1986, i ran from my life on the island and spent time abroad. i travelled a little before settling on a kibbutz for seven months. i was broke. there i pretended to write poetry, drew pictures and wrote words. in 1987 i got hold of a novel, a big thick book. it was written by Barbara Some-one-or-other. i read it from cover to cover, not really liking it, but i read it.
i haven't stopped this creativity ever since. I've been to art school, made a career from pot making, now in my sixty sixth year i'm attempting to write my first book. it's about the last year of living with my partner, our life, Our Place, and his death. it's about love and loss, growth and renewal. i hope to develop a style, like a Helen Garner story style, but ultimately my style.
i'm writing to remember. i'm writing because we will soon be forgotten. i have been recently inspired by Susan Orleans, The Library Book. a fantastic book about loss and grieving. see pages 92 and 93 Paperback ISBN 978-1-78239-228-6 Her words are ultimate.
This morning, I was talking with my daughter who is a young artist who just finished her masters and is stressing about work. I have sent the link and said this is the most useful ‘advice’ I can share.
I found you, when I found Orange are not the only Fruit, I loved it and so when I came across you on Substack this year I was happy to read again. Forty years really, gosh so many years, so much past. I do like the way you think about the world, I always find some solace in it and a kindred spirit, thank you.
Lovely piece as always, I still have my paperback first editions of "Oranges" and "Boating for Beginners" from 1985/6.
I'm always intrigued though when you describe Virginia Woolf being considered as a minor writer in the 1980s. "To The Lighthouse" was on the English Lit A-level syllabus as an option when I did it in 1982 and although we didn't do it , my English teacher's rationale was that given the negative reaction to Jane Austen (I went to an all-boys school and it's fair to say that Persuasion is not what 17-18 year old boys were especially interested in reading) he thought Woolf might be a step to far. But she was there as an option and I assume other schools did study her.
(Not that I need to justify it, but I do love Jane Austen - and Woolf - now!)
Congratulations and thank you Jeanette. Oranges was an important book for me, and was probably life-saving, or at least life-changing, for many lesbians.
I love the writing. I don’t like the hustling. I’m 73 and had my so-called first novel published when I was 70. My second will be out this fall I hope. Now I’m starting one that will be as fearless and unencumbered with any expectations from the outside as I can manage. I remember reading Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - my heart pal and I relishing the gorgeous audacity of your writing.
I turn 40 in December and have been/am dreading it. I think when you have spent most of life in survival mode, birthdays can trigger feelings of grief for a life that never was or can be. Your positivity, despite all you have endured, is inspirational and I hope get to that point myself someday x
A birthday present in reverse. I find this more useful and potentially inspiring than any of those writers’ manuals that I have abandoned by the end of chapter 1. I will read it again.
Thank you! Thoughtful and positive, as always. I needed that today. To treasure what I have done, and keep working on the slow project at a pace that makes it real. Oranges was terribly important to me, even if it wasn’t my story. You showed me that it was possible to escape from what wasn’t good, and make a life for oneself.
Curious, who did the painting?
Susanne du Toit, and displayed in National Portrait Gallery...
I love this portrait of you - it always makes me smile when I see it at the NPG.
Oranges … and Why be normal … are some of the most beautiful books I read in my lifetime ( so far) - and they have been changing me with every reread - so looking forward to your next one .
Happy birthday and happy book 🍊 birthday Jeanette
Finding a way to Not-Write is as important as finding a way to write.
i discovered Jeanette Winterson is not dead! i discovered Jeanette Winterson was born in the same year as me, 1959! i was both delighted and horrified thinking she was alive. i have relied on authors who i admire to be dead. i have a fear of the living author, not the writing itself, but afraid of meeting a writer. i cannot explain it, nor will i try. To the writer who has written a book that moves me, that has changed something in me is ultimate.
you see! i have not been a reader for long. i started late in life. keeping to the theme 40, i started reading forty years ago. this leaves me with twenty six year deficit of no active reading. including no writing. the matter with me is, i have had no license to a language because of my migrant background - my family and many like us, here in Australia in the 50s onwards, us new Australians, were not helped to read and write. i was born in Tasmania, and considered second generation to my parents, who were naturalised in the 70s were then considered first generation. i have always felt somewhere between not being Dutch and not being Australian. my parents were encouraged to give up their language, and so they did. there were no conversations of either English or Dutch in our family. Nor were we read to. nor were there english language books in our den. Then at school, a catholic primary school, us migrant children were treated like misfits. unintelligent and problematic. in high school, a public school, i remember, i was made to read a novel in my own time, and then in school time write an essay about that novel. regardless what the questions related to that task was, i had not read the book. i couldn't read the book. i knew what words were, but joining them into sentences, paragraphs, little alone a story was an impossible task. so i made it up. this is my memory of how i read that novel and how I wrote that essay:
i looked at the pictures on the front and back cover. - pictures inside were now nonexistent.
i read the title on the cover and read the blurb on back. i read words within the sleeves.
i'd read the odd sentence within the book - the first few pages and a few lines throughout. i gathered clues about the books content.
i asked my sisters what they thought, as we sat around the dining room table doing our homework.
then the essay. i wrote what came to mind, but there was little to draw from.
the marking of the essay then. it would have been clear to the teacher i hadn't read the novel. but at least i had written the essay. this was an attempt. i'd always get a pass for trying. i remember the school system. i relied on that system. no student failed a subject, everyone was passed and moved into the next grade.
i made it and that's all that counted. i was not the dunce, i was someone just above it, wading.
that's What-no to do. but what-not to do is what i remember. just as i remember all the other times i wanted to know what was in a book, and the feelings arising of not knowing how to read. by 1986, i ran from my life on the island and spent time abroad. i travelled a little before settling on a kibbutz for seven months. i was broke. there i pretended to write poetry, drew pictures and wrote words. in 1987 i got hold of a novel, a big thick book. it was written by Barbara Some-one-or-other. i read it from cover to cover, not really liking it, but i read it.
i haven't stopped this creativity ever since. I've been to art school, made a career from pot making, now in my sixty sixth year i'm attempting to write my first book. it's about the last year of living with my partner, our life, Our Place, and his death. it's about love and loss, growth and renewal. i hope to develop a style, like a Helen Garner story style, but ultimately my style.
i'm writing to remember. i'm writing because we will soon be forgotten. i have been recently inspired by Susan Orleans, The Library Book. a fantastic book about loss and grieving. see pages 92 and 93 Paperback ISBN 978-1-78239-228-6 Her words are ultimate.
From Hermie
I couldn't stop reading YOUR words, right to the end, they pushed me on breathlessly until 'the ultimate'. I wish you well with your book.
Please let the world know when your first book is finished. I think it will be fascinating and life-giving.
This morning, I was talking with my daughter who is a young artist who just finished her masters and is stressing about work. I have sent the link and said this is the most useful ‘advice’ I can share.
I found you, when I found Orange are not the only Fruit, I loved it and so when I came across you on Substack this year I was happy to read again. Forty years really, gosh so many years, so much past. I do like the way you think about the world, I always find some solace in it and a kindred spirit, thank you.
Lovely piece as always, I still have my paperback first editions of "Oranges" and "Boating for Beginners" from 1985/6.
I'm always intrigued though when you describe Virginia Woolf being considered as a minor writer in the 1980s. "To The Lighthouse" was on the English Lit A-level syllabus as an option when I did it in 1982 and although we didn't do it , my English teacher's rationale was that given the negative reaction to Jane Austen (I went to an all-boys school and it's fair to say that Persuasion is not what 17-18 year old boys were especially interested in reading) he thought Woolf might be a step to far. But she was there as an option and I assume other schools did study her.
(Not that I need to justify it, but I do love Jane Austen - and Woolf - now!)
Thank you for this! Just what I needed today!
Celebrate the work that is out there, as an acknowledgment and sit quietly working away with faith and silence…. 🙏🏽
That’s not instant noodles!
I was so happy to see your portrait in the history makers AKA ‘National Treasures’ section of the National Portrait gallery when I went last week.
Congratulations and thank you Jeanette. Oranges was an important book for me, and was probably life-saving, or at least life-changing, for many lesbians.