A MOSSLEY author has provided her talents to a book centred around the city she has adopted.
And Sophie Parkes says living in Tameside gives her the time and space to think and refine her work.
The novelist is one of 12 authors – including Shelagh Delaney – to contribute to the Book of Manchester.
Described as being ‘more concerned with dialling down that sometimes deafening hubris’ surrounding the city, it is a collection of work set in Manchester which can also provide insights into its literal rise.
Characters include a pair of homeless friends and ordinary residents but Sophie believes living comparatively ‘out in the sticks’ can provide a different view.
She said: “It gives you a bit of distance as you can look back. When you’re in the thick of it, it’s harder as you’re just there.
“I also used to work in the city centre, so I was there daily. I don’t go in as often now, so when I go, there’s something new.
“I once found myself completely disorientated, so I had to get my Google Maps out. I was like, ‘This is weird. I wouldn’t have had to do that five or 10 years ago.’
“So being out of the city gives you a chance to reflect a bit. Living in Mossley definitely gives you a chance to breathe out.
“And as I’m a bit older, I can write about being younger. I can think about what it was like being a student living in town.”
The Book of Manchester, published by Comma Press, has been well received since publication, as a seemingly never-ending queue of people wanting Sophie to sign a copy at its launch highlighted.
And when offered the chance to put her name alongside Shelagh Delaney’s, it was an easy answer, followed by fear.
She added: “Comma Press is a long-established publisher of short fiction and I’ve done things for them in the past – I even did work experience with them.
“They try to nurture and support new writers, but it was great they could include Shelagh.
“I’ve always admired what they do and they’d never done a Book of Manchester, despite being based there.
“The editor got in touch and said, ‘Would you be interested in contributing?’ I was just like, ‘Yeah.’
“My first reaction, though, was one of absolute terror as I’m not actually from Manchester, I’m from down south but I’ve lived here longer than I have anywhere else.
“However, I’m married to someone from Tameside, so I feel like he should have written this, not me!”
Read Sophie’s generation-spanning short story, titled Shock City, and you would not know she is not a native Mancunian.
But as she told the Correspondent as she is an associate lecturer at Sheffield Hallam and Leeds Art Universities after completing a PhD in creative writing, while fitting in her own work, she knows the city well enough, along with its changes.
She continued: “I’m naturally a novelist, I like the space a novel gives you, but I thought a bit about my experiences in Manchester as I came there as a student in 2003.
“I thought, ‘That would be an interesting thing to take a look at’ and my husband and I lived in Manchester for five years before moving to Mossley.
“At that time, it felt like beyond Great Ancoats Street – the Ancoats area – underwent this huge transformation.
“We had a band and would rehearse in a lot of the mill spaces around there. At that time, the band would check I was going to be all right walking through!
“Now, not only are people living there but it’s fancy. That just blew my mind that it could happen so quickly.
“That got me thinking about the people who used to live there, when it was really unpleasant and over-populated. The more I looked into the scuttlers, the more I found it fascinating.
“So my story came about like a guy has just finished university, what happens next? He’s living in Ancoats, which is very expensive. He’s an ordinary lad, how’s he going to survive and what happens when someone from the past comes back?”
Sophie achieved success with Out of Human Sight, has written the biography of folk singer Eliza Carthy and her work with endurance athlete Blind Dave Healey, From Light to Dark, influenced the short film Seven Days.
She has gone back to her Oxfordshire roots for a novel influenced by folklore but admits many people say they would like to see a sequel to the first title, based around the 1832 murder at Saddleworth’s Moorcock Inn, known locally as Bills O’Jack’s.
And the area, in which she runs the 20-strong Mossley Writers group, provides plenty of inspiration as she said: “Around here, there’s so much to go at.
“It’s a great place to live, a really inspiring place, and your environment always comes out in your writing.
“The fact so much of it is still here, people aren’t working in mills every day but the buildings are there. It’s a place that wears its history and people are really proud of it.”
*THE BOOK of Manchester – A City in Short Fiction is available in paperback, priced £9.99 plus postage, from https://commapress.co.uk/books/the-book-of-manchester.