Introduced By Amber Hall
Hello readers! This month marks the start of a new theme here at Write On!, which is ‘(R)Evolution’.
Writers and artists have always been there to capture the zeitgeist; to reflect on the world as they see it and express something that speaks to this. But in many ways, we’re living in a timeless age, where culture has become an amalgam of previous eras. The past is ever-present and always accessible: the Internet is the ultimate archive machine, serving up histories in nice, neat, AI-generated snippets. It’s an idea that the writer and cultural critic Mark Fisher, a favourite of mine, touched on. He coined the term, “The slow cancellation of the future,” to describe the sense of a recycled present, highlighting the tendency for retrospection in the modern age.
I’m interested in the idea of ‘pastness’ in people’s creative work, but also of the ways modern technologies imprint themselves on the arts (for better or worse). In my page this month, I wanted to think about the ways that we, as writers, can move forward with a pioneering attitude when it feels like everything has been done. What does innovation look like in the arts today, and how can we interact with the past to create a bold new future? In short, how do we stop descending into the futureless present Fisher spoke of? I don’t have the answers, but that’s why we write. We ask questions about the world and create imagined ones that might inspire a better future.
The pieces I’ve chosen for my page this month reflect on the ways storytellers can navigate their creativity against a backdrop of uncertainty and digital omnipresence. There’s clarity, depth and insight in each of these pieces: things that any bold new future should be built upon.
First, we have a prose piece written by Eithne Cullen. Eithne sheds light on the importance of encouraging creativity in the classroom, reminding us of its loss in recent years.
Curmudgeonly
We’re looking at evolution and revolution, and there’s so much hope for creative futures, with AI sparking a world of doing and making and growing. Then there’s me… and I’m feeling a little less upbeat. In fact, I’m quite curmudgeonly and I’m looking at the past.
I wonder when I wanted to write, growing up loving stories (I read from books and from my mother’s imagination). I remember poems from my primary school reading books; I can summon up the illustration that decked the page which shone from Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market. I can remember writing stories, trying to cram too many characters and too many scenes into the pages of the exercise book. My mind running faster than my inky pen, which brought the most cutting remarks from teachers more worried about my handwriting than my fantastical prose.
As a teacher, I encouraged creativity: stories from the imagination, poems to express feelings and responses to even the most pitiful of clichéd prompts: An Old Raincoat Tells Its Tale, My Most Embarrassing Moment, My ideal Home and so on. But the students stepped up and wrote what came from their hearts: flourishes of poetry skipping into their words, voices so original I burst with pride. There was always room for creative writing in the curriculum.
Until there wasn’t. There’s no creative writing in the English curriculum these days. No time for stories and fanciful creations. Instead, there are Assessment Objectives a-plenty and all kinds of writing for a particular purpose (which need to be taught, I know!).
And here’s my biggest worry: where will the writers of tomorrow cut their teeth? Where will they learn to use flowery language for effect? Where will they let their imagination run away in a blotted copy book full of crossings out?
I hear a lot about young people not reading, so where will the writers of tomorrow come from? And I agree, many youngsters will leave school having read only the set texts, having immersed themselves in the canon of literary heritage decreed by Government ministers.
Don’t get me started on the disappearance of Music and Drama from the options choices, or the reduction in DT (Design & Technology) subjects that once sat at the heart of the National Curriculum.
So, pardon my harking back to other times and other ways, but I’m a great believer in that old adage: In order to see where we’re going, we need to look at where we’ve come from.
© Eithne Cullen, 2025
Connect with Eithne on X: @eithne_cullen and Instagram: @eithnecullen57.
*****
Next, Mirabel Lavelle writes about the power of authentic voice, highlighting the way AI technology may be used to amplify forgotten and underrepresented voices of the past.
Enabling Marginalised Voices To Tell Their Story
Artificial Intelligence is enabling uneducated people to tell the world stories which, for generations, remained unwritten. Such voices bring a revolution to the traditional literary world. These tales are unrestricted by conventional writing customs, playing a salient role in reshaping the literary landscape.
How can AI be used ethically and equitably to enable marginalised voices and unheard stories to reach vast international audiences? To what extent can it be used without reshaping the narrator’s voice so that it remains unique and fresh?
I find myself wrestling with such questions because I’m writing a novel influenced by the voices of my grandmothers and rural female Maltese voices, going back to the 1930s. I need my writing voice to remain purely Maltese in idiom, in cultural undertones, in nature. Yet, as a writer of social historical fiction, conducting research is vital. It was while online, I came across a PhD Thesis that guided me to specific places in Malta to collate long buried documents at source and to connect with people who shed more light on my inquiries.
Used responsibly, AI can help us to discover voices that will enrich our human understanding. For example, voice-to-text apps are being used as tools to break down linguistic and educational barriers, allowing marginalised stories to be documented and also translated. Orally-passed-down stories are being written down, immortalised in text.
I have always longed to be known, truly known, by another human being. Sometimes we live for years with yearnings that we cannot name. These are the opening sentences of the book my daughter gave me last Christmas. In Dream Count, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie brings the voices of marginalised women to life. Her choice of language is precise and powerful. Of the four main female character narratives, it is her portrayal of Kadiatou that grabbed me the most because of how skilfully Adichie portrays the impact of past trauma on the rest of this woman’s life. By not translating every Igbo and Nigerian English word, Adiche validates and empowers marginalised women to tell their story in their own way.
Marginalised stories reveal a unique type of linguistic expression. If I were to use old rural Maltese to express female beauty, I would use the term ‘cow’ in the context of such writing. A cow signified prosperity to a farmer and was therefore beautiful.
AI is playing a significant role in transforming the literary landscape. It’s bringing unwritten stories to the international bookish platform. Previously silenced voices are being showcased alongside the more traditionally dominant voices. It’s a space for untold truths to become visible, exposed and acknowledged. These storytellers are not asking AI to invent a narrative, but to be the vehicle taking their stories to a much wider audience by writing and recording them. These writings are a necessary ingredient in maintaining a vibrant literary future.
© Mirabel Lavelle, 2025
Learn more about Mirabel’s work via her website: www.writebymirabel.co.uk and connect with her on Facebook and Instagram: @mir.j.car.
*****
Finally, we have a poem by Afsana Elanko, a doctor. Here, she takes us on a journey through the ages of medicine and creatively explores the ways technology is revolutionising modern healthcare.
The Epic Tale Of Medicine
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis – The art is long, Life is short.
Surgeon’s hand, the poet’s pen,
Are shaped through years, not now and then.
A craft demanding its steady due,
While life, alas, is fleeting and few.
Primeval past, where the firelight flickered,
Healers with herbs made sicknesses wither.
Bark and berry, leaf and lore,
Faith in the forest, spirit and spore.
Chanting with charms in caves of clay,
Where roots and rituals ruled the day.
By Nile’s noble banks in Egypt’s lands,
Doctors with scrolls and steady hands –
Wrote on papyrus, potions they mixed,
For fevers, fractures and pain they were the tricks.
India’s dawn, Ayurveda bloomed,
With spice-swept salves and scents perfumed.
Ancient Greece where thinkers trod,
Hippocrates questioned the will of the Gods.
Rome then rose with roads and rites,
Borrowed from Greeks, but added new heights.
With extensive knowledge, Avicenna on Persian stage,
With inquisition, penned healing hymns on every page.
Reason and rebirth reigned in Renaissance,
Science swayed with bold advance.
Vesalius peeled back skin and scheme,
To map the muscles, nerves and anatomy’s dream.
New knowledge flowed through Europe’s veins,
In labs and halls, through enquiry and strains.
By 20th Century’s breath,
We battled bugs and bested death.
With vaccines vast and X-ray eyes,
We’ve pierced the veil where illness lies.
From herbal hopes to healing high-tech,
Medicine’s made its mighty trek.
In halls of white where silence sings,
The future hums on silicon wings.
No longer just the healer’s hand,
But circuits now obey command.
In halls where scalpels danced with grace,
A whisper rose in time and space –
A dream of hands that never shake,
A Robot born of circuits for healings sake.
Of surgeon’s mind with robot hand,
Operating with precision grand.
With steady hand and motion true,
The robot cuts where few dare do.
No shake, no slip, no faltering beat,
A blend of code and surgeon’s calm elite.
It dances in the hand of a surgeon’s stead,
Where risks once loomed, now hope spreads.
AI scans the shadowed frame,
With laser eyes and no disdain.
A tailor with data thread,
It suits each cure to how we’re bred.
With genome maps and coded lore,
It finds the keys to health’s closed door.
A whisper turned to roar,
mRNA knocks at disease’s door.
A letter sent, a command to fight,
To teach our cells to shield the night.
From virus’s cloak to cancer’s scheme,
It turns defence into a dream.
With 3D printers now, we shape the clay,
Of limbs and organs, night and day.
A heart, a bone, a lung, a vein,
From plastic ink to living gain.
The artist’s craft, in biotech’s mould,
Building the future, brave and bold.
Through digital ties, Dr’s gaze now spans the sky,
Through lenses lit by signals high.
From deserts dry to city sprawl,
Screens, augmented realms connect us all.
Wearables beat like second hearts,
Tracking rhythms, vital parts.
In seas of number, insights gleam,
Big data fuels the healing dream.
Internet of medical things, the woven thread,
Links every bed to every head.
A living web, aware and wise,
In trained hands sees the signs before demise.
So here we stand, both flesh and spark,
Where medicine lights up the dark.
Not steel alone, nor mind, nor lore –
But fusion of rich or more and more.
A symphony of tech and care,
A future bold, beyond compare.
Where every breath and every part,
Beats with the rhythm of the heart.
© Dr Afsana Elanko, 2025
*****
Issue 26, featuring Patrick Vernon, OBE is out now. You will find it in libraries and other outlets. Alternatively, all current and previous editions can be found on our magazines page here.
You can hear great new ideas, creative work and writing tips on 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 Podcasters.Spotify.com.
*****
If you or someone you know has been affected by issues covered in our pages, please see the relevant link below for information, advice and support:
