A Flicker of Inspiration:
This event was hosted by Leicester Centre for Creative Writing at DMU. Postgrads studying creative writing at PhD level read out their beautiful words, hooking us from beginning to end. There were many different styles of writing from Chick-Lit and poetry to extracts from novels.
This was an eye-opening event which transported the audience into the creative and imaginative worlds of the writers. They oozed confidence, charm, and raw honesty while reading their work. This is quite a hard feat to pull off, but these writers did it with style.
The writer I related to most was Caroline Butterworth, this is because, like me, she also has a visual impairment.
Her writing spoke volumes to me; I experienced the same things as she did when I first started using a white cane. Her description of ‘being measured for [her cane] like a lady in a shop measures girls for a prom dress’ was heart-wrenching, and it felt like she’d been nervous and shy about using this phrase.
Another description that hit home for me was: ‘the people near the bus stop parted like the red sea when they saw me coming with my long white cane’. This happens when I’m going places with my cane. People do stop and move away from you. Caroline captured this alienation
