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In the time of coronavirus

A collection of stories submitted by the public on their experience of living through the time of the Coronavirus pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed our lives. Globally the scale of human suffering as a consequence of Covid-19 has been very great. Everywhere people are now reflecting on what this major and previously unimaginable global crisis means for us, as individuals, living in the 21st century. This forum offers a space for writers to reflect on their experience in Aotearoa and to consider questions such as: What might we need to remember and preserve? What has been my experience, my observations, how might my priorities have shifted, in a good way, as a result of the lockdowns? If you would like to contribute to the re-collective effort through any of the following life writing formats — journalling, nature writing, memoir, commentary, poetry, notes on work in progress during lockdown… — please make initial contact through my contact page. Next prepare a page of A4 writing, starting in the present moment and moving where you need to into the recent past and forwards from that point, with a title, brief bio, photo (optional) and your contribution will be added to the repository of important writings flowering in this space.

“Securing the memory of COVID-19 is the minimum we owe to each other in the aftermath of this catastrophe.”

Richard Horton, “Covid-19 and the Ethics of memory", The Lancet , 6 June 2020
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Memoir in Four Parts: Returning to Level 3 by Siobhan Harvey

4/9/2020

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​1
 
A Tuesday twilight in the middle of August: we’re on the point of sleeping, the panorama from our languorous home stretching out across dark estuary water to faint lights on opposite shores, when our phones tremble. We stir to discover our screens are ripe with an unexpected offering:
 
 
COVID 19 ALL OF GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: ….
 
 
2
 
What we read stuns us. In the moment of scanning it, of beginning to process it, the news that there are new Covid-19 positive cases in our Auckland community feels as if it belongs elsewhere: to a half-forgotten time perhaps; to an era thought eliminated; a trauma exorcised; an ailment cured. Perhaps this reaction, instinctive and not entirely rationale, is to be expected; perhaps, at some point in the future when I will return to this moment to reflect upon it, my response will seem illogical, naïve. But the mind and heart too often process the unusual and unexpected in ways which aren’t always reasonable or impartial. So often too, their instinctive riposte appeals to the self. So there it is: a late night awakening, a blurry sense of déjà vu, a sudden emotional and psychological unsettlement, a disruption to our everyday already stealing through the darkness outside... 
 
 
3
 
As a displaced person exiled by whanau and ancestry, dislocation is an experience and a feeling I know too well. I’ve long grown used to expecting it, encountering it and adapting my routines to contain it. Still the spectral slumber which besets me becomes an articulation about displacement: fractured recollections of the Lockdown conjoined by distortions of the Level 3 at the edge of its materialisation …
 
4
 
In the morning, when I wake, I turn to transformation; or is it regression? I re-establish my son’s online schooling, recreate the technological delivery of my under- and postgraduate teaching and reorder my writing life into snatches of creative time. The hidden stresses of those who work and have school-age children, who are asked to simultaneously supervise education of their offspring and their workload: these become my familiars once again ….  
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    Authors

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    Abby Letteri
    Anissa Ljanta
    Anita Arlov
    Annabel Schuler
    Anna Fomison
    Brian Sorrell
    Catherine Moorhead
    Cath Koa Dunsford
    Cynthia Smith
    David Arrowsmith
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    Delis Pitt
    Diane Brown
    Edna Heled
    Elizabeth McRae
    Estelle Mendelsohn
    Eva De Jong
    Faith Cleverley
    Fiona Kidman
    Fredrika Van Elburg
    Gregory O'Brien
    Helene Connor
    Jane Bissell
    Janet De Witt
    Janine
    Jeanette De Heer
    Jicca Smith
    John Adams
    Julie Ryan
    Keith Woodley
    Leigh Burrell
    Liz March
    Liz Wilson
    Lora Mountjoy
    Margo Knightbridge
    Marilyn Eales
    Mary Elsmore-Neilson
    Megan Hutching
    Michelanne Forster
    Paddy Richardson
    Pamela Gordon
    Pat Backley
    Philip Temple
    Piers Davies
    Rex McGregor
    Robyn Welsh
    Roger Horrocks
    Ruth Bonita
    Ruth Busch
    Sandy Plummer
    Silvia
    Siobhan Harvey
    Sue Berman
    Sue Fitchett
    Sylvia Nagl
    Tessa Duder
    Tony Eyre
    Trevor M Landers
    Yvonne Van Dongen

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Deborah thanks Rangimarie Kelly and Pikau Digtal for website design and artist Karen Jarvis for her image ‘Writers at the Devonport Library,’ (2023)
Writing Memoir
Defining Memoir
The Participatory Model
Tips on Writing and Posting a Story
​From Writing Course to Book Publication
Your Writing Space
​Writing on a Theme
Reviews of Memoir
Writers Stories
​
Events
​About
Testimonials
What People Say

Media
​Contact
Copyright © 2023 Deborah Shepard
  • Home
  • Books
    • The Writing Life >
      • Reviews & Interviews
    • Giving Yourself to Life
    • Her Life's Work
    • Translucence
    • Between The Lives
    • Reframing Women
    • Tributes
    • Personal Writings >
      • Conference Paper
      • Lockdown Journal
      • Travel Journal
      • Elegy for a friend
      • Christchurch - Post Quakes
      • On a residency
      • Deborah’s Love Letter to the Women’s Bookshop
      • Deborah's Q & A With Unity Books
  • Writing Memoir
    • Defining Memoir
    • The Participatory Model
    • Tips on Writing and Posting a Story
    • The Value of a Writing Class
    • From writing course to book publication
    • Your Writing Space
    • Writing on a Theme >
      • Window
      • Surviving a Crisis
    • Reviews of Memoir
  • Writers' stories
    • Writer's Stories
    • Covid-19 Stories
    • Writing Guidelines
    • From Being Mentored to Book Publication
  • Events
  • About
    • Testimonials
    • Media
  • What People Say
  • Contact