Winter Readings: ‘Grey Wizard’ Catherine Wilkinson
Our Guest Non-Fiction Editor Catherine Wilkinson reads her short story, ‘Grey Wizard’, originally published in Issue Ten.
Catherine Wilkinson was first published in Issue 11 of this publication with her story GREY WIZARD. Introduced as ‘an exquisite painterly story concerning the death of a horse’ , it is a sensory-focused work also lingering upon art and chromesthesia. It’s one of a collection of stories, SPECTRUM, loosely linked by brain wiring anomalies. Published by Storgy, another, GHOST APPLES, invites you to meet a boy with a busy little head. A story about insidious conflict – with a teacher, time, and within himself. ‘A super realist timbre that sings’, it is rich, rural and lit by fascinating snippets of nature. EXEAT, set in Berlin and featuring a singular man-boy, Ludo, will be published in February 2021. The latest and longer story, BOTANICUM, involves the restoration of a glasshouse, hyperacusis, honey, and grief. Written in 2018, ISLAND JOURNAL blends memoir, travel, frivolity and nature, and is currently being worked upon in audio format. The pandemic having both popped the bubble of an MA and thwarted a nomadic existence, Wilkinson’s caravan has stopped by a vast lough in Tipperary – more precisely, in the garden yard of a ruined castle tower upon which nightly sits a big white barn owl.