The Silk Pavilion Sound Track & Launch
Like the main character Lucy in The Silk Pavilion, I went on the journey to make the unconscious conscious, to remember the past, and free myself from an abusive adult relationship.
The gratitude from readers has been amazing. I received so many moving messages and emails - from survivors for whom the novel articulated memories they had buried, from therapists who see people suffering from narcissistic abuse regularly, and from people who never understood why some people become trapped in abusive relationships.
I was asked by the novelist D.D. Johnston at the launch how we can heal from national and personal trauma. My answer might resonate with some of you.
"By using our voices.
By speaking our truth.
And by delivering our truth with love."
Here’s a recording of The Silk Pavilion launch on YouTube - thank you to those who supported. It was a difficult book to bring out as it touched my personal trauma, but I believe it is a powerful - and healing - act to break the silence that perpetuates child abuse.
In July I was in conversation about BURIED STORIES with friends and authors Grace Nichols, Queen's Gold Medal Winner for poetry 2022, and Lulah Elender in Waterstones in the little town of Lewes where I live on the South Downs in the UK. Lewes is a tiny town, whose claim to fame is that the first draft of the American Constitution was written here by Thomas Paine. The town has a little of its revolutionary spirit. There was a surprise performance by International flautist Keith Waithe of his composition on the flute for The Silk Pavilion Sound Track - which I was deeply touched to hear performed for the first time that evening.
It was a sweltering hot summer day and Waterstones was packed full of friends and readers. Big thank you to the Waterstones team - it was the first event post-Covid, so we were all a little out of practice. Grace had brought out her exquisite book of poems Passport to Here and There during the lockdown, and Lulah’s book Grounding had not had an official launch either and so the three of us collaborated. In common to all books was the thread of Buried Stories. For Grace, those stories were the photographs buried for decades of the people who had legally made a home in England only to be threatened generations later with deportation as they struggled to prove their identity and their right to call England home. For Lulah stories were unearthed in her garden as she dug and sowed and made her home, which she’s been threatened eviction from during lockdown her own by connecting and rooting herself in her garden. For me, The Silk Pavilion uncovers the stories buried deep in the unconscious, the stories that drive us.
After the event we walked up the hill to the pub. The atmosphere was light and free and there was a Celtic band playing in the local pub. My dear friend and the Love Shaman, Katuishka flew in from Mexico to support the party - there’s no party without her.
Deep gratitude to all you beautiful creative souls.
From my soul to yours, Sarah X