MEET THE WRITER: WHY I LOVE WRITING

This is the first pieces from a series of prompts offered by Beth Kempton, who is the person who got me hooked on poetry last year with her tiny seasonal poem prompts. My very first poem was WOLF, and there will always be a soft spot in my heart for Beth because of what she sparked in me.

When I was very small, my mother and I moved from England to Switzerland to live with my father in Geneva. I had always had a very close relationship with my grandmother, so as soon as I learned to write, I wrote letters to her.

I soon discovered that I loved writing and began to write stories and then plays. What I loved most about writing was entertaining people, knowing they would have a reaction to my words. I also just loved writing down my thoughts and ideas, escaping to other places, and living all sorts of other lives in my imagination.

I discovered that I was far funnier on the page than I was in real life. I have always been shy and tend to freeze when I need to speak in public or if I’m in a big group, so my sense of humour doesn’t always shine through. When I found that I could make people laugh through my words, I felt as though I’d discovered my superpower.

In the late ’90s, I wrote my romantic comedy to entertain myself when life became rather bleak due to all sorts of family problems. I shared the book, Just Like a Movie, chapter by chapter with some close girlfriends as I wrote it, and they loved it so much that, when it was finished, I sent it to some literary agents in London and immediately got an offer. Sadly, the book failed to sell to a big publishing house but was eventually picked up by a small press in the US, where it did relatively well.

There followed a long period when I didn’t write at all and spent my time deeply involved in my other passion: horses. I rode dressage to a high level until I had to give it all up almost overnight due to health problems, which was hard on me mentally.

I retrieved the rights and republished Just Like a Movie myself in 2023 after doing some light editing. The work rekindled my love for writing at a time when my health took an even more serious nosedive, and I couldn’t leave the house for weeks at a time. While putting together ideas for another novel, a friend told me about Beth Kempton’s poetry prompts for her tiny seasonal poems, and I decided to give it a go, just for fun, because I’d never really read poetry, and I certainly hadn’t written any. I felt lost and very depressed at the time, and I will never forget how fired up I felt after finishing my very first prompt, which, by some wild coincidence, came from the word WOLF.

I loved the process so much that I continued doing Beth’s prompts, and once again discovered that I could entertain myself and others through my writing, although this time with poetry. I have written approximately a poem a day ever since!

Now, a year later, I have published a book of poetry, Illicit Croissants at Dawn, for which my daughter designed the cover and the illustrations. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the process, and having a project with my daughter, Olivia Bossert, has been a true gift.

I view writing as a gift: a gift to myself and to others. If I can raise someone’s spirits or make someone smile when they read my writing, along with giggling at my own words, then surely this is the best occupation in the world!

Francesca Bossert
JUST FOR FUN

Those initial prompts led to me writing ILLICT CROISSANTS AT DAWN, which is now available on Amazon. If you are in Switzerland and wish to buy either of my books, do it via Amazon.de, as the English site will not ship my books to Switzerland.