Obituary in the Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/story.jsp?story=629838
Also from Sean O'Brien
Julia Darling
Prolific playwright, novelist and poet
16 April 2005
Julia Darling, writer: born Winchester 21 August 1956; married Ieuan Einion
(two daughters; marriage dissolved); died Newcastle upon Tyne 13 April 2005.
Julia Darling was a writer of great gifts and versatility and, in recent
years, an extremely prolific one. She wrote novels and short stories, plays
and poetry, as well as collaborating frequently with painters, musicians and
other artists. She was also an instigator and a teacher, though the latter
word, which she viewed with suspicion, does not adequately suggest her power
to excite and inspire a sense of possibility - in writing, in life - among
the many who encountered her.
Darling was born in 1956 and grew up in a large family in Winchester, in the
house where Jane Austen died. A serial nonconformist, she left school at 15
before studying performance at Falmouth College of Art. In 1980 she moved to
the North-East. Working in community arts in Pennywell, a tough district of
Sunderland, she gave an early sign of her idiosyncratic approach by setting
up Wig - short for Women's Intellectual Group. In the same period she
created the political cabaret Sugar and Spikes with her long-time
collaborator, the poet and playwright Ellen Phethean.
Coming from feminism and practical socialism (though party affiliation was
too inert a condition to suit her for long), Darling's impulse to create
groups, to collaborate and make things happen never diminished. The Poetry
Virgins, a performance group which included Phethean and the actress Charlie
Hardwick, took poetry to unexpected places with great success, and resulted
in two anthologies, Modern Goddess (1992) and Sauce (1994).
Typically, Darling took the next step and became a publisher. Diamond Twig,
created with Phethean, is an imprint for poetry and short fiction by women,
providing a vital staging post for many writers in the North-East. She was
also involved in establishing proudWORDS, the first gay and lesbian literary
festival in England, now an annual event on Tyneside.
Following the birth of her daughters Scarlet and Florrie, Darling began
writing in earnest. A first collection of poems, Small Beauties (1988), was
published by Newcastle City Libraries. She undertook residencies and wrote
numerous plays, a selection of which, Eating the Elephant, is about to be
published by New Writing North. Donuts Like Fanny's, her hilarious
three-hander about the life of Fanny Cradock, is currently touring, as is
Manifesto for the New City, for Northern Stage, which grew from her role as
advocate for the Newcastle-Gateshead City of Culture bid. Her radio drama,
especially for Woman's Hour, was extremely popular.
Darling's fiction had a longer gestation. Bloodlines, a collection of short
stories, appeared in 1995. She belonged to a group of women fiction writers,
including Andrea Badenoch and Debbie Taylor, editor of Mslexia. From here
reports emerged of a strange and spectacular work in progress. This was to
be Crocodile Soup (1998). The novel brought Darling a national readership
and reputation. Like almost all her writing, Crocodile Soup is a work of the
comic spirit. It is sui generis, a wholly unexpected tale of love, knowledge
and eccentricity, driven by endless invention and a spontaneous aptness
which is in the best sense childlike.
1n 1995 Darling was diagnosed with breast cancer and successfully treated.
When the disease recurred, she decided that, as she put it, she was living
rather than dying. She enrolled on the MA in Creative Writing at Newcastle
University, studying poetry with Jo Shapcott and W.N. Herbert. Darling
already wrote vivid and enjoyable poems but she wanted technique, so in her
usual practical manner she set about acquiring it. She gained a distinction
and went on to publish two successful collections, Sudden Collapses in
Public Places (2003) and Apologies for Absence (2004).
Recently she had held a Royal Literary Fund Fellowship at Newcastle
University, followed by a Fellowship in Creative Writing and Health. She saw
poetry as a means of dealing with illness, giving fear a name. Countless
hours spent waiting or walking the labyrinths of the Royal Victoria
Infirmary were put to use in her work with health professionals, many of
whom attended her packed readings.
Darling's second novel, The Taxi Driver's Daughter (2003), darker in tone
but still very funny and inventive, was a great success with readers and
critics. Due recognition came with the £60,000 Northern Rock Foundation
Writer's Award in 2003. The North-East was very proud of Julia Darling. The
day after her death three generations of her family and several hundred
friends attended the launch of First Aid Kit for the Mind, her medical
poetry and art project with the painter Emma Holliday. The event was, like
Julia, uncategorisable, the sense of loss balanced by celebration. She lived
long enough to receive an advance copy of her anthology The Poetry Cure,
edited with the poet Cynthia Fuller.
Julia Darling was blessed in her partner of the last 15 years, Bev Robinson.
Her calm practicality, foresight and wry Yorkshire wit made possible not
only much of Julia's hectic work schedule and the gradual rebuilding of
their house in Heaton, but also the travels - to Australia, Brazil,
Mauritius, Paris - which they continued almost to the end. Not a moment went
to waste. In the words of one of Darling's last poems, "we all matter, we
are all / indelible, miraculous, here".
Sean O'Brien
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