A short personal essay about farewelling my mother, published in Short Reads in November 2025. https://www.short-reads.org/out-the-front-door/
Out the front door
Category: Memoir
To the dance
This piece, published in Sad Girl Diaries recounts how it took me all afternoon to get ready for the fourth form social. You can read it at https://www.sadgirldiaries.com/post/to-the-dance-beverley-stevens
A proper Sunday lunch
This story of what is was like on family visits to my grandparents is published online in the Spring 2022 issue of The Longridge Review. You can read it there: the constraints on our behaviour that gave rise to anxiety and boredom, and the things that made it special. Read it at https://longridgereview.com/beverley-stevens/
Been and gone
Published online in the literary journal Dorothy's Parker's Ashes, this piece was submitted in response to a call for submissions on the theme 'mother'. My mother is seated in the bottom row, first on the left. Read it at http://www.dorothyparkersashes.com/mother/gone
Aide-memoire
This story of a phone call with my mother as her memory was going is published in Landfall issue 243. Click on the photo to read it.
Not drowning but waving
A personal essay, first published by Headland in issue 16, November 2021 and included, with some changes, in a forthcoming anthology 'Loving Arrangements: Stories about Modern Living and Loving' to be published by Rutgers University Press in 2026. Click on the photo to read it.
French class with Mr Lewis (or how I became an expert 500 player)
For most of our last year at high school, my best friend Eva and I spent every French class in the common room playing 500 with whoever was around. None of the other seventh formers commented.; perhaps they didn’t notice; or perhaps they thought we had a lot of study periods in our timetable. Our … Continue reading French class with Mr Lewis (or how I became an expert 500 player)
Of poppies and passionfruit
The poppies that grew in my grandfather’s quarter-acre garden were bedraggled specimens. Each individual plant sat apart, marooned in its own patch of dull brown soil. Similarly the lemon trees dotted around the grassy lawn were like respectable neighbours who preferred to keep at arm's length. The lemon trees had the attraction of glossy leaves … Continue reading Of poppies and passionfruit
Letting go of the children (or, I’ve not got Alzheimers yet)
Kahil Gibran wrote that your children are not your children. Even as a student in the 1970s I recognised the truth in what he said. And it turns out, bringing up children is a series of letting go's, from taking your hands off the back of the two-wheeler bike to walking away on the first … Continue reading Letting go of the children (or, I’ve not got Alzheimers yet)
Leaky orange Mazda, baby, and me
When I left my system management job at Digital Equipment Corporation, I had to leave behind the best part of the job, a brand-new mint-green Corolla. The model was dictated by my junior-level position (my boss had a Corona) but the colour choice had been mine. I certainly didn’t miss the chilliness of the mandatory … Continue reading Leaky orange Mazda, baby, and me
Fragments of an ordinary life 