Julie Wilkinson

Category: Stories

  • The Cracked Bottom

    Every storyteller has ‘signature stories’ – tales they are known for telling, the stories that live in their hearts and find their way onto every set list. This is one of mine. Inspired by a folk tale likely to be either Chinese or Indian in origin, my version was first written and performed at a children’s summer camp in 2008. It’s a timeless story – and one that I never tire of telling…

  • Kintsugi Tale

    A story inspired by sea glass and pottery shards, the holiness of the ordinary, the beauty that gilds the brokenness, and those who mend the shattered pieces back together; and by kintsugi – the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with seams of gold, embracing the beauty of the flaws and imperfections.

    Shared in tribute to all those – key workers or otherwise – who are holding things together in this time of crisis. There’s still so much beauty…

    Listen…

    Kintsugi Tale © Julie Wilkinson 2018

  • World Book Day 2019

    Shelf

    My shelves are full of friends,
    Sitting back to back along the rows.
    Their spines recall the footprints
    They have printed on my soul.

    From the alcove,
    Heidi smiles,
    Sun-faded and familiar.
    Her pages are as old as I am.
    Every night for years,
    She told me how little girls
    Could be brave and change the world
    And be homesick all at once.

    Nearby, red leather and gilt letters
    Hold the March sisters.
    Meg, forsaking romance to build something far more real;
    Amy’s gaze slowly turning from itself.
    Beth, whose light touch left a deep and lasting legacy;
    And Jo, who struggled with the world,
    And all of its injustice,
    Writing it out with ink-stained fingers.

    With my friends,
    I joined the circus,
    Sailed boats to secret islands,
    Fled the destruction of Farthing Wood,
    And the bombs of the London blitz.
    I heard the crunch of Narnia snow
    And tasted second breakfast.

    I am Hermione,
    Consuming the library one shelf at a time;
    I am Elizabeth Bennett,
    Fighting convention with razor-sharp wit;
    I am Matilda,
    Standing up against power misused and abused.
    I am Offred. And Tess Durbeyfield. And Hero.
    The voiceless given voice.

    Michelle Obama
    Took me to stand on the White House Lawn;
    Yusra Mardini
    Pulled me into the sea from a refugee boat.
    Emmeline Pankhurst
    Allowed me to march beside her;
    And Maya Angelou
    Taught me why the caged bird sings.

    Burglar Bill showed me the power of redemption,
    Dr Seuss how to fall in love with words;
    Lemony Snicket challenged the need for happy endings,
    And Pippi Longstocking laughed at the absurd.

    Every page turned,
    Every woven word,
    Every journey taken,
    Every story unfurled,
    Stitches into who we are,
    And who we want to be.

    Like Pi and Richard Parker, set adrift in their boat,
    We choose the stories we prefer.

    My shelves are full of friends,
    Sitting back to back along the rows.
    Old friends; new friends
    To leave footprints in my soul.

    Copyright © 2019 Julie Wilkinson