Lockdown Diaries is an insightful piece of write ups done during the 68 days of Lockdown in India. This book brings out the happy, motivating and positive side of life and all that we need to be grateful for even in testing times.This book will always be looked into as a source of inspiration when any tough times come ahead in life.

An anthology and compilation of short stories, flash fiction, contributions from the 'isolation writers, ' plus poetry written during the time of lockdown in the UK. "A Piece of Living History!"This anthology and compilation is for everyone, wherever you live in the world. We are all experiencing the impact of COVID19 and lockdown. As writers, bloggers and creatives we express our thoughts and opinions in writing: in heartfelt poetry, pieces on isolation and the impact of COVID19 and the 'new normal.' There are twenty eight talented contributors, including the creative NHS Mask Making Fundraising Team of Jane Horwood and Melissa Santiago Val. The contributors come from as far afield as Australia, Canada, USA and Zimbabwe, or closer to my current home in England - in Ireland, Scotland and Italy.It is as Willow Willers, a contributor said, 'A piece of living history.'This extraordinary and unexpected time period will be shared with future generations one day.Compiling and editing this anthology has given me a purpose over the period of Lockdown and for that I am grateful. The book showcases several authors and their thoughts on what it is like to experience 'isolation' as a writer. In the final part of the book I include my latest short story idea: a YA romance and various short pieces of poetry, and flash fiction inspired by the pandemic. The full list of authors and contributors are: Richard Dee, (Sci Fi, Steampunk, Amateur Detective author, ) Catherine Fearns, (Amazon Bestselling Author of Police Procedural/Mysteries and Music Journalist, ) Lynn Fraser, (Author, ) Jackie Carreira, (Writer, musician, designer and aspiring philosopher, ) Willow Willers, (Poet and Writer, ) Sharon Marchisello, (Murder Mystery, Financial non-fiction author, ) Fi Phillips, (Author, Copy Editor, ) Jeannie Wycherley, (Dark stories, Suspense, Horror, ) Chantelle Atkins, (Urban Fiction, Teen/YA, ) Tracie Barton-Barrett, (Speaker/Author, ) Peter Taylor-Gooby, (Crime, Love Stories, Political Fiction, ) Ritu Bhathal, (Chick Lit, Romance, Poet, ) Alice May, (Author, Artist and Speaker, ) Miriam Owen, (Blogger, Doctoral Researcher, ) Drew Neary and Ceri Williams (Ghost Horror, Supernatural, ) Katherine Mezzacappa, (Historical Fiction/Romance, ) Sally Cronin, (Huge supporter of indie community/Blogger/Author) D G Kaye, (Memoirist/NonFiction, ) Adele Marie Park, (Fantasy, Horror, Urban fantasy, ) Marian Wood, (Blogger, Poet and Writer.) Samantha Murdoch, (Writer, Blogger, ) Beaton Mabaso (Blogger, African storyteller, ) Frank Prem (Poet, Author) Anne Goodwin (Author, Book Blogger) Sherri Matthews (Writer, Photographer, Blogger, ) Jane Horwood and Melissa Santiago-Val - Community Masks for The NHS/Sew Positive.PLEASE NOTE - This paperback does not include my personal COVID diaries originally published on the kindle. These are available to read on the kindle version of This Is Lo

RecordCovid19. Historicizing Experiences of the Pandemic provides insights into the experience of the Covid19 pandemic from an historical and sociological perspective. Using the first-hand testimonies submitted as part of the #RecordCovid19 project as its inspiration, the chapters in this edited collection explore and contextualise the initial responses to the Covid19 pandemic. The collection examines people’s relationships with Covid19 as an historical event, including their own experiences of living through history; their relationship with their surroundings, including their relationships with family, the soundscapes and the emotional environments of a pandemic world; the impact and tone of political rhetoric, including the use (and misuse) of wartime myths and language in the United Kingdom; and finally, what lessons can be learnt from how people discuss their own personal stories and what lessons can we draw from previous examples of storytelling in moments of crisis. The result is a fascinating and rich discussion derived from an archive full of idiosyncratic experiences of life changing during the Covid19 pandemic.

An outrageous miscellany of serious and light-hearted lies, myths, untruths, fibs and fabrications that tells the tall tale of South Africa. The fibs come thick and fast, like a burst sewerage pipe: • Why everything we've learnt about Shaka Zulu, 'Africa's Napoleon', is a pack of lies. • Back in the darkest of ages (the 1970s!), citizens were told that there were satanic messages if you played some of The Beatles songs backwards. • National icon Hansie Cronje was a paragon of virtue, and integrity ... until he wasn't. • President Nelson Mandela told us that we, as a nation, were 'special'. Turns out we aren't. Whether a fabulous fib, an artful con, a doctor's spin, or simply a bald-faced lie, there's something for everyone.

When will this end ? Wrong question – Argues Ayon Banerjee. It’s ‘How’, not ‘When’. Man is the only animal who grows when he’s alone, constrained & sad. Inside himself someplace, man waits for his arrival. 2020 & 2021 were two years in our lifetime that we spent being lonely, together. And arrived, at ourselves. “LIFE-ing It’ is the sequel to Ayon Banerjee’s much loved ‘As You Life It’, and contains his next instalment of life bytes – Some short, others shorter. There is no underlying theme to the standalone chapters, except for the fact that they all sit on overlapping boundaries of work & life of everymen who were forced to hit pause button in the past twenty months & who, through their own unique orifice of suffering, re-discovered the meaning of work & life in their own ways while being confined inside a forgotten planet called home.

From one of China’s most acclaimed and decorated writers comes a powerful first-person account of life in Wuhan during the COVID-19 outbreak. On January 25, 2020, after the central government imposed a lockdown in Wuhan, acclaimed Chinese writer Fang Fang began publishing an online diary. In the days and weeks that followed, Fang Fang’s nightly postings gave voice to the fears, frustrations, anger, and hope of millions of her fellow citizens, reflecting on the psychological impact of forced isolation, the role of the internet as both community lifeline and source of misinformation, and most tragically, the lives of neighbors and friends taken by the deadly virus. A fascinating eyewitness account of events as they unfold, Wuhan Diary captures the challenges of daily life and the changing moods and emotions of being quarantined without reliable information. Fang Fang finds solace in small domestic comforts and is inspired by the courage of friends, health professionals and volunteers, as well as the resilience and perseverance of Wuhan’s nine million residents. But, by claiming the writer ́s duty to record she also speaks out against social injustice, abuse of power, and other problems which impeded the response to the epidemic and gets herself embroiled in online controversies because of it. As Fang Fang documents the beginning of the global health crisis in real time, we are able to identify patterns and mistakes that many of the countries dealing with the novel coronavirus have later repeated. She reminds us that, in the face of the new virus, the plight of the citizens of Wuhan is also that of citizens everywhere. As Fang Fang writes: “The virus is the common enemy of humankind; that is a lesson for all humanity. The only way we can conquer this virus and free ourselves from its grip is for all members of humankind to work together.” Blending the intimate and the epic, the profound and the quotidian, Wuhan Diary is a remarkable record of an extraordinary time. Translated from the Chinese by Michael Berry