The writers were:

• David Hart, 1997/8 Birmingham Poet Laureate
• Catherine O’Flynn, winner 2008 First Novel Award at the Costa Book Awards
• Katherine D’Souza, author of the Birmingham-set novels “Deeds Not Words” and “Park Life”
• Gaynor Arnold, whose work “Girl in a Blue Dress” was long-listed for the 2008 Man Booker Prize
• Jo Ind – yes, that’s me – author or Memories of Bliss, former Birmingham Post journalist.
  

I greatly enjoyed being able to choose any book I wanted from the store to sit on my shelf.  It was better than being a child let loose in a sweet shop.

Rarely, do I allow myself just to pick what I want.  Normally my book selections are constrained by concerns about money and whether I will have time to actually read whatever title I’m considering.  For The Curated Shelf, I could just pick what I fancied and there was a luxurious freedom in that.

My shelf turned out to be biographical.  I chose books I had enjoyed as child and enjoy reading with my own little boy (Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle), novels where I had interviewed the author through my work as a journalist, sheet music because I love singing and playing the piano, a book on language to reflect my enduring interest as a philosopher and writer.  In picking whatever I wanted, I found a story of my life displayed through the spines on books. That felt pleasurable and somehow important to me.

I hope people enjoyed looking at the curations as much as I enjoyed selecting the items – but I doubt that they could have done simply because I enjoyed it so very much.

First of all the treasure trove which is the Oxfam Bookshop on Kings Heath High Street, Birmingham will be celebrating its refurbishment.  Still cosy, still welcoming, it will be enjoying a brand new look.

Secondly, that treasure trove which is Katrice Horsley will be there telling tales in a way that only a national storytelling laureate can.

Thirdly, the theme of the morning will be motherhood and creativity (one of my top topics) – and I shall be there discussing it with Katrice and you too, if you would care to come along.

Do you see motherhood as the ultimate creative act – or something that makes it impossible to get on with your own creative work? What’s the difference between raising a child and making art?

We will be telling stories, reading texts and sharing anecdotes on the theme of motherhood and creation at 11am to mark the re-opening of the Oxfam store.

Anyone is welcome but please note the event is for adults rather than children.

• Motherhood and Creativity with Jo Ind and Katrice Horsley is on Wednesday 25 February 2015 at 11am at the Oxfam Bookshop, 110A Kings Heath High Street B14 7LG.

Do you know that feeling of having told a half-truth? It’s not about telling a lie. It’s about settling for less than the truth deserves, neglecting to tell the most important part of a story.

The truth – the full truth – is that many months before I had an NHS local business card, I had another one beautifully designed by lower case design, which said: “Jo Ind – Writer” on it.

When I left the Birmingham Post and became self-employed earlier this year, I was asking myself who I am and what I do.

I could have tried to sell myself as a journalist, editor, teacher, manager, consultant, social-media-thingy because I am all of those things but it seemed to me that what I am, at heart, is a writer. Everything else I do comes out of that.

That was the simple  – and deeply truthful – message that I put on my business cards.

But for some reason I didn’t share that at the time. I shared my position at Maverick TV instead.

Well, I am deputy site editor with NHS local and do you know what? I thoroughly enjoy it.

But before that I was a writer. And when I am old and grey (perhaps I should say older and greyer) I will still be writer.

That is what I am and that is what I need to say.

That’s all.

(Clearly I’m not a photographer. But I’m getting Photoshop next week, so I hope to learn how to improve the images on my blog very soon.)

I know she has my best interests at heart – as I do hers. It’s not uncommon, even in the best of organisations, to feel a degree of ambivalence towards your employers.  You are prepared to work hard and put yourself out, but, quite rightly, there are limits as to how far you will go on their behalf.

I don’t feel like that towards my new boss. I would go to the ends of the earth for her and her family. She has my complete, unconditional support.

I love being self-employed. It rocks.

My last day at the Birmingham Post was Tuesday 22 December 2009. I slid out on a farewell blog like Santa on his sleigh. Here is my heart-felt post, with added pictures, which was published in the Birmingham Post that day.

Bye bye Birmingham Post

Bye bye Birmingham Post. I have been with you for more than 21 years. In those years you have been through eight editors, gone from being a broadsheet, to a tabloid, to a broadsheet and back to a tabloid again, only we don’t call you that. You were black and white then, you’re colour now. You were a six day a week publication when I joined. Now you are a multi-media operation of which the newspaper is only a part.

In those 21 years, I have changed too. My mother has died, I’ve been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, I’ve lived in community, I’ve lived on my own and I’ve lived with my family. I’ve married, I’ve had a son, I’ve had two books published and I’ve learnt to sing jazz. I’ve gone from being an angry idealist determined to change the world to someone who is content to change her little bit of it and is happier than I knew was possible – same hairstyle though.

Farewell everyone I have ever interviewed

Farewell everyone I have ever interviewed. I became a journalist because of you. It’s been an honour to hear your stories and to tell them as faithfully as I could, whatever the pressure of my deadlines or the barking of the newsdesk. There are some of you who have touched me so deeply, I will never forget you. Thank you for your trust and for making my work such a privilege.

Earlier this week, as part of a feature I was writing for The Birmingham Post, I went with family historian Paul Wilkins to Birmingham Central Library to trace my family tree and discovered, amongst other great worthiness, that I am a direct descendant of Elizabeth Fry, the woman who reformed prisons in the nineteenth century and is commemorated on the back of a fiver.

Now I’m trying to work out how it makes me feel.