Madeleine F White: ‘I find this triangle of spiritual, natural and community makes for a powerful combination’
Based in Broadstairs, Madeleine is the founding editor of Write On! magazine for writers and has led literary workshops and lectures in the UK and abroad.
Her debut novel, Mother Of Floods was published by Crowsnest Books in 2020. Last spring she signed a three-book deal with the US Sea Crow Press for her poetry and she is now working on her second novel. Here, she talks about her literary inspiration mined from Thanet’s spiritual, natural and communal richness.
What’s your connection to Thanet?
When I was five my parents, who lived in Germany and my nana who lived in London, clubbed together to buy a holiday home in Westbrook.
My parents split when I was ten and we moved to Westbrook which is when the German child, though bilingual, turned into an English one.
Fourty-four years on and that dual existence – one foot in one world, one foot in another– is still very much there. I have lived in Broadstairs with my husband Evan for most of my adult life. We came DFL in 1997, with a 17-month-old son when I was pregnant with our first daughter and our second was born here in the early noughties.
What are you currently working on?
My second novel No One, has just gone to Beta readers – I’m due to deliver to the agent in November.
No One is not a book about religion. Instead, based on the search for the sacred spaces in my own life following trauma, it offers a universal path of pilgrimage to those wishing to find theirs. Set against the magnificent bardic and spiritual heritage of Wales, it focuses on Non ( St David’s mother, a saint associated with abused women and a sacred spring) and weaves 1500 years of stories – ‘no ones’ who are’ someones’ – into one coherent narrative.
Interestingly enough, Thanet (as Tanatos and Sandwich Bay) was mentioned in some of the earliest Welsh prophetic poetry.
By connecting fact and fiction, poetry and nature and ancient mysticism with modern faith, No One teaches us how past wounds can be healed and all things overcome, if we just have the courage to step into the unknown, trusting a higher power and those who have gone before us to be our guides.
In an area rich in writing history, where do you find your inspiration?
All my books are closely linked to my long rides into the countryside and coastal landscapes in Thanet. Through my writing, I am on a quest to connect my own life experiences into the beauty of the world around me and then find the even deeper spiritual roots that are so much in evidence here. This powerful deeper connection in Thanet is linked to ancient spirituality in our isles.
Sacred spaces, such as Margate’s Shell Grotto and Minister Abbey, make Thanet a fertile place for all creatives. As a writer I find this triangle of spiritual, natural and community makes for a powerful combination.
What are you looking forward to most about reading at the Bookie?
The wonderful thing about The Bookie is that, though it’s filled with very successful established writers and creatives, it is able to harness this energy in a way that inspires and connects emerging writers and those early on in their careers also.
This is particularly important to me, as, though I’m a published author and poet, I find myself somewhat in the middle. So being able to be part of the overall event as a speaker allows me to go on building my tribe, meeting people who might not otherwise get to know me and my work.
Madeleine White will appear in Margate Bookie as part of the Local Writers Showcase, on Tuesday, October 1 at The Margate School, reading from her second poetry collection, Maiden Mother Crone. Tickets £5. Book now.