Marianne Levy – Medium

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Permission Granted

‘Tell me about your book?’ ‘It’s a memoir,’ I say, making a face that says ick, how embarrassing. Then, usually — in fact, always — I continue, ‘Actually, I was asked if I wanted to write it.’ Back in 2020, I was approached by an editor. Not just an editor…

5 min read

5 min read

Jun 21

The Last Buggy

‘We’re getting rid of a buggy,’ I messaged my friend. ‘Want it?’ ‘How many buggies do you have?’ she replied. ‘This is it,’ I told her. ‘The last one.’ The last buggy. Just a few bits of fabric wrapped around metal rods, really, because once they’re big, children rather than…

4 min read

Dec 31, 2022

Betty

‘The cat was playing with the necklaces on your stand and one fell off,’ my husband tells me, this morning, the last day of the year. I investigate. The necklace fell off because it was broken. Because it had been bitten through. ‘Your gold necklace?’ asks my husband. ‘Well, I…

6 min read

6 min read

Nov 17, 2022

Odd Socks

My daughter is wearing odd socks to school. It’s Anti-Bullying Week and the wearing of odd socks, if not compulsory, is strongly advised. I’m fairly pro them as a small gesture to a larger point, and it’s easier than the full non-uniform, which tends to cause a last minute panic…

4 min read

Oct 5, 2022

The Carousel

This is what I didn’t tell you. You are only little, after all. And we were having one of those golden days on the beach, the sort I snap, endlessly, on my phone, so that I can hold onto them forever. …

6 min read

6 min read

Jul 6, 2022

The Greats

I am not normally sentimental about such things, but when I finished the final set of edits for my book, I took my coffee into the garden and raised it to the sky. I was feeling triumphant because I had delivered the manuscript a day early, because I had worked…

6 min read

6 min read

Jun 30, 2022

Eyes Open

Last week, I recorded the audio version of my next book. The studio setup was as I remembered; the windowless corridors, the soundproofed room sealed with not one, but two doors. A great place for a murder, I’ve always thought. For, a few years ago, my job was to introduce…

5 min read

5 min read

Jun 8, 2022

Shriek Pink

Shriek Pink Every spring, I paint my toenails with the loudest shade I can find. The name on the bottle escapes me, but as far as I’m concerned the colour is ‘shriek pink’, a phrase I first heard from my friend Debora, one that has stuck with me ever since…

4 min read

Sep 12, 2021

The Arc Of That Yellow Ball

I wrote, a year ago, about the end of summer, and how joy seemed harder to come by than before. …

4 min read

4 min read

Jul 1, 2021

July

My favourite smell is the smell of summer. It is a warm wind on a sun baked hillside, rich round yellowing chlorophyll, tangy with something herbal, and a whisper of minerality from the soil itself, cracked and dusty from many days of twelve hour sun. It’s a smell I’ve not…

4 min read

4 min read