Inevitable Returns

I've been quiet for a while, due to the pressure of academic writing and research. However, the most recent stage of my project has involved going back to the scene of my first published short story - 'Looking for Wildgoose Lodge' (Impossible Spaces, Hic Dragones 2013). I'm documenting the site and the variants of the story of a 200 year old agrarian atrocity as part of my PhD thesis - the final, most interesting and most difficult chapter.

Returning to the scene of the crime - quite literally - has made me think again about the influence of my upbringing on my writing, the kind of local Gothic that pemeates the rural countryside. I've blogged about this before on the Gothic Imagination website, but today I found another intriuging link to an article about this trend towards occulture in the English tradition by Robert McFarlane. Interesting stuff and food for thought. I think this introspection is coming from the feeling of finally seeing the thesis draw to a close, and a new era of creative projects inspired by it beginning to dawn. Naturally, being a firm fan of the Gothic, I'm also tickled by the idea of uncanny recurrence, the return of the repressed within my own work.

In the meantime, back to my roots. Time to reflect on more fieldwork.

(I'm sorry, the puns keep coming)