AMPHIBIAN, the play text that opens my debut collection Amphibian & Other Bodies, draws on the abortion I had in 2020. I hadn’t planned to write about it. I wasn’t sure how to capture the ambivalence and complexity of the experience without providing fodder to pro-life activists. But in 2021 John Livesy, a friend of mine from university and a talented director, asked me to write a script for the Playmill Festival at the King’s Head in Islington and AMPHIBIAN was eerily born. I wrote it in twelve strange days. It was my first full length play. I had previously worked mostly in poetry, reading regularly at showcases in London and Oxford, and having a few pieces published in student magazines. AMPHIBIAN is not a traditional play text by any means. It is made up of lyric monologues and fitful dialogue, there are no stage directions, and the same character is played by two actors. The play received the National Centre for Writing’s UEA New Forms Award in 2022, an early career award that celebrates writing outside and in-between traditional forms. This was the first time I’d won any writing competition I’d entered (there had been many gut-punching rejections).

That Summer, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, stripping millions of people their right to abortion. John and I staged AMPHIBIAN a second time in aid of abortion access. The editor of South East London based indie publisher Toothgrinder Press Ned Green came to see it. I met Ned first through the poetry circuit and he had published my poems in the Away With Words anthology. I was keen to work with him again to recontextualise the play within a collection of my other writing.

These became the ‘Other Bodies’; eleven stories that revisit themes or characters from AMPHIBIAN, including abortion, sexual assault, illness and motherhood. My writing begins with voice, rather than plot. In one story, a dog bears witness to a boy’s loneliness. In another, a child experiences a small but devastating loss. In Ragnarök, a lawless chorus of giant seahorses narrate the end of the world. While I was working on the stories, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. The final story, 12:50, is written in fragments based on her experience.

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I wrote the collection in bed (don’t be shamed by productivity ‘experts’ who tell you this isn’t allowed; as a disabled writer I am never more creative than when my body is propped up with pillows) and behind the desk of the bookshop I work in (Review in Peckham). I read extracts of the book at Blue Shout poetry in South London to test the material. I remember feeling nauseous sending a proof out into the world. It was the first time that anyone except Ned had read the stories in full. I am indebted to all the writers who provided beautiful quotes for the book. Some of them had read alongside me at poetry nights. Some of them I’d never met. I felt seen by each and every one. After a year of editing, design and publicity, Amphibian & Other Bodies was published in November 2023. The entire process brought home to me that a book really is a collaboration. Even if you plan to self-publish, I recommend developing a strong writing community to help refine and promote your book.

People often ask me why I chose a small press for Amphibian and Other Bodies. The answer is I didn’t. The collection simply wouldn’t exist without Ned from Toothgrinder, who oversaw its conception, provided motivating deadlines, and whose thoughtful comments nurtured the stories from bare bones to the fleshy universes they are now.

The book has opened up a lot of doors. I now have agency representation, and I am working on my first novel.

Available here: https://www.toothgrinder.co.uk/product-page/amphibian-other-bodies

My website: vidaadamczewski.com