Cherry Potts, Writer

Author: Cherry Potts

  • Early Music

    Music I found early, and Early Music I found… My passion for words nearly got in the way of my interest in music, and I was almost oblivious to tunes until I introduced myself to a wide variety of music via the library I worked in when I was nineteen. I think I took music…

  • What’s folk got to do with it?

    I was brought up on a diet of Beatles, Blues and Ballads. (I once had a cat who loved to be sung to, and the sadder the song the better: he was very partial to John Dowland, but his favourites were Bruton Town and Waly, Waly .  Morph used to scream in terror on the way…

  • Misty moisty morning

    At risk of sounding like a weekending townie, I love the Limpley Stoke Valley. I even love the name.  My best girl, A, was born in Trowbridge and brought up in Bath and the surrounding area. Consequently I have native-by-proxy rights. Whenever A gets what she calls ‘roots problems’ we hie off to Bath or…

  • How do you do that?

    At some point writers will always be asked ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ If I tried to answer that I would probably never finish, and consequently never write another story.  This post is in response to a different question that I have been asked- about the details that end up in my stories…

  • Little White Lies

    I tell lies all the time, mostly for my own entertainment.  I will exaggerate the awfulness of the journey home, I had to wait hours ’n’ hours for a train… To tell the truth, I will retell conversations in which I appear much wittier than I was in reality. If I’m honest, if someone asks…

  • Stone Carving for Beginners

    Sometimes talking to an expert isn’t enough, I have to try something out for myself.  I started writing a novel about thirteenth century musicians and masons over ten years ago.  I know what is going to happen in The Cold Time but I struggle with making it convincing.  I’ve read a lot of books, I’ve…

  • London Particular

    Sometimes I hate living in London, and sometimes I love it. In January rain it can feel as though it has turned its back and doesn’t want to know you, but it doesn’t take much to find a way through the cracks and into its secrets. We walked, A & I and three friends from…

  • The Imposter

    Another Genealogy letter: My partner’s maternal Grandfather is a bit of an enigma: He vanished, apparently without trace, leaving his wife with three young children.  The children suffered a great deal as a result, their mother took them back to live with her parents, but as the progeny of a broken home, they were shunned…

  • Wintermiddle

    Wintermiddle is, as far as I know, an invention of Michael Rosen.  His alternative to Father Christmas is Aunty Wintermiddle, a cheerful rainbow-wearing bringer of good times and merriment.  When I was going through my ‘its all a patriarchal construct’ phase, I found Aunty very comforting.  These days I’ll go with any celebration on offer…

  • Haunted by Fairy Tales

    So I’m on a business trip in Germany, slightly reluctantly (too close to Christmas, weather turning bad) and I discover that Kassel, where I am at a meeting of a European Project is the home town of the Brothers Grimm.  Drawing a veil over the journey which was definitely in the Epic rather than F-T…