'Threadworks' by Ceda Parkinson: Lighthouse Talk

Written by Nico Horton

Ceda Parkinson, former BA and MA student of Falmouth University, was invited to give a talk on her recently published book and debut work of non-fiction, Threadworks, in the Lighthouse on Wednesday 4th December. What captured me first was the description of the book – “exploring the role of spiders and their webs in the human imagination and our complicated and ancient relationships with them” – and the interest of hearing what a former student could say about the process of book publishing was something I knew would be worth going to.

Prior to the publication of Threadworks by Guillemot Press, Ceda has published in journals such as the Dark Mountain Project; she described her most recent one as a lyrical essay, or poetic non-fiction, and shortly after she gave a reading from the introduction. What’s definite is this: I’ve not heard before a more poetic, comprehensive yet soft description of a spider’s journey, perhaps written almost like a spiderweb itself.

The first question that the host of the talk and publisher at Guillemot Press and editor of Threadworks, Luke Thompson, put forward was of course the most obvious – why spiders? Ceda talked about her fascination with them, growing from arachnophobia (sometimes I think that whoever made spiders made them too scary for us to live with them); she mentioned this kind of ‘pull’ that fear has on you, how it sparks a curiosity where you may not have expected it to come from.

In her research for her project, Ceda shared something really fascinating with everyone: a theory that perhaps the web of a spider is in fact part of their brainwork; there was one example, Ceda recalled, of some kind of science experiment in which a spider’s web was broken, and it was then observed that the spider had a stroke. Ceda also talked about Gaston Bachelard, author of The Poetics of Space; his writings about connections between seemingly random things, and the spaces in little structures of nature, spaces which we perhaps would ignore for most of our lives. Luke pointed out the structure of Threadworks, how the focus shifts in and out much like how spiders move in and out to weave their webs.

Ceda gave her second reading from the third chapter, and once again the lyricism of this essay at times really does make it feel like a story is being told in verse – this one really grabbed my ears, because it was about la Tarantella, a traditional folk dance from Italy (which is where my mum is from, hence my excitement hearing about it). It originated from a belief that the only thing that could cure the hysteria of being bit by a wolf spider, called ‘tarantism’ (its name coming from the city of Taranto in Southern Italy, which is where the dance originated). This is just one of many places that Ceda explores in Threadworks of different cultures’ association with spiders, and the folklore around them – and boy was I happy she chose to read about la Tarantella!

It was incredibly useful to hear Ceda talk as well about the editing process at the end. As someone who wants to publish writing myself, and I’m sure many readers of FalWriting have that same ambition, it really did help with understanding what could be expected during the editing process. Ceda discussed how most of the editing of her work was cutting, and also of the importance (more so for non-fiction writing) of asking for copyright. Like everyone else at the talk, I think I was incredibly impressed at what a student can go on to achieve in the writing industry, and does wonders to fill us with hope and fascination.