Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jane Dougherty

@janedougherty47.bsky.social

750 followers 590 following 1.8K posts

Writer of fiction and poetry, lives in a green fortress. Not interested in 'communities'. Learn to live together, the rest of the natural world manages to. Visit my Substack https://substack.com/@janedougherty47 for short fiction and poetry

substack.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Reposted by Jane Dougherty

Elliot J Harper @elliotjharper.bsky.social · Jul 26

After an unscheduled stop, Cecil Tabiner finds himself on the Templewood Express, where a perfectly ordinary journey becomes something quite peculiar. Will Cecil arrive with his mind and body intact?

Available for preorder now!

www.northodox.co.uk/product-page...

#booksky

4 8

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 1h

💙

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 2h

💙💚

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 2h

Yes, there are some moments of what we might call enlightenment, but Euripides is the only one who springs to mind. Medea, Circe and Paspihaë were the same family. All terrible women fit only to be destroyed. I wonder why?

1 2

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 2h

The portrayal of powerful women in the Greek myths as either witches or monsters or monstrous witches has always struck me as suspect. Historically, the Black Sea and Cretan civilisations predated Athens by a long way, and ended up being crushed by them. Victors rewriting history.

1 1

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 3h

Yes, the bull is one of the interesting aspects. The Greeks used it to mean male power, even perverted power as in the Minotaur, but power. In Crete they danced with bulls. Such diametrically opposed cultures. Brute force was bound to win in the end.

1 1

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 3h

Thanks so much, Stefano 💙

1 1

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 3h

Thanks Paul. I really enjoyed dismantling the horrible myth and giving it some plausible historical context.

1 1

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 3h

'Pasiphae: an incredible feminist retelling of a woman wronged by myth'

The story of a girl, wife, mother, queen, alone against a tide of bronze spears, the changing world order.

Pre-order promotion now from Waterstones UK

#mythology #historicalfiction #LegendPress

1 7 9

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 21h

Thank you, Debra. It's so short, I thought I'd escape the trap of being preachy 💙

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 21h

Yes, I agree. And our purpose can't ever be simply to feel good about ourselves. Life isn't about me, the individual and my personal satisfaction, it's about everything else.

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 1d

Pre-order promotion starting soon. #mythology #BookSky
#historicalfiction

4 9

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 3d

Sorry about that. Maybe If I hadn't been sent by an over-zealous gynecologist to an over-zealous lab, they'd never have opened me up, and you'd not have had a problem to balance it up!

1 1

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 3d

Predictive text is proof (if any were needed) that machines don't have any notion of context, because they don't have one!

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 3d

Thanks Andy! Nothing's ever perfect, but the shorter a poem is, the more chance there is that is won't have multiple problems 😀

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 3d

Sorry, just me getting on my hobby horse about us being too self-absorbed. That kind of writing bores me to tears 😀

1 1

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 3d

Thank you, Paul 💙

1 1

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 3d

We do. But imperfections in a poem isn't the same as personal imperfections. Is a poem valid as poetry if it exists only as a cathartic exercise with no universal meaning? Can an exposé of someone's perceived problems mean much to those who don't know them?

1 1

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 3d

Just out of curiosity, when was it? Mine was in 2006.

1 1

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 3d

I had an ultrasound and they saw micro something or others. If I'd been overweight or a smoker, they wouldn't have been out of the ordinary. I had to have the tissue taken out for a biopsy. Nothing there. Just another weirdness. Like having no marrow in my sternum.

1 1

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 4d

💙

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 4d

And the funny thing is, there was never anything wrong. But they had to poke about to find that out! Perhaps it was just to make sure we don't differ on any important issues 😀

1 1

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 4d

So delicately phrased, no warrior-woman self-congratulation, just quiet, picking myself up and getting on with it. (I didn't know this about you, but I should have done. I have the same charcoal dots, same place).

1 2

Reposted by Jane Dougherty

Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · 4d

Good morning! I wasn't going to do this prompt for #PoemsAbout #imperfectMe but started writing it yesterday @paulwritespoems.bsky.social writing group. It's still rough. Thanks as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Poem:

Still Standing

The scar on my right breast
a faint tracing,
the charcoal under the artist’s paint,

tattooed dots,
ellipsis signaling the story continues—

always a before
and an after--

so far, always an after--

the sagging of flesh, the greying of hair,
points for endurance, if not for style,

as vain as anyone, I suppose,
but embracing the imperfect,
me.

18 18 76