Where? What? How?

   Literally speaking, I am from a small market town, Frome, in Somerset, twenty minutes from Bath and forty five minutes from Bristol.
   In regards to this weeks task though, I'm from a working class, single parent household consisting of my mother and sister. My father is around and even lives in the same town as us, but we only see him occasionally. Looking back at stories I have written where a child is the main character, there is an obvious pattern of a strong mother, holding everything together, and an absentee father. However, I also surround the character with other male role models, such as uncles and grandfathers, which also reflect on my life. I have never actually noticed any of this until I was set this task.

   'What she saw from her window, what she read in her books, were her only external stimuli'
                                                                                                   - Amy Lowell, 1918, on Emily Dickinson

   I suppose compared to most others in my Author Study class, my book shelf would seem bare. Throughout my childhood there was one series that kept my interested in reading and writing. The Harry Potter series. The books became a comfort to me - I would read and reread them over and over. I typed out the entirety of  Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban word for word to learn how to touch type. Surrounding myself with this fantasy world has had an unbelievable impact on my writing. Another pattern that emerges within my writing is death and damage - that is, how the loss of someone close to you has an impact on life. After the death of my grandfather - the main father figure I had at the time - in a scenario similar to many of the characters in Harry Potter - writing became an outlet I desperately needed.
   For me, and evidently for Emily Dickinson also, writing is the best form of escapism one could possibly imagine.