Would a Publisher want Your Creative Non-Fiction?

 

So, you're writing something that is non-fiction, and you're beginning to think that a publisher might be interested.

How does that work?

If your writing project is creative non-fiction you can get ahead of novel writers! A proposal, rather than a synopsis, is how you direct yourself at a prospective publisher, and you can send this in as soon as you're sure of your subject.

It may feel a little premature to be thinking about writing your proposal before you’ve completed your book. But established writers of non-fiction write their proposals almost before they’ve written anything else; for them, this part of the process falls alongside imagining and planning their new work. They may do some research and complete a couple of sample chapters to accompany the proposal, but acceptance of the proposal by their publishing house will initiate the work that needs to be done, not complete it.

Writers of fiction work in a diametrically opposite way; even established novelists accept that a synopsis is only as complete as the book itself. A novel may transform at any stage of its development, but non-fiction usually has a basic statement of intent that can be identified early on in the process. Most pieces of creative non-fiction, therefore, need a written proposal ahead of submitting the work itself for mainstream publication. 

How it worked for Kate Williams

The historian and writer Kate Williams’ first biography grew out of a dissertation study into Emma Hamilton, before she'd even finished the degree she was studying. The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton (2006) began when Williams was sifting through old letters in the British Library. "...a book started to form in my mind…I sat on my idea for Emma throughout the autumn, convinced that I would never be allowed to write a biography – I was too young, not sufficiently well-connected. Just before Christmas I plucked up the courage to send a few words about myself, Emma and the material I’d found to an agent who represented a friend of a friend. To my shock, he replied almost immediately. If I wrote a proposal, he said, he’d sell it for me...

In a windswept Little Chef in North Wales, on the way to collect my grandfather for Christmas, I told my father that I had a chance of becoming an author. He didn’t believe me. I barely believed it myself. (Emma and I, Williams, Mslexia, issue 32, 2007)

What should a book proposal look like?

Its elements will vary according to the type of book and the type of publisher, but it will generally follow the following suggestions:

• It should be double-spaced and clearly laid out

• Title page

• Contents of proposal

• Introduction

• Market (predicted readership, competition, useful statistics)

• CV (especially why you’re qualified to write this book)

• Format (overview, style, structure, organisation, rough word count)

• Chapter-by-chapter summary in a logical order

• Sample chapter(s) if requested

• Promotional suggestions

• Resources needed for completion

• A lively overview of the proposal – end on an upbeat note.

For example...

Sarah Booksmith has decided to write about her work with a London charity for the homeless called The Place. What she's planning isn’t entirely memoir, nor is it ‘biography’ in the accepted sense, and it also addresses wider social issues. She's started typing things out and she now has about 20,000
words and a provisional title Home is the Place.

She's arrived at this title by taking into consideration the idea that a catchy title for creative non-fiction should possibly use a quotation (perhaps from the book or a more famous quote) or a pun to catch the eye of the browsing buyer, or have some sort of interesting ambiguity about it. Home is the Place contains a saying, a pun (home is a place!) and is quite ambiguous; what does this writer mean by this?

As a novice in this field, Sarah Booksmith wants to practise the art of writing a proposal before she gets much further,  to consolidate some important issues, to help her further research and to test the publication waters. She's asking: 

What is my book about? 

Who will read it? 

How long is it? 

Have I found the perfect way to address my subject?

In the same way, you will need to research your proposal  as you researched the book idea itself. Try;

•  Checking out the competition by browsing bookshelves and Googling  the subject matter. Browse what Amazon has to offer. Don’t be disheartened if you discover similar books in the market place – but you may need to re-examine your approach.   If there are several recent books on your subject matter, ask yourself whether you’re jumping on a bandwagon. Fads fade so quickly your book may feel out of date even before its proposal is ready.Compiling a few statistics about your book, its subject matter and its readership.

• Quizing your local bookseller and librarian about your book – its theme, subject matter, structure and size. Would their customers buy or borrow it? Has the subject been covered recently in a similar way? Choose a quiet time of day to do this.

• Attending a writers’ conference. 

You’ll get the opportunity to talk to agents, editors and other writers in your genre about your book. Take your proposal with you, plus notes that will help focus your questions.

• Contacting publishers by phone. Without being pushy or irritating, ask their ‘front desk’ what they look for in a proposal.

Stop there, and ask yourself, how did that research go? Also ask yourself; 

• Does your CV looks a little thin in terms of your knowledge of the subject? Consider taking some relevant instruction – for instance, an intensive course – or shadowing an expert. Include this as evidence of credibility in a proposal.

• Do you have any writing history to your credit? Examine the possibility of writing articles, letters to the editor, guest blog posts or other publishable material to build up your writing credentials. Also start thinking about promoting your published work. Consider any of these:

• create a website or blog

• create a mailing list

• offer to take a workshop or give a talk (e.g. My Travels in Nepal) on your subject • offer to be interviewed by the local press or radio.

Spend a bit of time looking carefully at a published non-fiction book – perhaps one that you’ve read for your creative reading commentary – and thinking about what that writer’s proposal might have looked like. Then, if you feel ready, have a go at writing a proposal for your own life writing by attempting the following three exercises.

Writing your proposal - one

First:

•  make sure you have a working title
• outline the ideas you're writing about
• create a ‘blurb’

Create a sales pitch for your life writing.

Imagine that you’re at a writers’ conference. Someone has asked you what your book is about. Talk them through it, trying to convince. How would you describe it? You’re trying to be a credible advocate for your own writing so you must hold the listener’s interest. Record your sales pitch in your writing diary – maybe even learn it by heart.

Create a sound bite.

A sound bite is shorter than a sales pitch. Imagine you’ve got thirty seconds – and just a few words – to sum up the entire book. The sound bite is a verbal blurb that will get to the nub of the book quickly.

Try these out on your friends – see if they, at least, like the sound of your book.

Go right on to the end of the final proposal and write a memorable overview to complete your proposal.

But don’t simply repeat the introduction. Your overview is your chance to tie everything together and let your personality come to the fore. Remember, this is your final chance to leave a good impression on the reader.

 Writing a proposal Two

The body of the proposal contains the more difficult task of formulating a chapter summary. Start by listing your chapters and their titles (if you have them).

Try to take an objective view of your list. Are the chapters in a logical order? Have you repeated or missed anything? Will you need to group chapters into parts or divide chapters into subsections? If so, think about titles for these.

Take a fresh look at length. Sometimes, it’s only when the chapters are listed in this way that it becomes clear how long the book will be.

Take each chapter title in turn and formulate an outline for each one. Aim to sum up each chapter within a short paragraph. Now take this paragraph and reduce it to one line, using the skills you gained composing your sales pitch and sound bite.Save all this for future use, but don’t think of it as set in stone. If you need to make changes later, go ahead.

Practise writing out this section of your proposal.

 It should look something like the start of Sarah Booksmith's chapter analysis in her proposal:

Sarah Booksmith  

  Proposal for

 Home is the Place 

Part One

Begins with the scene of my own abandonment when my father left my mother and her three children. I was seven and the eldest. I pushed this memory to the back of my mind, but now explore it, then widen the debate.

Shows me at a low ebb in my young adult life. I don’t want to go for the interview at The Place. I want to pursue my intention to be a stand-up comedian, but I need the money.

I settle into the routine at The Place and get extremely fond of several of the clients. I have my first taste of investing emotion and effort into a person, only to have these rejected.

At this time in London, the plans for the massive protest over the poll tax were in the air and a lot of people at The Place – workers and clients – were involved. Until then, I hadn’t even thought about protesting.

Jane comes to work at The Place. She is like no one I have ever encountered. Naturally, I fall wildly in love with her.

Continue with your own proposal, perhaps in this personal vein, or in a slightly more technical or formal style if it suits your writing better. 

The Covering Letter

Send a covering letter with your proposal. Although this might seem like repeating yourself, it’s imperative that you do this. This will probably be your first contact with the publishing firm or agency. Even if you’ve been lucky enough previously to meet and talk to a representative, you should still write a covering letter, mentioning this previous encounter (see below). Your letter should include:

• your ‘sound bite’

• a brief resumé of your CV (who you are)

• any previous point of contact with the publisher

• title and genre of the book.

Format your covering letter as a one-page business letter, professional-looking and single-spaced.

Alternatively, you can write a query letter

A query letter, on the other hand, should arrive on an editor or agent’s desk alone. Don’t send it with a proposal, the point being that this letter enquires about the possibility of your sending a proposal at a later date. For this reason, it can be slightly more quirky and personalised than a covering letter. Allow your writing personality to emerge. However, your letter should still look professional, laid out in single-spacing and as brief as possible – no more than two pages.

This is Sarah’s query letter.

Anne Ortha

Director 

 Quick Fix Literary Agency Chance Street

London.

Date

Dear Ms Ortha

Home is the Place

I’d like to thank you in advance for reading this letter.

I am writing a book that details the life and times of a small London charity, The Place. I worked at The Place for almost ten years and I continue to be involved in their work as a Trustee.

Home is the Place is narrative non-fiction. It charts the story of the charity; the story of some of the homeless people it works with; the story of homelessness and its wider implications in London in the last thirty years; and, as narrator, it also involves some of my own story.

Now is the time for an overview of this subject. I believe I can deliver this with passion and precision.

As a writer I have credits in publications such as Metro and Free Tonight. I have also written for The Place on a number of occasions. Please don’t hesitate to ask for any of these pieces. I have a recent MA in Social Studies in which my dissertation was a broad examination of homelessness in London.

I have prepared a Proposal and would be grateful if you would consider reading it.

I’ve enjoyed several books from your imprint and feel Home is the Place would fit well within it. I look forward to hearing from you,

    Yours sincerely,

        Sarah Booksmith, MA

Draw up a timetable

Don’t use your research on the subject while you are drafting a proposal as an excuse to put off getting started or moving forward with the book. You may not discover areas you’ll need to delve into until your writing is well under way so write while you’re creating your proposal, and be influenced and informed by the research for the proposal. 

Take this opportunity to draw up a timetable of research work. 

Try putting specific research time aside – for instance, one evening a week to read and surf the net and one afternoon a week for visits to libraries, record offices, etc. Get going on this regime as soon as you can.

Having got a proposal underway, in the next blog on this subject, we'll look at just how research can help without getting out of hand or delaying the writing!

Maggie O'Farrell's The Marriage Portrait and the story of Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess"

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive.

Maggie O'Farrell

So begins Robert Brownings poem about Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrata. 

She was just sixteen when she died, reportedly of putrid fever, just one year of she was married  and had been married for one year to Alfonso, the Duke of Ferrata. This true story was the inspiration for Maggie O'Farrell's latest novel. 

I loved her last novel Hamnet so much – you can find my short review here; https://kitchentablewriters.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-womans-prize-longlist-is-ready-for.html – but after winning acclaim and prizes for this story about the death of Will Shakespeare's son, I approached the new book in some trepidation, because, honestly, how could any writer achieve something as good as that a second time round? Okay, O'Harrell has been writing for years, and was recently feted for her autobiography, I am, I am, but I've known novelists stymied after achieving their greatest book yet. Hamnet was sensitively and beautifully and robustly written, andO'Farrell addressed this hidden story of Shakespeare's life with originality and vigour

The Marriage Portrait is also a forgotten story, but thanks to  Robert Browning (and the dust jacket, of course), 'the reader begins the book already knowing the central character will die by the end of it. Even if they haven't reads poem, or the blurb, the first paragraph the first chapter makes this plain. Sixteen year old Lucrezia sits across the dining table from her husband, and sudden realises she is doomed.

…it comes to her with a peculiar clarity, as if some colour glass has been moved from in front her eyes, or perhaps removed from them, that he intends to kill her. 

Lucrezia has been taken by her husband to a remote hunting lodge. No maid, no friends, just the two of them together. Very soon the the great painter, Il Bastianino, and his apprentices, will arrive, bringing the finished marriage portrait with them. Lucrezia is a painter of immense skill herself, but of course, she is also a 16th Century duchess, and will never have her work hung, sold, or even much admired. She is just a girl, and her only job is to supply her husband with sons. What she doesn't know is that, after her death, two further wives will also be unable to do that job, just as she, after a year of marriage, has not  – Alfonso is unable to have children.

This book cleverly mixes fiction with fact. Yes, Lucrezia did die, supposedly of a fever, in 1661, and perhaps we would have forgotten her but for Browning's poem. Regal ladies did have a terrible habit of dying young, especially if they displeased their husbands; Lucrezia's sister Isabella died, perhaps of strangling, just days after her cousin, Dianora died mysteriously at a villa in the Italian countryside.

The book opens only days before the murder, but then moves back and forth in time, weaving the previous story. We see Lucrezia's conception, her birth, and her childhood as the third daughter of Cosimo I de’ Medici, the ruler of Florence. We watch her grow, into a girl with huge spirit, a lover of animals and a blossoming artist – her parents allowed her to take lessons from the same grand artists as her brothers. 

O'Farrell represents Lucrezia's life, both as a child, locked away inside Florence's grandest Palazzo, guarded by guards and maids-in-waiting, and her year as Olfonso's wife, at his court in Ferrata, where her freedoms are just as thwarted and dangerous politics swirl about, only half understood by the teenager.

You may find, if you look at some of the reviews of this book, that some readers have found it wanting. The Guardian's Johanna Thomas-Corr comments on the present tense, which can become a bit wearing, I agree, but also thinks the book is:

"not nearly as horribly gripping as it ought to be, partly as O’Farrell refuses to say in one image what she can do in three…too much hospitality is shown to Lucrezia’s dreams…the symbolism of men as hunters, women as prey soon becomes overwrought."

Luckily, I read the book before I read the review, or I might have never bought this
beautifully crafted hardback edition. I beg to differ; the prose is steady and magnificent, and any repetition feels naturally how Lucrezia might feel and think five hundred years ago. The screws of tension begin to turn as the portrait is painted; Lucrezia meets Jacopo, the mute apprentice to 

The only actual portrait of
Lucrezia, at the age of 13

Il Bastianino, and they quickly form a deep attachment. Steadily, a possible way of escape is build into the story – but, how can Lucrezia take it? In history, she dies, trapped at the hunting lodge. In the fiction…well, you'll have to read the story to find out.

 Not only is there fiction in this novel, though. Robert Browning's poem (you can find it here https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43768/my-last-duchess) only imagines a marriage portrait; in reality the only painting of Lucrezia was commissioned by her parents, when she was betrothed to Alfonso – with a dowry, it is said, of £50 million in today's currency.

Midsummer Reading – Books to read in the sun and places to read them.

What’s needed for a great holiday, or even a day off in the sun? 

• Parasol  — check
• Sunglasses — Check
• Chilled drink — check.
• Sunlounger — check
• Poolside. patio or beach — if you’re lucky
• Book — absolute essential.

I love the sun, but I’m no poolside babe;  my absolute favourites also include a sunny woodland glade, a the corner of a field, an isolated cove where the seals sing, a clifftop bench or possibly a street café in town, where you might get interrupted by passing friends. 

Mind you, living in Wales, my check list for a great afternoon’s reading usually includes warm slippers and a comfy fireside chair, even in summer!

While you’re working out where your favourite midsummer reading spot is, let me pass on my recommendations for some really varied summer reading. 

One way or another, I’ve been getting through a lot of very eclectic novels lately, and I’d love to share them with you. Some would make very good airport reads, some need at least a weekend on a beach and some may require the full length of a road trip,  Absorbing, puzzling, thrilling, funny, even shocking, these are my midsummer reads;

One for the Beach:

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward. 

Sometimes it’s hard to concentrate on your book on a beach.         It gets damp from the last swim and greasy from  tapas. Get up to play ball, and you can lose it in the sand. So what you need is something so gripping, so beguiling, so terrifying and so demanding that you never put it down.   

Ward has written a cracker of a psychological thriller here. In her long Afterward to the novel, she opens with ‘if you haven’t finished The Last House of Needless Street yet, please don’t read on — what follows is one long spoiler. 

This is because the mysteries that are set up in the first third of the novel will keep you guessing through the whole of it, even while you turn the pages in trepidation and fear for the lives of various characters. The most I can say is Ward has taken a psychiatric condition and immersed her story within it, so that nothing we see — nothing at all — is quite as it appears. With an uplifting ending and memorable characters, this gave me a very happy holiday.

One to Read in a Deep Wood:

Mythago Wood, by Robert Holdstock

Strange from the get go, this story is set shortly after the second world war. Steven has returned to his family home, after staying away until his disturbingly caustic father has died. But when he arrives, he finds his brother in the same sort of thrall to Ryhope, the ancient, wild wood that lies at the border of their house. 

In the woodland depths is a realm where mythic archetypes grow flesh and blood, where love and beauty haunt your dreams. It seems to promise freedom but hides insanity. Strange people begin emerging from the depths of the wood – green men types and Arthur knight types and Steven comes to believe that some have been created from the mind of his father. Some are deadly, but when he meets Guiwenneth, he falls in love with her ancient beauty. Eventually his brother arrives with a band of wild-men and captures her, taking her into the forest. Steven follows, trying to get past the invisible barriers that stop humans entering the mythago centre of the woods. He and a friend follow a stream that takes them past the barriers and into a mythic world.  This covers two bases; it's both fantasy and reality at the same time, and held me all the way through,. 

One for the hay-meadow, or the Village Summer Fête:

The Corn King and the Spring Queen by Naomi Mitchison. 

Written in 1931 but available in a 1998 imprint from Amazon, my copy, gifted by a thoughtful friend, is from 1935, and a delight in itself. 

The story is long and dense, woven of history and myth and stretches from the Black Sea to Greece and Egypt. Set among the Scythians on the Black Sea in the second century, the story feels modern and relevant, as well as filled with magic and the beauty of ancient times. Mitchison was a feminist, a political activist and a socialist and awarded the CBE, so she keeps her story of  seventeen-year-old Erif Der very relevant. Erif has witch powers and is set the task by her greedy father of bewitching, marrying, then dispatching, the king of the land. But she falls in love with Tarrik, who is the Corn King, and as Spring Queen she must be by his side when the rituals of sowing and harvest take place. Tarrik travels to meet Kleomenes, rebel king of Sparta, who fervently believes in a hedonist revolution. After his aunt tries to kill her,Erif Der follows and magics him out of a prisoner of war jail.  She takes revenge on her scheming father, although she cannot find it in her to hurt the aunt. The two lovers then join forces. This story is redolent with beauty, creativity, power, courage, forgiveness, the search for meaning, and self-sacrifice. It is complex but 

Strangely, then, I've read two books set by the Black Sea in the last few weeks:

One for the Café in Town:

Grey Bees, by Andrey Kurjiv  Translated by Boris Drayuk 

This novel isn't grey at all; it's politically red-hot — definitely one to read where people pass — you’ll be desperate to tell them about it and recommend it. Set in the neutral ‘grey zone’ between Russia and Ukraine during the 2014- 2021 conflict that exploded into war this year,  if features Sergey Sergeyich, a gentle, peace-loving beekeeper who lives alone in a Grey Village with no power and little food, but a surfeit of honey. No one can be trusted; there’s a Ukrainian soldier lying dead in the field at the bottom of his garden, and a mystery sniper who keeps an eye on all the goings-on. His wife has left with their daughter, along with everyone else. In fact the only other person in his village is his arch-enemy from their schooldays. But Sergey has such an honourable heart; he cannot even bear the idea that the children in the next village are missing their Christmas sweeties, which forces him to crawl, through the snow, in the middle of the night, to the soldier’s body.  To help his bees survive the lack of spring crops in the area, he goes on a road trip with a tent and trailer, camping out in forests. At first he drives into Ukraine, still at peace at that time, but some of the locals try to wreck his car and he heads to the sunshine of the Crimea, where he finds the Russians authorities are very threatening influence. He meets locals, sleeps with some sympathetic women and tries to get one woman’s husband, then her son, released from custody And all the time, he’s just not able, somehow or another, to phone his wife and daughter…

 One for the visit to a Roman Villa

The Golden Ass by Apuleius

Also set around the Hellenic, world before the start of the common era, but amazingly, written at that time, in Latin by a Roman, this is one raunchy tale. I was expecting a classically literate and erudite book,  but instead I was given a rollicking ride. Officially titled The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, Augustine of Hippo referred to it as The Golden Ass. It is the only ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety.

Lucius cannot help but dabble in other people’s magic. While trying to perform a spell to transform into a bird, he is accidentally transformed into an donkey. This leads to a long journey, literal and metaphorical, filled with tales. He finally finds salvation through the intervention of the goddess Isis, whose cult he joins. The word ‘novel’ had not quite been invented at that time to mean a long fictional story, but this has to be one of the world’s first picaresque novels and a worthy pre-curser to books like Don Quixote. It’s a surprising read, although I did find the animal cruelty pretty hard to swallow, especially as it’s still going on in some parts of the world. 

One to Read on a Very Long Journey:

American Gods by Neil Gaiman – the author’s preferred text.

My copy of this book has almost 650 pages, and exclusive extra materials, including an interview with the author, in which he says “England has history, and America has geography.” 

Gaiman exploits that geography by sending his character, Shadow, on a road trip with old gods who expect a lot – sacrifice, worship, violence; all of the shadow side of humanity.

Shadow starts the novel as a convict and grows throughout it, reinventing  himself, just as countless emigres and exiles had done with the USA. 

What are you reading this summer?

Do let me know by adding your thoughts to this kitchentablewriters post. 

Symbolism in Writing – The Tree

 

I’ve been away from my blog posting desk for a little while; the weather was holding good and the garden was crying out for attention. I’m writing course materials for the Open College of the Arts as well, so there wasn’t much time left to do anything else.

But now I’m back, I can’t get my garden entirely out of my mind, and so I’m going to look at trees as symbols in fiction. 

Trees are used to represent life and growth in mythologies, legends, poems and novels. Trees are considered representative of life, wisdom, power and prosperity. In literature trees are used as the metaphor of stability, solidity, strength and being grounded, and sometimes patience; that slow growth from a vulnerable sapling to a sturdy tree.

Trees can’t help but be spiritual, representing all the good in our lives; peace and prosperity, love and loyalty. as exemplified by the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge which can represent our personal development, uniqueness and individual beauty. Just as the branches of a tree strengthen and grow upwards to the sky, we too grow stronger, striving for greater knowledge.

The ancient Celts in Ireland so loved their native trees, that they based their alphabet on them – the Ogham – bestowed by the god of language, the Ogma. Each letters is affiliated – oak, of course, but also birch alder, willow, hazel, holly, rowan…twenty-five indigenous trees, each with it’s own symbolism. For instance Yew, which constantly regenerates itself and grows to a great age, is known as the tree of death and reincarnation. 

 Yggdrasil 

In Norse mythology the cosmology of the nine worlds, centres around a tree named Yggdrasil which reaches high above the clouds with roots that delve deep into divine realms. The god Odin hung from this sacred tree to gain enlightenment. 

Two of our most-loved and inventive writers, in their time, have featured trees in their work. J.R.R. Tolkien's Ents, the talking tree-like characters in the Lord of the Rings are the caretakers of forests, headed by Treebeard (believed to be the oldest creature in Middle-earth), and over millenia they have become more and more like the trees that they herd. Nimloth, the White Tree of Gondor, is central to the mythology of the books. It grew in the Court of the Fountain in Minas Tirith and was also the motif of Gondor's flag. It represented the pride of Gondor, and a symbol of friendship between humans and the Elves.

The Whomping Willow

J.K. Rowling also loved featuring trees. My favourite is the whomping willow, a violent tree in the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. which destroys anyone who disturbs its branches. In  The Chamber of Secrets, Ron and Harry narrowly avoid getting crushed. Later, in The Prisoner of Azkaban, they discover that the Willow hides the entrance to a secret passageway.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a beautiful book I’ve written about here, as it’s an old favourite of mine. A ‘tree of heaven’ serves as a symbol of rising above adversity, as it sprouts in the tenement buildings. This tree is native to China and Taiwan and now considered an invasive species in New York City, but in the story its determination to grow and its resistance to being destroyed parallels the ambitions of the main character,  Francie…                                                                    

There’s a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky. It grows in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps. It grows up out of cellar gratings. It is the only tree that grows out of cement. It grows lushly . . . survives without sun, water, and seemingly without earth. It would be considered beautiful except that there are too many of it.

Individual tree species can create mood alongside metaphor, because of their individual characters. The Beginning of Spring  by Penelope Fitzgerald, is set in Russia. Towards the end of the story, the family stay at their dacha next to a forest of white birch, which Fitzgerald might be using to represent both change and constancy. One night Lisa and Dolly walk into the forest:

‘There were paths through the birch forest, made for the autumn shooting. In fact there was a path, which might have been called a ride, almost opposite the dacha. Lisa walked steadily along it, taking the middle of the track, which was raised above the rain-worn hollows of either side.  You couldn’t say it was pitch-dark. The moon on the cloudy night sky moved among he moving ranches…

…The leaf scent pressed in on her. There was nothing else to breathe. Then Dolly began to see on each side of her, among the thronging stems of the birch trees, what looks like human hands, moving to touch each other across the whiteness and blackness.…

…They were in a clearing into which the moon shone. Dolly saw that by every birch, close against the trunk, stood a man or woman. They stood separately, pressing themselves each to their own tree. Then they turned their faces towards Lisa, patches of white agains the whitish bark.’

As a writer, I'm hugely drawn to trees and their symbology. They feature heavily in all my books. In my first Shaman Mystery, In the Moors, a black poplar grows against an abandoned cottage with a dark history. It allows one victim to escape and gives entrance to Sabbie Dare, when she's exploring. Black poplars are known as magical trees, which is why I chose it.

Later in the novel, willows feature, and their role is even more macabre than that of the whomping willow; a series of murder victims are buried in a marsh below an ancient willow tree.

The honoured carcass of the Glastonbury Thorn

The third novel Beneath the Tor, has several important trees that are Glastonbury icons. I couldn't help but want to write about the Glastonbury Thorn, the tree supposedly planted by Joseph of Arimathea on Wearyall Hill, which flowered every Christmas, until it was destroyed by locals angry about boundary disputes. Since then it has become even more of a quest for pilgrims, and its carcass is covered by ribbons flowers and other votive offerings.

I also gave a part to Gog and Magog,  a famous pair of stately, wise and ancient Glastonbury oaks, which Sabbie encounters immediately after leaving the scene of someone's sudden death:

        As we tramped along a country path, Wolfsbane mounted a fence that took him into a small enclosure where two old oaks stood proud. It took me a minute to catch him up. I found him leaning into the further of the two oaks, his arms hugging the trunk, which was so broad it would have taken several of us to surround it completely. I rested my hand on the gnarled and weathered bark of the other tree. The day was warm, bees already buzzing in the foxgloves. A woodpecker rapped with furious persistence in the distance.

'Oh, listen,' I whispered.

We stood in silence. I couldn’t imagine a better way for us to recharge our spiritual batteries. Eventually, Wolfsbane turned round. He hitched his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and looked at the ground, as if the weight of what we’d seen only an hour ago was dragging at him. 'I think I might have to apologize to Brice.' 

I found myself gawping. Not a deliberate act, but I was startled by his words. Apologize seemed altogether the wrong sentiment. When someone you know has lost the love of their life, you condole. You sympathize and sorrow with them.

'Why ever would you need to apologize to Brice?' 

Wolfsbane leaned right into the trunk of the tree and closed his eyes. 'This is Magog, you know.'

'Oh,' I said, recognizing, but not quite placing the name. 

'The twin oaks. End of an avenue of ancient oaks.'

'Gog and Magog. I remember.' The oaks were almost leafless and white with age. 'They’re dying, Wolfs.'

'They’re dead.'

I put my hands over my mouth. 'That’s sad.'

'They’re the last, Sabbie. The rest were cut down – heck, a century ago. Even then they were millennia-old. It’s their time.'

Of course, there are so many poems that feature trees and use their symbolism, that they could not all be mentioned in a post of this size, but my favourites include Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “This Lime-tree Bower My Prison” and Robert Frost’s  “Birches”

Perhaps we should leave this subject by touching on what trees do, every day, for our planet. We're going to need all the trees we can get to help the next generation keep life on Earth for Humankind and many animals on an even and sustainable keel. I loved The Man Who Planted Trees, a short story published in 1953 by French author Jean Giono. It chronicles a shepherd’s three-decade-long effort to reforest a barren tract of land in Southeastern France. Spanning a time period shortly before World War I until shortly after World War II, the story is both an environmental and an antiwar allegory, but it has influenced the generations that have come after it, and now there are many guerrilla tree planters who fill their pockets with discarded acorns and carefully bring on the saplings they produce, before taking them back into barren places. 

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