Support An Author Month Task: Give Kindness

If you have never gotten around to it, please give one!

When someone inspires you, or if you see someone who is using their writing gift to help others, please take the time to thank them publicly by giving them this award (and the rules for passing it on.)

This award is open to anyone to use. You don’t have to receive it, in order to be able to give it. Please take the details and images off this page and use it to encourage another writer. The rules for passing it on are very simple:

1. You are welcome to give it out as many times as you like, but it is only to be given to a maximum of one person per blog post. If you wish to give multiple rewards, please space the blog posts by at least a week, so the sincerity is maintained.
2. Introduce the person; say how they encourage, help or inspire you; then link to their work and/or social media profiles. There may be a specific post you wish to link to which helped you. It’s up to you.
3. Please publicise your award post to Twitter or Google Plus using the hashtag #writtenkindness so that others can find and follow the award winners.

Get the Award Badge and Code

<div align="center"><a href="http://cateartios.wordpress.com/" title="Written Acts of Kindness Badge" target="_blank"><img src="http://virtual-desk.com.au/SmallBadgeWrittenActsofKindnessAwardby%20cateartios.jpg" alt="Written Acts of Kindness Badge" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Boxed code from “Grab My Button” Code Generator: http://www.mycoolrealm.com/sandbox/gbgen/

---

This blog post by Cate Russell-Cole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You are free to share and adapt it.

Writing Rocket Fuel: Six Word Memoirs

When people think of memoir or autobiography, they often think of long, weighty works. There are many approaches to capturing various times in your life. One is the six word memoir.

It may be harder than you think! Try it. In six words, write about where you are now in your life.

Support An Author Month Task: Buy That Book!

You know you’ve been meaning to… this week, your love task is to go buy that writing friends book you’ve planned to, but didn’t get around to.

Last week, to put action behind my preaching, I got onto Amazon and bought several tantalising ebooks which are below. Click on the cover to buy the book.

Please, take the time to do the same.

---

Leaving the Hall Light On: by Madeline Sharples

A Mother’s Memoir of Living with Her Son’s Bipolar Disorder and Surviving His Suicide charts the near-destruction of one middle-class family whose son committed suicide after a seven-year struggle with bipolar disorder. Madeline Sharples, author, poet and web journalist, goes deep into her own well of grief to describe her anger, frustration and guilt. She describes many attempts — some successful, some not — to have her son committed to hospital and to keep him on his medication. The book also charts her and her family’s redemption, how she considered suicide herself, and ultimately, her decision live and take care of herself as a woman, wife, mother and writer.

A note from the author: I encourage you to read my book if you have been touched by bipolar disorder or suicide. And even if you have not, my book will inspire you to survive your own tragedies. As author Jessica Bell says: Leaving the Hall Light On is “a remarkable book and it SHOULD be read.”

---

Sailing Down the Moonbeam by Mary Gottschalk

With a destination loosely defined as the rest of the world, Mary and her husband Tom leave family, friends and successful careers for a multi-year sailing voyage. As the voyage takes her farther and farther from her traditional support systems, her world becomes more and more defined by forces outside her control. Mary’s travels through often uncharted island communities, provides a compelling metaphor for a journey of self-discovery.

---

Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of Gutsy Living on a Tropical Island by Sonia Marsh

What do you do when life in sunny Southern California starts to seem plastic, materialistic and just plain hellish? For Sonia and Duke Marsh, the answer was to sell their worldly goods and move to an unspoiled, simpler life with their three sons in Belize, Central America, a third-world country without all the comforts and distractions of life in the developed world. Sonia hopes the move will bring her shattered family back together. She feels her sons slipping away from her, and her overworked husband never has time for her or the boys. Instead, things begin to go wrong immediately. The home they initially rented isn’t available, so the family is forced to take up residence in a primitive, bug-infested shack. Duke’s telecommuting plans prove impractical because of unreliable Internet access, and he loses his job. Middle son Alec – always a conscientious, polite, tractable child – misses his friends and has trouble adjusting. As the days turn into months, Sonia finds herself questioning the family’s decision to move on a nearly daily basis. This is the story of one family’s search for paradise. In this memoir, Sonia chronicles a year of defeats, fears and setbacks – and also the ultimate triumph of seeing once-frayed family ties grow back stronger from shared challenges and misfortunes. For Sonia, paradise turned out not to be a place, but an appreciation of life’s simple pleasures – a close-knit family and three well-adjusted sons with a global outlook on life.

---

Out of Sync by Belinda Nicoll

In 2001, when a couple leaves South Africa for a stay abroad, they land at JFK International Airport on September 11th, unprepared for the sight of smoke billowing from the Manhattan skyline or the horror of a second plane exploding into the North Tower. Over the next ten years, as their host country confronts fundamental change of its own, their marriage buckles under the strain of their disparate experiences. With the international economic crisis making it all but impossible for them to return to their country, they relocate from California to the North, the South, and the Midwest searching for a place they can call home. Against the backdrop of uncertainties in post-apartheid South Africa, Belinda Nicoll unfolds a contemporary and thought-provoking account of post-9/11 America’s tantalizing hopes and unexpected disappointments. Out of Sync is an insightful tale about marital endurance that promises to enthrall anyone, expatriate or not, who has ever felt at odds with themselves or the world.

---

This blog post by Cate Russell-Cole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You are free to share and adapt it.

Writing Rocket Fuel: Journaling Prompts

If you would like to try your hand at writing a journal, but need prompts for inspiration, try http://journalingprompts.com

The site has books, starter kits and other resources available.

Journaling prompts also has a sister site, http://creativewritingprompts.com

#atozchallenge Y is for 2Years2aBook [Infographic]

Reblogged from Hunter's Writing:

• 
• 

2 Years to a Book. That’s what I realised I could accomplish – on top of my normal writing projects and goals during the year. For others who don’t have the luxury of so many free hours to write, as I do, the program also allows for a book draft completed during that first year.

Read more… 818 more words

When Hunter first put this post out, I shared this infographic on Twitter etc showing how to write a book in two years. The whole post is worth a proper reblog as there is so much gold in here! Thank you Hunter: particularly from someone who hates long term projects and likes things done and dusted. This is a good reminder to pace myself.

Plagiarism: Getting Out of Sticky Situations

This is a purchased iStock photo. Under NO circumstances may you re-use this image without buying it for yourself.

I don’t know how trouble got my contact details, but I’m finding it’s harder to get out of trouble, than it is to get off the Readers Digest mailing list!

Sharon won a free book of mine a few months ago and promised me a review, which she very kindly gave me. [Gratuitous self-promotion: read the review here.] She visits my blog and I love her posts, so when she asked me to review her book, of course I said yes. That’s how it starts. You do something nice for someone and it is, after all Support An Author Month…

I started reading her book on descriptions in writing, and as I am not a fiction writer, I had more lightbulb moments than an Oprah Fan Convention! It is an easy to absorb book for writers bristling with so many “oh yeah!” ideas I’ve never thought of… I read a few chapters, emailed and conned her into doing a guest post for me on a particular topic. Read a few more chapters and then went to do my usual thing, and start jotting down ideas for my own blog posts…

Whoa there Cate! You can’t do that! You can’t review someone’s book, then write your own posts on nearly every topic… Which would effectively mean I had lifted too much of her book content with my own spin. As much as I’d like to meet Sharon, I don’t want it to involve lawyers, or her standing on my doorstep wielding a mean looking rolling pin!

I had to email Sharon back and say, “I had to stop reading.” Thankfully, she took that as a compliment.

A few volumes which belong to my temptation shelf.

I read other books by writers and I take out the odd quote or concept and write about it. One very small part here and there, linked back to their work is fine. However, Sharon had done too good a job… the temptation was too much!

So what do you do when you read a novel or book which gets under your skin that effectively? Put it down and walk away quietly. Even if you don’t pick up a pen then, it goes into your subconscious and will revisit later. (I don’t usually use the word bristling, by the way. It’s in my head now, with “nose like a ski run.” I love that one! I want to use it. I have to, somewhere, somehow…)

You can return to that book later, but be a little more critical and be very, very aware when you are writing that it doesn’t creep in. I need a shelf of books which would be my red flag section. (Oh rats, flag… Um, sorry Sharon.) The most delectable, dangerous influencers would sit there ready to inspire, but to serve as a warning. The temptation shelf…

So please, save me from myself and get Sharon’s book. It is excellent. If you do that, I know I can’t write on those topics.

You can buy Sharon’s book here and follow her blog here. Below is from Amazon.

“Book Description: Turn Blah into Brilliant with this Jam-Packed Volume on Description

Sharon Lippincott’s delectable writing gives you the spoonful of sugar to help the description medicine go down. In this slim volume– forty-eight short lessons-you will be so busy learning to hang on to inspiration, color up your words, and breathe life into your writing, you won’t even realize you’ve also learned to ditch dummy subjects, clear out dead “would”, and apply tips for using dozens of other description power tools.In reading this book, writers in any genre will discover

• An expanded perspective on the nature of description
• The difference between active and passive description
• How nouns and verbs impact description
• The importance of using sensory description
• How to capture inspiring phrases for later reference
• Tips for taming your inner critic
• How to gain inspiration by reading like a writer

This book will change the way you think about description. Order your copy now and transform your stories into magic carpets that carry readers into your world.”

---

This article / blog post is Copyright Cate Russell-Cole 2013. All rights are reserved Internationally. You may not reproduce it in any form, in part of whole, without Cate’s prior written permission. That includes usage in forms such as print, audio and digital imaging including pdf, jpg, png etc. A fee may be requested for re-using her work if it is for a commercial venture. Link sharing and Pinterest pins are most welcome as long as Cate is the attributed Author.

No images on this blog may be copied, captured, or altered for your own purpose without the consent of the originating owner.

Support an Author Month Task: Best Post Ever!

As part of Support an Author month, please visit a favourite blog; locate a post that inspired you and leave a comment saying, “This is my favourite post. Thank you!” Be sure to Tweet, Facebook or share it on G+ so the author knows you’ve spread the word. #bestpostever

You are also welcome to leave a link in the comments here and recommend a blog, if not a specific post.

Cheers everyone! Thanks for the positive response to this initiative. My favourites are all on my twitter feed if you want to check them out. There are awesome posts there for writers. I’ll keep adding through this week. https://twitter.com/cateartios

---

This blog post by Cate Russell-Cole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You are free to share and adapt it.

Creating Multi-Dimensional Characters #2---Everybody Lies

Reblogged from Kristen Lamb's Blog:

• 
• 

Monday, we started talking about ways to create multi-dimensional characters. It's tempting for us to create "perfect" protagonists and "pure evil" antagonists, but that's the stuff of cartoons, not great fiction. Every strength has an array of corresponding weaknesses, and when we understand these soft spots, generating conflict becomes easier. Understanding character arc becomes simpler. Plotting will fall into place with far less effort.

Read more… 1,366 more words

Part two of Kristen's excellent series.

We’re All in this Together: How to Support Other Writers

Update: Damian Trasler has taken up the Support an Author in May cause, has started a list on his Google + feed for anyone who wants to promote their book. Damian is a successful playwright who recently wrote a guest post for CommuniCATE. He’s worth following.

Following the feedback I’ve received from Sandra’s post on toxic critiques, I’d like to focus on unity within the writing community, and we are a community.

I’ve met many writers who stick together with their fellow wordsmiths. They generously take the time to ‘like,’ ‘plus one,’ share, recommend, comment, rate and mop up tears. More of us give than tear apart; that’s how it should be!

Please take a little extra time each week this month to support other writers. Ways you can do that include:

• Buying that friend’s book that you have always meant to buy, but never gotten around to.
• If you have read a free book, leave feedback and recommend the author. Never leave a giveaway or gift unrewarded.
• Use your powers for good! Resisting the urge to leave a scathing negative critique. Ok, their work wasn’t your style or done to your standard. Let it be. Move on: don’t destroy.
• Leave blog comments, likes, ratings and plus ones (Google Plus) where you can.

Expletives aside, the message is right, no matter what topic we’re on.

• Give a Written Act of Kindness Award (details are below.) You have no idea how much giving these awards has encouraged and blessed MY socks off! Make someone’s day.
• Sponsor an initiative such as ROW80 to encourage other writers.
• Send a struggling writer an e-card which encourages them.
• Join a Facebook or Google Plus group and give one post a day a positive comment.
• If you see a request for financial support on someone’s blog (when they are non-commercial and freely giving to other writers), even if you can just give a few dollars, please do. Some sites and blogs are expensive. They need help to run them.
• Pass this post on to spread the word. The logos on this post are available for everyone to use.

---

The Written Acts of Kindness Award

When someone inspires you, or if you see someone who is using their writing gift to help others, please take the time to thank them publicly by giving them this award (and the rules for passing it on.)

This award is open to anyone to use. You don’t have to receive it, in order to be able to give it. Please take the details and images off this page and use it to encourage another writer. The rules for passing it on are very simple:

1. You are welcome to give it out as many times as you like, but it is only to be given to a maximum of one person per blog post. If you wish to give multiple rewards, please space the blog posts by at least a week, so the sincerity is maintained.
2. Introduce the person; say how they encourage, help or inspire you; then link to their work and/or social media profiles. There may be a specific post you wish to link to which helped you. It’s up to you.
3. Please publicise your award post to Twitter or Google Plus using the hashtag #writtenkindness so that others can find and follow the award winners.

Get the Award Badge and Code

<div align="center"><a href="http://cateartios.wordpress.com/" title="Written Acts of Kindness Badge" target="_blank"><img src="http://virtual-desk.com.au/SmallBadgeWrittenActsofKindnessAwardby%20cateartios.jpg" alt="Written Acts of Kindness Badge" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Boxed code from “Grab My Button” Code Generator: http://www.mycoolrealm.com/sandbox/gbgen/

---

This blog post by Cate Russell-Cole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You are free to share and adapt it.

Ways to Create Multi-Dimensional Characters--Tip #1

Reblogged from Kristen Lamb's Blog:

• 
• 
• 

To give characters depth, we have to be people-watchers. Study people. Know thyself. I strongly recommend reading books on psychology as part of research. For instance, I read a lot of FBI books on profiling.

As writers, characters need some amount of consistency without being predictable. If there is some deviation from the profile, there must be a good reason WHY, other than we need a character to act a certain way to move our story forward.

Read more… 1,249 more words

Another awesome post from writing coach Kristen Lamb. This is a must read!

---

As regular readers know, this blog passes on great resources for writers. Often I will reblog the very best content, as doing so gives the originating author and their blog more exposure. Their blog also receives the hits from my posts. Reblogs of CommuniCATE posts are always welcome (unless stated), as long as my Copyright remains in tact. Copyright of any reblogs strictly belongs to the originating author. Please, don't rip off their work!

You are welcome to use this reblog logo on your own blog to encourage sharing of your work.

Coping with a Cynical Critique, by Sandra Nikolai

Like any writer who wants to succeed, I spent years learning about the profession and refining my skills. I attended writers’ conferences, studied how-to books on writing and publishing, and read piles of novels in a variety of genres.

Armed with a draft of my first mystery novel, I took the next step in the process: I found a mentor through a writers’ group I’d joined. My mentor offered to review the first and last thirty pages of my novel and email her comments to me after a month’s time.

At the end of the session, her email arrived and I was eager to read it. As my eyes flew over the words, disbelief stifled enthusiasm. Her remarks were sarcastic and stung as much on screen as if she’d read them out loud in a room full of people. She proposed drastic changes to the characters, settings, and plot. She even advised me to re-write the entire story in the third person. (I’d written it in the first person.) In closing, she defended her position as a “tough editor” and hoped her comments would help me write a better book.

You’ve got to be kidding!

My next reaction was to send “Miss Sarcastic” a nasty email but I decided against it. It wasn’t worth the time or energy to respond to someone who was inconsiderate and rude. I’d just file a complaint against her on the evaluation form I had to complete and send it off to the writers’ group headquarters. And yet…

Available from Amazon Kindle http://www.amazon.com/Impressions-Michael-Elliott-mystery-ebook/dp/B0086WMMZ0/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1338295012&sr=1-6

I read Miss Sarcastic’s comments again. Her mocking attitude had dealt a serious blow to my ego, but what if she was right and my story did need a revamp? After all, she had a handful of published mystery novels under her belt and had mentored other writers. I was…well…green. Surely she must know what she’s talking about. And so I conceded, knowing that the revisions to my manuscript would entail a major upheaval. In fact, the task proved a lot more difficult than writing the book in the first place and took months out of my life. After I’d finished, I put it aside. When I read it a week later, I was disheartened. It was no longer my story. The changes I’d made had sucked the life right out of it. I hated it.

Not one to accept defeat, I reviewed Miss Sarcastic’s comments again—this time from an unbiased perspective. I dug out my original manuscript and integrated the changes that I felt would benefit the story and ignored the rest. After I finished, I had to admit it was a stronger novel.

I recently heard that my mentor has abandoned her writing career. Her book sales weren’t doing well, so she accepted a job with a media firm. If anything, I owe her a modicum of gratitude. The experience inspired me to set up guidelines that I’ve since followed when reviewing critiques of my work. I’d like to share them with other writers in the hope they might find them useful too:

1. Take the time to review a critique. Let it ferment. You might interpret it differently later on.

2. Try not to take a negative critique as a personal insult but consider it with an open mind.

3. A negative critique gives you a choice: either fix the problem or ignore it. Consider how any change will affect your story. Will it strengthen or weaken it?

4. No one knows your characters or plot as well as you do. If a suggestion for a change doesn’t fit— no matter how good it might sound, don’t force it into the story.

5. Growing as a writer means heeding your inner voice or gut feelings. Trust your writer’s instincts more often. If you believe that a change will improve the story, do it. If not, move on.

Happy writing!

Meet Sandra Nikolai

Sandra was raised in Montreal, Québec, and graduated from McGill University. As a young girl, she loved reading the Nancy Drew mystery series and was determined to write her own stories one day. Her career choices didn’t exactly lead her along the “yellow brick road” to writing mystery novels—though working in a bank and experiencing a string of armed robberies did ingrain terrifying memories worthy of a story!

In 2002, Sandra won an Honorable Mention in Canadian Writer’s Journal short fiction competition. She has since published a dozen short stories online and in print. False Impressions is her first mystery novel in a series featuring ghostwriter Megan Scott and investigative reporter Michael Elliott. She is currently working on Fatal Whispers, book two in the series.

Sandra is a member of Crime Writers of Canada and Capital Crime Writers.

You can catch up with Sandra at her beautiful website and blog:

• http://sandranikolai.com/
• http://sandranikolai.com/blog/
• Buy False Impressions from Amazon Kindle

---

This blog post is Copyright Sandra Nikolai 2013. All rights are reserved Internationally. You may not reproduce it in any form, in part of whole, without the author’s prior written permission. That includes usage in forms such as print, audio and digital imaging including pdf, jpg, png etc. A fee may be requested for re-use if it is for a commercial venture.

Yes, You Can Write Upside Down!

Calling all Aussies… and Kiwis who enjoy a paddle across the pond. These gems are coming up Down Under in May.

Worldwide festivals can be found on my Twitter festival list https://twitter.com/cateartios/writer-s-festivals

Sydney Writer’s Festival, May 14-20

Purchased from http://www.iStockphoto.com. You cannot use this image for any reason without buying it yourself.

“Sydney Writers’ Festival is Australia’s largest annual celebration of literature and ideas. Each year, we present over 300 events (half of them for free) and attract attendances of around 80,000 in venues that stretch from the Festival hub at Walsh Bay to the Blue Mountains. For one week every May we bring together authors of the very best contemporary fiction and writers of cutting edge nonfiction, including some of the world’s leading public intellectuals, scientists and journalists. With the finest literary writing at our core, our programming is driven by the ideas and issues that animate all forms of writing.”

http://www.swf.org.au/ 

Twitter: @SydWritersFest

---

The Emerging Writer’s Festival, May 23rd – June 2nd, Melbourne

This one is for writers and isn’t just reader based. “The Emerging Writers’ Festival is an independent arts organisation based in Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas. We exist in order to promote the interests of emerging writers – to improve their opportunities for professional development as well as their engagement with the broader public. Each year the Emerging Writers’ Festival brings writers, editors, publishers and literary performers together with the reading public for a festival that is fast becoming an essential part of Australia’s literary calendar.”

http://www.emergingwritersfestival.org.au/ewf-2013/ 

Twitter: @EmergingWriters

Telling Your Story in Pictures…

…without starting a family fight, getting too touchy-feely, or writing a massive autobiographical work! There are so many ways of writing down your experiences, if you feel bogged down by the slog of a book approach, please visit my guest post at Kathy Pooler’s inspiring blog “Memoir Writer’s Journey.” This technique has been a great inspiration to my local life story students, and it will help steer you past the pitfalls of wordiness and hurt feelings.

http://krpooler.com/2013/04/22/thinking-inside-the-frame-using-photographs-to-tell-your-story-a-guest-post-by-cate-russell-cole/

Post feedback from author, Sherrey Meyer: “Cate, you have given us much to ponder and work with regarding the manner in which we reveal our stories to the world. This is a most unique exhibit and I would love to see it in person. The imaginative force that brought William to create essentially a story board with photos and words is amazing. Thanks so much for sharing it here today. 

Kathy, thanks for inviting Cate, who is one of our most creative writing mentors on the planet! Cate has a knack for finding the innovative and unusual methods for enhancing our written work and in this case an entirely new format for passing the story along. I really enjoyed this post.”

Sherrey’s blog Healing by Writing is worth following. http://healingbywriting.wordpress.com/author/sherreya/

Dirty Money and Medicine: Grave Robbing for Writers

“… they tell us it was necessary for the purposes of science. Science? Why, who is science for? Not for poor people. Then if it be necessary for the purposes of science, let them have the bodies of the rich, for whose benefit science is cultivated.” William Cobbett

Medical science is a wonderful discipline. It saves lives. To save a life, you need to learn how and you need to research. The irony of the whole process is, that is done on lives which have been lost. In the 1800s when computer simulations and other methods of learning and testing weren’t accessible, the demand for bodies was great. In 1828 there were 800 medical students in London and they needed three bodies each to practice on.

Graves have been unearthed in London teaching hospitals where, whilst trying to comply with Church standards that bodies must be buried in tact for judgement day, coffins contained multiple portions of body parts with most skulls missing. The remains of humans were also buried with the remains of animals such as rabbits, dogs, birds and exotic animals, which were used for comparative anatomy. It was the stuff books such as Frankenstein were made of. In Scotland, they simply dug pits and threw the miscellaneous body parts in. Medical Schools such as the London Hospital were forced to be active in compromising their standards to get cadavers. They were critical teaching tools that in the long run, could save lives. Bodies have been uncovered showing multiple attempts at surgical procedures by students. Some surgeries were so badly carried out, we should probably be thankful for the trade in bodies! It was preferable to practicing on humans, in an era with no antibiotics or anaesthesia.

Where there is demand, there is commerce and murder was even committed to gain bodies for sale. A pair of Scottish ‘businessmen’ named Burke and Hare, were sentenced after ‘acquiring’ seventeen bodies for sale by such illicit means. Grave robbing became so commonplace and created such fear, that families went to excessive expense to secure burials from robbers. Buildings with no entrances were mounted on top of graves and iron railings with points were erected to stop the thieves. This is probably a good part of the reason why many graves are covered with concrete, even today. Grave robbers became known as “Resurrectionists.” They could procure bodies, as long as they stripped away their clothes and any possessions. The law didn’t allow anyone to own a body. Technically, it wasn’t stealing. There are newspaper accounts where staff and patients at hospitals had noted that grave robbing was taking place in the hospital cemetery and despite crutches and ailments, the patients were chasing robbers in an attempt to apprehend them. It is hard to imagine any other form of robbery so offensive.

So if wealthy graves were protected, where did you get them from? Paupers graves, of course. Unprotected mass graves were everywhere, as were itinerant workers and the poor, who existed in plentiful numbers; conveniently dying from cholera, malnutrition and drunken excess. It was easy.

It gets dirtier. It is the rich vs the poor and the Government vs the poor.

The Government could very well be considered as dirty as the grave robbers. They had a problem. People were dying in hospitals and asylums; and if they died in your institution and didn’t have money, you had to dispose of the body in a ‘societally acceptable’ manner. They didn’t quite achieve the last part. It still cost them to bury paupers, mass graves and no headstones or not. They did have the option of putting on a funeral for the broke bereaved, but, there was great shame in a destitute burial so often no one turned up. Easy fix: sell them straight to the Medical Schools and save the burial costs. You’ve just paid for their care, get some profit back to cover it. What made it all worse is, as illustrated by the quote above, the main researchers were wealthy medical students and the poor couldn’t even pay for health care. The class divide came into play.

To ensure all was above board, the Government changed the law to protect themselves. No longer could they just sell the bodies of convicted criminals who were sentenced to death, now, under the Anatomy Act of 1832 they could do what they ‘saw fit’ to anyone who had been in their care. People lost their right to buried in their own Parish with their family. This law actually stayed in effect in Britain until 1984.

Well protected. Walter Hill Interrment, Toowong Cemetery, Australia

So how did I discover all this? Crazily enough, I was sitting reading a Journal on Social Work which was talking workers organising destitute burials. They referred to the horrors of the past grave robbing era and the shame factor. The dirty side of Government and a “respectable profession” such as Medicine is never to be condoned or repeated, but it does give you great plot ideas!

Further Resources:

Frankenstein and the Anatomy Act: http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/marshall.html

Anatomy Act 1832: http://d-mis-web.ana.bris.ac.uk/personal/mark/Select%20com%201828.htm

William Hare and William Burke, West Point Murders: https://mysendoff.com/2011/09/the-anatomy-act-of-1832/

“London’s Body Snatchers” Archaeology Magazine Edition 274, January 2013.

---

This article / blog post is Copyright Cate Russell-Cole 2013. All rights are reserved Internationally. You may not reproduce it in any form, in part of whole, without Cate’s prior written permission. That includes usage in forms such as print, audio and digital imaging including pdf, jpg, png etc. A fee may be requested for re-using her work if it is for a commercial venture. Link sharing and Pinterest pins are most welcome as long as Cate is the attributed Author.

No images on this blog may be copied, captured, or altered for your own purpose without the consent of the originating owner.

Sir Salman Rushdie On Storytelling

I’m sure you have heard of Salman, but perhaps in a negative light? There is far more to his name and talent than one highly controversial book! For more information on him, please visit: http://literature.britishcouncil.org/salman-rushdie

Literature plays an important role in providing insight into society.

On Novel Writing: What Does Truth Mean in Fiction