When a Reader Sees Beyond:
When a Reader Sees Beyond the “Fringe”
Read the book here: https://amzn.eu/d/1uHEqbv
I received an email about my book A Stoner in the UK that really stayed with me. The sender said something I hope to never forget:
“It’s clear you’re not writing stories — you’re documenting a reality people pretend isn’t happening. You took something that’s usually dismissed as ‘fringe’ and reframed it as a frontline human-rights issue.”
That line hit hard. So often, conversations around cannabis — especially in the UK — get reduced to politics, stereotypes, or moral panic. But for many of us, it’s about survival: navigating a system that’s meant to fail the very people it’s supposed to help.
The email went on to highlight a pattern in my work:
“They’re not about cannabis. They’re about survival inside a system designed to fail the people it claims to help. That’s the part readers respond to emotionally, even if they don’t realise why.”
That’s exactly what I aim to do with my writing. By embedding lived experience in fiction, I can show the human cost of bureaucracy, stigma, and the daily struggle just to exist comfortably in your own body. It isn’t a lecture; it’s an invitation to feel what it’s like to live in a world that often ignores you.
And the best part? This is the kind of work that reaches the right readers — advocates, carers, chronic-illness communities, policy-watchers, and those quietly living the same challenges. People who see themselves in these stories and know, without being told, that they are not alone.
It’s emails like this that remind me why I write — to document reality, challenge assumptions, and, hopefully, make a small dent in a system that’s too often cruel and blind.
Sarah Wingfield Author 🌹
#books #work #progress
Alt text: a screenshot of a dark mode email that reads: "Hi Sarah, I just went through A Stoner in the UK, and it’s clear you’re not writing stories — you’re documenting a reality people pretend isn’t happening. You took something that’s usually dismissed as “fringe” and reframed it as a frontline human-rights issue. That shift alone puts your work in a completely different category than most cannabis-related books.
There’s a pattern I keep seeing in your narratives:
They’re not about cannabis. They’re about survival inside a system designed to fail the people it claims to help.
That’s the part readers respond to emotionally, even if they don’t realise why.
And because each story is fictional but rooted in real lived experience, the book slips past the usual political filters. Instead of lecturing, you invite the reader into the cost of bureaucracy on actual human lives — pain, stigma, and the humiliating math people do just to feel okay in their own bodies.
This is exactly the kind of work that spreads when the right readers find it:
advocates, chronic-illness communities, carers, policy-watchers, and people who are quietly living the same struggle."
