1 Min In Practice
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- How did you come to work in community pharmacy?
I started as a pharmacy assistant for Weldricks in August and currently do a bit of everything while I’m undertaking my training.
I was looking for part time work and was attracted to the role because I liked the idea of working within my community and not having to do the corporate commute. The bonuses include getting to know local people and going home at lunch to read a book.
- Tell us a bit about your writing career?
I’ve been writing stories since I was six years old, but I never pursued writing the way I wanted to after being told my love of ‘low fantasy’ wasn’t literary enough – witches and magic form the theme of my stories, although they are based in the real world.
My husband was the one who encouraged me to submit my work and my debut came out last year, with my second book due this winter.
- Pharmacy is rooted in science, while your fiction often involves the magical or mystical. How do you balance those two parts of your life?
It’s less of a balance and more of a merging. Sometimes science follows folklore. For example, in 1951 researcher Mikhail Mashkovsky discovered an area where locals were massaging the snowdrop plant into the legs of children in the belief it stopped paralysis spreading.
Eventually this turned into galantamine [an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor used to treat mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia by increasing levels of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter important for memory and thinking].
- Community pharmacies are trusted spaces in local neighbourhoods. Do you see your writing as a way of building a kind of community for your readers?
Absolutely, I think it’s about creating a welcoming space that accepts people as they are, whether it’s a pharmacy or a community of readers. I have profound hearing loss and I started writing as a child as a way of creating a community for myself.
Now, in the pharmacy, we have the nicest customers and they’re fine with my hearing loss. I’d be honoured if readers felt a similar connection and sense of community from my books.
- And where can our readers find your books?
Visit: badpress.ink/authors/georgie-st-claire/in-silence-and-shadows/.
In Practice