Hello, and welcome to November’s first showcase! I’m Charlotte, and I’m the Prize Manager at the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, which is awarded by The Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation. Established in 2015 by the late adventure author Wilbur Smith and his wife, Niso, the Foundation champions literacy and adventure writing as a genre. We work with writers and readers across the world, to ensure everyone can have their own adventures through the words on a page.

In many ways, this quarter’s theme of ‘Difference’ is at the heart of adventure writing. Through these stories we can encounter the unknown and embrace different people, places and perspectives that challenge our own. In her recent interview with Write On! Magazine, the winner of the 2024 Adventure Writing Prize, Francesca de Tores, said: “Fiction is one of the great vehicles of empathy, because it allows us into the minds and lives of others, including people whose experience might be wildly different to our own.” She couldn’t be more right! Just as adventurers push past borders to discover new realms, writers bring readers across divides.

With this in mind, we have curated a selection of stories and poems that not only explore differences but also illuminate how these contrasts can bridge gaps and deepen a shared understanding. The first is an extract from a novel, The Selene Project, by Dr Beth Bartlett, who was a winner of our New Voices award for aspiring authors. In this extract, we see how a common experience of difference can bring people together. In this case, infertility and child loss create a connection between two people who previously felt alone.

The Selene Project

“Did you notice the ‘No Moon Babies’ clause in that contract we signed yesterday?” Simone said, in her French accent.

“So that’s what we’re calling it?” Anna laughed, taking a sip from her glass.

The clause was predictable really – ethics had decided they couldn’t risk a pregnancy on the moon. It posed too many problems. What nationality would a baby be? What would low gravity do to early development and bone growth? There were too many unknowns, and rather than face them, management had buried their heads in the sand and declared anyone found to be romantically involved would be thrown off the project.

“Oui, I mean, how ridiculous,” Simone said, “I am not worried about it for myself, but come on, a bit naïve, no?”

“They’re gonna have to face it eventually aren’t they?” Anna said, “I hope they’ve at least looked into the biology of growing up on the moon, it’ll happen one day.”

“For sure,” Simone said, “especially if some of us stay up there long-term. Did you ever think about having kids?”

Anna was taken aback and went quiet. She didn’t talk to anyone about that nowadays, and mercifully, apart from her mother, few people asked. The question had been fair enough; there they were, two women in their late thirties, preparing to spend a year of their fertile lives in an underground bunker and another five or more as human guinea pigs on the moon – hardly conducive to family life. It had taken a long time to put the fertility stuff behind her. Was she ready to talk about it now?

“I can’t have them,” she said, looking at the floor, then at Simone.

“Désolée,” Simone said, placing her hand on Anna’s.

“Yeah, it took me years to come to peace with it all. I wasn’t in a good place for a long time. I’d always wanted them. I suppose that’s why I’m here now – I know I’m going to make a difference to humanity, and I guess I see the project as my legacy. Just a different legacy to the one I counted on before,” she said, quietly.

“It looks like we share some, how do you call it? Common ground?” Simone said, running her finger around the rim of her glass.

“I’m sorry,” Anna said, sensing her new friend’s pain.

“It’s also one of the reasons I’m here. I know I told you I’d always wanted to travel to space. That’s what I tell everyone, and it’s true. But I think I’m also trying to escape the past.”

Anna remained quiet and let Simone talk.

“In 2041 I lost my husband in a car crash in Paris. He was on life support for a week before we had to let him go. He would never have recovered. I applied for posthumous sperm retrieval and six months later I was pregnant with our child. It felt as though everything was going to be better, you know?”

Simone paused and brushed away a tear with her palm.

“I gave birth at twenty-three weeks. I held our baby. I saw her. She was mine for two days. Then I lost her too.”

Anna felt her chest heave and tears start to brim. She leaned over and hugged Simone.

“What was she called?”

“Lilou.”

They held each other and cried. Their shared pain and loss making them instantly more precious to one another, despite only having met a few hours earlier.

“I think we’re going to need each other on this project,” she said to Simone.

“Oui. I think we are.”

© Dr Beth Bartlett, 2024

Connect on Instagram: @bethbartlettauthor

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Next, in this poem by Carolyn Oulton, the narrator moves towards a quiet acceptance of their own difference, embracing it without needing to conform. The vulnerability and honesty of this piece invites readers to recognise and accept a sense of otherness they may feel within themselves. Not fitting the standard form is something to be celebrated, not hidden, reminding us that our individuality can be a source of strength.

© Carolyn Oulton, 2024

Connect on Facebook: carolyn.oulton

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The next extract is from You’re Not My F*cking Mother And Other Things Gen Z Say In Therapy. In this extract, we subtly see how seemingly unbridgeable differences can often appear on both sides of the bridge. Preesha feels that her mother doesn’t want to understand her career, yet we sense that perhaps her mother doesn’t know how to understand it. This layered disconnect reveals the complexities of generational and cultural expectations, but with Preesha’s smile at the end of the piece, we are left feeling hopeful that empathy and open communication will be enough to bridge the differences dividing mother and daughter.

Excerpt from You’re Not My F*cking Mother And Other Things Gen Z Say In Therapy

Preesha was a 22-year-old social influencer with brown skin and a South Asian heritage who was afraid of becoming irrelevant. She arrived on time, looked immaculate and always carried a smart bag; but she seemed to hover on the edges of therapy. We’d been meeting for a couple of months when something shifted.

‘My mum opened my DMs – do you know what that is?’ I nodded.

‘There were nudes.’

‘Of you?’ I was surprised.

‘No. Someone sent them, but Mum gave this lecture about how “someone like me” shouldn’t be behaving like this and said I’ve brought shame on her.’

‘Can I check I’ve understood? Someone sent explicit pictures to you, which your mum opened, and consequently, you have brought shame on her?’

‘Yes.’

‘That sounds confusing. And difficult. I’m sorry that’s happened.’

‘It’s not your fault.’

‘Nor yours, by the sound of it. Shall we try to make sense of it?’

‘How?’

‘By thinking about it together, working out what happened.’

‘OK.’

‘Firstly, I want to check how this has left you feeling.’

‘Ashamed.’

‘Like your mum? You’re not your mum, and she’s not you.’

‘Tell her that!’

‘I remember you saying before that you feel like she doesn’t understand your work. Do you think she wants to understand? Do you think that’s why she checked your phone?’

‘She could have just asked!’

‘Yes, she could,’ I agreed, then mused, ‘Actually, maybe she couldn’t?’

‘What?’

‘Maybe she felt too, I don’t know, maybe ashamed?’

‘She should be ashamed of snooping. I’m a grown woman!’ Preesha raged.

‘Yes, you are, and I agree you have a right to privacy. At any age, actually.’

Preesha looked sullen.

‘Maybe your mum feels ashamed of – what did you call it? – snooping. But I was thinking maybe she felt ashamed of feeling that she needed to snoop; like that was the only way she could know you.’

There was no response from Preesha, but I saw a flicker of something in her eyes. Possibly more rage; possibly recognition; maybe even some empathy.

‘I think you’re right.’

‘And how does my idea sit with you?’

‘It makes me sad.’

‘Me too.’

As we sat together in the sadness, I reflected on how different it felt to be with Preesha in that moment. Something had shifted. She’d opened up; let me in. I recalled my experience of being with her during the first months of therapy, how difficult I’d found it to connect with her and how out of reach she’d seemed. But I’d stuck at it and stuck with her. I’d been patient and hadn’t snooped. Patience is obviously much easier to maintain for 50 minutes a week than it is when you live with someone full time.

‘I wonder what you think your mum meant when she said, “someone like you”?’

‘Someone from a nice family. Someone with brown skin.’

‘Go on,’ I encouraged.

‘She said they’ve given me everything and I’ve thrown it back in their faces. She hates that I don’t have a career, or a partner, or a life plan.’

‘You do have a career.’

‘Not in her eyes.’

‘Because you’re not a lawyer or a doctor?’ I remembered what Preesha had said in an earlier session.

‘Exactly.’

‘I noticed just now that sometimes you said “her” and sometimes you said “they”. Does your dad feel the same?’

‘I don’t know, he’s never here. He travels a lot for work. Facetimes, asks if I need money, pings some over, tells me he loves me…’ she trailed off.

‘Do you feel loved by him?’

‘He doesn’t know me.’

‘And your mum. Do you feel like she knows you? Loves you?’

‘She doesn’t show it. They both sort of hover around the edges, if that makes sense.’

‘It does.’

It reminded me of my sense of Preesha hovering on the edge of therapy, which now made sense in the context of her family relationships. If she felt that her parents hovered, that would have informed her model of relationships.

‘Has it always felt like that?’

‘They both worked. I had nannies. Went to school six days a week, did loads of extracurriculars.’

‘Some people would describe your upbringing as privileged. Is that what you think your mum means when she says they’ve given you everything?’

‘Yes. And it’s true. I’ve had everything I could ever want, and I’m made to feel ungrateful or less than.’

‘Less than?’

‘She’s always going on about the fact that I’ve wasted my private education.’

‘Because you don’t have, what she calls, a proper job?’

‘Yes.’

‘And she sees the job you do have as “less than” the job she would like you to have?’

‘Exactly.’

‘I remember when you first came here you said you felt under pressure to do well and make money, as if that was an internal pressure you put on yourself.’

‘Yes, that’s how it felt.’

‘And now?’

‘I think it comes from them.’

‘Because that’s what was expected?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re only 22! Sorry, I didn’t mean for that to sound like I think there’s still time for you to get a “proper job”.’ I did air quotes to inject humour. ‘I mean there’s time for you to work out what success might look like for you.’

‘I know what you mean, it’s OK.’

Preesha smiled and looked at me in a way that told me she felt I’d understood; that we had connected and that she knew that I cared about her. I think people need to know that you care before they care what you think.

(c) Jeanine Connor, 2024

Jeanine Connor is a psychodynamic psychotherapist, clinical supervisor and workshop facilitator in private practice, as well as Editor of BACP Children, Young People & Families Journal and Reviews Editor for BACP Therapy Today. She is the author of three books influenced by psychotherapy with adolescents and young adults, and one book about human anatomy and physiology.

You’re Not My F*cking Mother And Other Things Gen Z Say In Therapy (PCCS Books, 2024) is a book of fictional short stories which paint vivid portraits of what goes on behind the therapy room door. It’s compulsive reading for anyone concerned with the human psyche and the struggles of young adults in the Western world today. The stories illustrate how mothers show up in (almost) everybody’s psychotherapy, and how they, their and our own heritages and baggage shape us all.

Connect with Jeanine on LinkedIn, via her website www.seapsychotherapy.co.uk

Book buy link: www.pccs-books.co.uk/products/youre-not-my-fcking-mother-and-other-things-gen-z-say-in-therapy

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If you’d like to see your writing appear in the Write On! Showcase, please submit your short stories, poetry or novel extracts to: pentoprint.org/get-involved/submit-to-write-on/

Hear extracts from Showcase in our podcast. Write On! Audio. Find us on all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Google Podcasts and Spotify. Type Pen to Print into your browser and look for our logo or find us on Spotify for Pocasters.

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