Word on the Street

A darkly comic reflection on homelessness, life writing and dermatology.

The homeless are dying; a pestilence is sweeping them off the streets, while the authorities herd the not-yet-dead into sinister 'clinics' in derelict industrial wastelands? until suddenly The Public is no longer immune.

Word on the Street is about love and squalor, tenderness and disease, dead dogs and midnight burials, boils and pus and body hair. And politics, of course. It's about what separates people, and what joins them: courage, resistance, self-sacrifice, humour and friendship. It's a gruesome black farce: absurd, profoundly moving, and very, very, funny.

* * *

About the Author:

Romy Wood is a recovering secondary school teacher. She has an MA in The Teaching and Practice of Creative Writing from Cardiff University and lectures in Creative Writing for the Open University and has supported beginner writers in prisons and hostels. She drinks too much Coca-cola, likes to win at Scrabble and walks the tightrope that is Bipolar Disorder.

Word on the Street is Romy Wood's second novel, following Bamboo Grove(Alcemi 2010). Romy lives in Cardiff with her husband and three children. She is a Member of The Welsh Academy.

* * *