As the candle flickers late in the library, by its side is our Literary Editor, Lydia Tilston. Lydia graduated studying BA English Literature and Creative Writing from Cardiff University. Currently she is pursuing an MA International Relations from the same University.
Lydia loves to write because it provides a way to create the stories she wishes she could read that haven’t been written yet. To quote Taylor Swift, which she admits is not something she would say pre-folklore, ‘the greatest films of all time were never made’, and she believes that applies to prose as well.
It’s our responsibility to write the stories that don’t exist yet, especially in a time where generative AI seems to be taking over creative industries. If there’s a time to write, it’s now.
When it comes to what she is personally looking for with submissions, Lydia wants to read something that will make her care. Whether it’s caring about the narrator, the characters or an inanimate object – she wants to care. To feel moved, and for it to resonate in some way, even if it’s a totally unrelatable subject. The best books she has read, she cannot relate to in any way but they made her care so deeply some of the pages have water damage, and they have accessed emotions she rarely feels.
Lydia’s favourite book of all time is Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart. It is completely unrelatable to her. Lydia is not a Scottish, Protestant teenage boy living in poverty and neglect, forced to confront the implications of being gay in a toxically masculine Glasgow in the early 90s, as well as being in love with a Catholic boy and the cultural implications that come with it. Yet by the end of it, she saw something in Mungo that reflected parts of herself which she had been too scared to confront. It didn’t matter to her that she and I were essentially opposites in many ways, by the end of it I was ready to jump into the book and protect him from all the shit he had to deal with because in a way it also felt like protecting a version of myself that didn’t exist anymore. Watching him change into something crueller and uglier as he was forced to deal with situations that no one, let alone a child, should have to face felt so utterly raw and real.
That is what Lydia looks for in fiction, for something in me to be exposed, or changed.
Contact Lydia Tilston:
Email – tilstonlydia@gmail.com
Grey Bear Culture Magazine 
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