Reading excerpts from The Buddha’s Bone at the Purely Poetry event, Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast
Last night I read excerpts from my second novel, The Buddha’s Bone, at the Purely Poetry event in the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast. Although a novel, my main character Kimberly expresses her darkest feelings during her journey in Japan through poetry.
The novel looks at many serious topics, although protagonist Kimberly tends to use her poetry as an outlet for her depression and sense of loneliness and isolation as she goes on a journey of self-discovery. I wrote the poems in Kimberly’s voice rather than my own style as a poet.
Some of my Advance Review Copy (ARC) readers in fact enjoyed Kimberly’s poetry so much that they commented in the Goodreads and Amazon reviews that my main character’s poems were among their favourite parts of the novel, as they helped with her characterisation and to show what she was truly feeling.
What do you think? If you’ve been reading The Buddha’s Bone, do you enjoy Kimberly’s poetry, or the novel as a whole? I’m always interested to hear what readers think because, after all, your thoughts keep me motivated to write more books!
Leilanie Stewart is an author and poet from Belfast, Northern Ireland. She has written four novels, including award-winning ghost horror, The Blue Man, as well as three poetry collections. Her writing confronts the nature of self; her novels feature main characters on a dark psychological journey who have a crisis of identity and create a new sense of being. She began writing for publication while working as an English teacher in Japan, a career pathway that has influenced themes in her writing. Her former career as an Archaeologist has also inspired her writing and she has incorporated elements of archaeology and mythology into both her fiction and poetry.
In addition to promoting her own work, Leilanie runs Bindweed Magazine, a creative writing literary journal with her writer husband, Joseph Robert. Aside from publishing pursuits, Leilanie enjoys spending time with her husband and their lively literary lad, a voracious reader of sea monster books.
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