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…Red meat was also off. Ditto - most unexpectedly - alcohol. As she sipped water and tucked into some lettuce, we went over her recent travels, her latest romance and the way her life was turning out…
Emma is home on a whirlwind visit – but has she really changed?
Susan Siddeley tells a delicious mother-daughter tale.
…Something burning. Heck, the pan contents are beginning to stick. I switch off the heat and make a last trawl for the remaining pits. Twenty to go. Come on stones, yield. One ninety five, two hundred. Great. No appendicitis pinned on my jam!...
Besides producing a sweet treat, Susan Siddeley’s jam making session also yielded words to treasure.
…Sharon and Dana stood on our front step, grinning and confident. Their red cheeks shone above their rainbow sweaters. They smelt of action and adventure. Their lilting voices rang around the lupins and bounced off the dustbins…
In this wonderfully evocative article Susan Siddeley recalls the time when two young Canadian girls arrived in a Yorkshire hill village.
For more of Susan’s entertaining words please click on Living On Three Continents in the menu on this page.
“Oh, Marlene, I love one in a morning, before breakfast. It really helps usher the day in. The trouble is before you know it, it’s another and another, and the next thing it’s ten o’clock… I’m a ten a day woman at the moment - don’t even stop for Corrie and Heartbeat. And last week, when the grandkids came round, I let them watch a video so I could finish one.’’
Ah, but what is Susan Siddeley on about in this delicious monologue? You are sure to be surprised.
...The war’s been over for years, but Mum’s still fighting. You should see her, making the beds in a morning, throwing the covers around like she’s wrestling the world, or scouring hell out of the front steps...
Susan Siddeley tells a perceptive story about a daughter who likes books, a "lost'' husband and a Mum who has to keep herself busy.
For more of Susan's well-crafted words please click on Living On Three Continents in the menu on this page.
...After me, they never went to the coast again. I was a shock. Who would plan to have a baby less than a year after a wedding when war was threatening? Of course Dad joined up and eventually went overseas. So, instead of a nice warm man to snuggle down with every night, Mum was left holding a wailing baby. Dad never came back...
Read this powerful piece of writing by Susan Siddeley - ten unforgettable paragraphs - and marvel at her skill in summing up a marriage and a life.
…Done well has our Maureen, Mrs Bottomly. Oh yes. Never been one to shirk. Not like her dad! Our Jack should be running that window cleaning business where he works. Would be if it weren’t for his back. Lumbago he says…
In this delicious one-sided conversation-piece Susan Siddeley introduces us to a lady who rarely allows a word in edgeways.
One year ago today, about this time, four young suicide terrorists exploded back-pack bombs in London, three of them on tube trains, one on a double-deck bus. Three of the terrorists were from Leeds.
In this story Susan Siddeley imagines the reaction of a “victim’’ who was far from the scene of the explosions
Susan Siddeley’s mother believed in miracles on five days in the week, but on Thursdays and Saturday’s she faltered. Susan’s brief prose-poem vividly encapsulates a many-paged book of memories.
A two-week writing workshop at the home of Susan Siddeley, Los Parronales, in Santiago, Chile, was led by Toronto poet Stuart Ross in January. "Perhaps the most inspiring and productive components of the daily sessions were the prompts - challenges I would have abandoned if I hadn’t been part of a group scribbling away, with lunch, high sun and blue pool waiting outside,'' says Susan.
The following piece is her funny and engaging response to one of those challenges.
Continue reading "I Didn't Think It Could Happen In A Lunchtime" »
Sonia phones to confirm the order. One truckload of cement to be poured into the trench along the front of the house... Ah, but what will lie hidden beneath that cement? Susan Siddeley tells a deliciously dark tale.
Susan and Gordon Siddeley will again be running 14-day writing workshops at their vineyard home in Chile's beautiful central valley. Authors Beth Follett and Stuart Ross will be leading and encouraging participants. There will be lots of sunshine, fine wine and good comradeship, and a chance to see and learn something of Chile and its literary heritage.
Susan has been a regular contributor to Open Writing with her entertaining and surprsing columns. To read them click on Living On Three Continents in the menu on this page.
These events in Chile promise to be a remember-for-the-rest-of-your-life experience. Herewith the full details of the workshops.
All a plant needs to maintain its vim and vigour is water. Isn't that so? Susan Siddeley is waiting in hope for an answer.
“Mum attacked our house every morning, duster in one hand, carpet sweeper in the other, polishing or binning everything in her path. Unfolded clothes, dropped toys, ashes, crumbs and loose papers were an anathema to her…’’ Susan Siddeley pays a wonderful tribute to her mother, a lady whose organizational talents should have been more widely used and recognized.
The girls and staff at Greenmount School have more than one thing to cheer about in this story by Susan Siddeley. And cheer they do, though a few aitches are dropped amid all the enthusiasm.
Susan Siddeley is a spectator at Toronto's annual Gay Pride Parade.
Susan Siddeley and her husband were shocked at the high cost of food and drink in England - until they came upon The Highwayman Cafe.
Susan Siddeley, whose home base is a farm near Santiago but who also spends part of each year in Canada and England, writes a delicious story about a Chilean boy's steps towards manhood.
A shot in the night gave author Susan Siddeley an idea. "Nothing prepared me for that first shot...'' she typed. Then the phone rang. "You're currently incurring a negative balance,'' said a voice. An announcement which prompted Susan to write this deliciously surreal column.
Susan Siddeley maintains her sense of humour as she wrestles with the English and Spanish lanugages, and a particularly tough piece of meat.
Susan Siddeley devotes countless hours to her writing, and to encouraging others to write. She and her husband run writing retreats on their farm near Santiago, Chile.
Susan is also a voracious reader. But is she a "good'' reader? This engagingly honest article gives you the answer to that question.
Read it, ponder for a moment,then ask yourself the question: "Am I a good reader.''
Susan Siddeley writes enticingly of the writing workshop/retreat that she and her husband hosted on their farm in Chile in January this year.
Her account of the talk, the wine, the food, the scenery, the outings, and the sunny, sunny weather will make all who read her column wish they had been there to share the experience.
Maybe you could be, some day. Susan and her husband will be organising similar events. Watch out for details.
The word Christmas rings slightly hollow in Chile, which is gearing up for summer at the end of December, says Susan Siddeley. Nevertheless, rampant commercialism has seen to it that Christmas has taken off and is being celebrated in the Northern hemisphere way.
Trees are decorated and snowy scenes constructed in public places as well as in private homes. Whether this is good or bad is often debated, but Chilean children certainly aren't complaining.
Susan Siddeley thought that the menacing bus drivers of Santiago should be cautioned, retrained, fined or jailed. Then comes the day when you have to take the bus...
Susan Siddeley writes of the day when four men showed up, insisting that they had to cut down some trees.
Susan Siddeley's guests think her dog and cat have pretty names. What they don't realise is "Hop it'' in Yorkshire means buzz off, and "sale'' is Spanish for out. Susan's poem will make you smile - but there's a serious point to it.
Books of Susan's poems are availabe for sale. Click on Gillian Arthur in our Links list.
Susan Siddeley will be heading out next Thursday to a Remembrance Day service, ready to give thanks for a good education and the opportunities it has afforded while remembering the unlucky ones who gave their lives in wartime.
Red Alert for poets and literary fiction writers.
Book Now!
Only two places remain in a January 2005 residential writing workshop to be held in a country house set in a vineyard outside Santiago, Chile.
“The Reality Project” - the title of the workshop led by Toronto writer and editor Beth Follett - will examine the vocation and responsibility of the writer. Suggested reading includes works by Woolf, Chekhov, Rilke and Neruda … Time is set aside for writing and consultation.
The fourteen-day holiday will include trips to Pablo Neruda’s houses, the Pacific coast, Pre-Columbian museums, and the Andes Mountains.
Cost, including full board and side trips, is $100per day plus airfare.
For details on this (and other workshops) please phone
Susan Siddeley 416 968 0759
e-mail:
Susan Siddeley's welcomed, and welcoming, poem will strike a chord with many a parent.
Domus speaks of a private matter to a friend, in Richard Mallinson's short story. But Domus's revelation comes back to him as a challenge from an unexpected source.
Oh those sweet tangerines! Susan Siddeley's poem features Chilean men who have grabbed a very special corner of the market.
After reading Susan Siddeley's super speed-along poem you will probably be more cautious the next time you go supermarket shopping.
Who is that, reflected in the mirror-lined passage leading into the shopping mall? Read Susan Siddeley's brisk poem, and discover the unwelcomed truth.
In this column Susan Siddeley focuses on the vital topic of...ahem...er...loos. You know. Rest rooms. Washrooms. Toilets!
Susan Siddeley deals with a parking ticket - Chile style!
On a recent visit to her native England columnist Susan Siddeley found herself overhelmed by an over-abudance of tasty meals which included the fabled full English breakfast.
A rolling landscape between Turner-stacked clouds and an Omo-white lighthouse. Susan Siddeley paints a dazzling word portrait of North Yorkshire and offers good advice to those about to visit one of the choicest parts of England.
Continue reading "Disappearing Or Hiding? - The Villages Of North Yorkshire" »
Susan Siddeley is amazed when she sees a caravan parked on the roof of a building in the centre of Toronto.
A Yorkshire lady observes the rich variety of folk using a Toronto park bench - then, as Susan Siddeley reveals in this entertaining article, the city authorities step in and spoil the fun.
Susan Siddeley discovers that one needs to be particularly polite to the Litre tree to avoid receiving two lovely black eyes.
"I am familiar with the trials and tribulations of learning a second language,'' says Susan Siddeley in this application for a job. "Such as being handed a lottery ticket when I wanted some fried chicken...''
The birth of a new grandchild reminds Susan Siddeley of things her Auntie Mabel used to say.
The phone rings, and enthusiastic author Susan Siddeley imagines a two-book, even a three-book, publishing deal. Then, doesn't every writer dream?
Susan Siddeley is bemused by the complexities of ordering a cup of coffee in Toronto.
Not long after consuming a full English breakfast you are confronted with a stack of salmon sandwiches, a large pork pie, a jar of pickles, fruit jelly, a Victoria sponge cake, some of your favourite chocolate biscuits...
Susan Siddeley describes the delicious ordeal of visiting her Auntie Mabel.
No need to huddle to stay warm in Toronto during a chilly Canadian winter. Citizens can follow The Path - an underground network of walkways and shopping malls connecting the downtown buildings.
Yet some folk still huddle in the cold. Columnist Susan Siddeley explains why.
Susan Siddeley tells of a life which is divided between three continents.
Susan Siddeley lives on her farm near Santiago, Chile, for a number of months every year. She also spends time every year in Toronto, Canada, and in Runswick Bay, a tiny fishing village on the Yorkshire Coast.
Here is the first in a new series of columns by Susan for Openwriting.
