Yes I know I’ve gone a bit quiet lately, and that’s because we are finally moving house. Oh and the small matter of a concert in a week’s time, on the same day as the Free Verse Poetry Book Fair, so my creative juices have been sucked dry on making posters and postcards, a 12Read more ⟶
Category: Blog
The Reading List, week 6: Duhig, Kenny, Murray, Lehane
This post is the latest update to my ‘Reading List’ project begun in July 2015. The Lammas Hireling, Ian Duhig (Picador, 2003) From the opening poem ‘Blood’, an extended description of a self-styled skinhead-type hardman who turns out to be a fifteen-year-old who faints at the sight of a vaccination needle ‘in front of aRead more ⟶
Poetry Book Fair excitement, plus my poetry gets a leg up
September so often seems like the shortest month – why is that? At the moment it’s also looking like the craziest this year. We have to move out of our house by 23rd, which is little more than a couple of weeks away. And no, we haven’t started packing yet, because we don’t have anyRead more ⟶
The Reading List, week 5: McVety, Konig, James
Right now my reading material consists mainly of kitchen brochures, legal house-moving gumph and internet research on macerator toilets and whether you need planning permission to change a window on the rear of a building. So the antidote is of course a splash of poetry. ‘Splash’ being the right word, I think, consider the amount ofRead more ⟶
The Road Not Taken & FOMO
Just the other day Don Share posted on Twitter a link to a recording of Robert Frost reading ‘The Road Not Taken’. How wonderful to hear it in the poet’s voice. Here it is on YouTube: Matthew Hollis, in his 2011 biography of Edward Thomas, Now All Roads Lead to France, tells of Thomas’s distress atRead more ⟶
The Reading List, week 4: Heaney, O’Brien, Williams
As promised, The Reading List continues … District & Circle, Seamus Heaney (Faber, 2006) Everything you’d expect from a Heaney collection: poignant but unsentimental recollections of the past, images you can’t get out of your head days later, a familiar strangeness, the ghosts of various characters from Edward Thomas and Dorothy Wordsworth to HarryRead more ⟶
Post-holiday news, blues and beginnings
Back from holiday less than a week and plenty has happened. While I was away I received three rejections (boo!) and one ‘long listing’ (hurray!), so now I’m faced with a big hole in my sending out schedule. I haven’t written anything new for a while and am about to go into another busy periodRead more ⟶
Different ways of promoting your blog posts on social media (reblogged from Social Media for Writers)
This is the last of my re-blogs from ‘Social Media for Writers’ while I’m on my hols. Please do still leave comments, which I love reading, although I won’t be able to reply immediately. Social media can be a big time-suck, if you let it. So it’s worth knowing about automation – what tools areRead more ⟶
Making the most of Twitter lists (from Social Media for Writers blog)
This is the second of my re-blogs while I’m on my hols and trying to take a break from the internet! My ‘Social Media for Writers’ blog has many useful articles on it but I’ve never gotten around to promoting it much, which is a bit of a waste, and I’m not proud of the admission! Please doRead more ⟶
Tips for choosing a WordPress.com Theme (from Social Media for Writers Blog)
While I’m on my hols I’m re-posting one or two articles from my ‘Social Media for Writers’ blog in case they are of interest. I’ve promised myself to stay off the grid while we’re away, so please do still leave comments, which I love reading, although I won’t be able to reply immediately. Here are myRead more ⟶