Social media – Page 2 – Robin Houghton

Events/ 03/10/2014

Launches, lunches & putting the ‘win’ into Swindon

A quick update before I make my way to Swindon Festival of Poetry via lunch in Newbury with my sister-in-law. The Telltale Press public launch on Wednesday evening at the Poetry Cafe was a great success – the audience was mostly friends and friends of friends of myself and Peter Kenny, so we felt right at home. And the peeps at the Poetry Cafe are so helpful and unfussy. We’ll definitely be back in the New Year. Plans are afoot!

Rishi Dastidar at the London Telltale launch — Rishi Dastidar reading at our launch on Wednesday

Our guest readers on Wednesday were Anja Konig, all the way from Switzerland with her new pamphlet ‘Advice for an Only Child’ (Flipped Eye) hot off the press, and Rishi Dastidar, who’s part of the Complete Works II programme, launching on Monday evening at the South Bank.

Then yesterday was National Poetry Day, with an avalanche of stuff on social media and a shedload of events, none of which I actually got to, but that’s mainly because of tiredness and in anticipation of a full-on poetry fest this weekend. I don’t know if it’s just my perception, but it feels as if NPD gets more mainstream coverage than it used to. Probably just my skewed viewpoint.

Somewhere in amongst all the excitement about Forward Prize winners, Next Gen Poets, NPD readings etc was the little announcement about the Stanza Poetry Competition, which I somehow managed to, er, win. (As a reward I get to read at the AGM of the Poetry Society at Keats’ House in November. I am absurdly excited about this.) It was lovely to receive emails and messages of congratulations from fellow poets. Thank you so much. The winning poems and judges comments are here.

And now – I must pack and get myself off to sunny Swindon, where Hilda Sheehan has been Facebook updating with her particular brand of exhilarated craziness – porcelain dogs, men with megaphones, lunch poetry and all kinds of shenanigans appear to be happening. What the hell’s going on down there, Hilda? I’m coming to find out …

Courses/ 26/09/2014

Launches, readings, online course, a new book … busy autumn

Someone posted recently on Twitter that poetry seemed to be “mostly about reading, writing and waiting”. I know I’ve certainly had that kind of year up until a few weeks ago. I’d have to wait to do one of my ‘stock takes’ to see if I’ve been sending out less work this year than last, it’s felt a bit like the doldrums but in reality it may just be that I’ve had more rejections this year than before. I love autumn, and right now I’m feeling busy and fulfilled with various projects on the go, so maybe there’s a little momentum building.

The first half of the year was mostly about writing (non fiction) books, the first of which is scheduled for release in November. This Monday (29th) I’m giving a talk / leading a discussion for Hastings & St Leonards Writers’ Hub about social media and blogging, as a prelim to my one-day courses for New Writing South – the first of which is coming up in October. I also have a piece to write for Poetry News, on the subject of poets blogging.

I’m also mentoring a couple of writers at the moment on their blogging, social web presence and the rest. It’s great fun to help others get to grips with it all in a way that works for them.

Next Wednesday sees the public launch of Telltale Press, the new poets’ collective I’ve started with Peter Kenny and under the expert editorial guidance of Catherine Smith. We’ve already had the two private launches in Lewes and Hove, both of which were lovely, warm events. We all sold loads of copies of our pamphlets/books and received positive comments about Telltale. The list of jobs to do once the launch is over is long – looking forward to it though. It feels like such an empowering, carpe diem sort of thing to be doing. Our guest readers next Wednesday are Anja Konig (new pamphlet out with Flipped Eye) and Rishi Dastidar (recently appointed assistant editor at The Rialto.) Do come along if you can, details are here.

On the poetry writing front, I’ve just started an online course at the Poetry School which is proving to be excellent for developing my critiquing skills, having written detailed notes on something like 12 students’ poems so far, and we’re only on the first of 5 sessions. My own first poem has only had comments from three people, so I’m hoping that improves and I start to get some useful feedback in return. There are some interesting poets on the course so I’ll enjoy seeing how all of our writing develops.

Meanwhile I’ve got some lovely things to look forward to: forthcoming poems in The Rialto and South, a weekend with poet friends, listening to, reading and workshopping poetry at Swindon Festival of Poetry, readings of my own at the Needlewriters here in Lewes next January, plus a high-profile reading in the autumn (to be confirmed). And with a bit of luck, the launch of Blogging for Writers, for which I’m hoping to organise a blog tour. Hurrah!

I’ve been enjoying my bagload of books from the Poetry Book Fair, by the way, and will be sharing some of that here in coming weeks.

Oh and I almost forgot – thank you so much for all the encouragement after my post about having to sing a solo and getting a bit stressed. The concert went wonderfully, I did my little ‘mouse’ spot and sang out – what the hell! – I thought of the words I was singing, from Christopher Smart’s fantastical Jubilate Agno, and felt privileged to have the opportunity. I think I was also inspired by a recent visit to Benjamin Britten’s Aldeburgh and learning more about him. He was a great champion of amateur music makers and I hope I did him proud. And as Jean Tubridy said, “This is what living is about!”

Angst/ 15/09/2014

On keeping the anxiety in check and forthcoming events/plans

Hive Meeting Room — Room awaiting transformation into launch venue for Telltale Press. Note the bars on windows so poets can’t escape.

Yikes, the poetry world can be dangerous place, can’t it? Who’d be one of those poor ‘Next Generation Poets‘? Blimey. I wonder if people forget sometimes that letting rip on Facebook is less like having a bitch down the pub, and more like broadcasting all your inner demons on one of those sheets that get strung out across the motorway with “Happy 40th Birthday BillyBob” writ large.

Anyway – I have just too much else to worry about, thankfully, to get steamed up about Other People’s Success or the heated debates thereon. Even a rejection from Antiphon was filed promptly and with hardly a harrumph. Yes folks, at the risk of going on about it yet again, the Telltale Press launch ‘roadshow’ starts this week! We’re in Lewes on Wednesday, then Brighton & Hove the following Wednesday, then the Poetry Cafe in London on October 1st, which is the public launch. (The first two events are the equivalent of the ‘private view’ – aka two chances to get it right before we take on the world – ha ha!) No need to book in to the last one in London, please just come along, would be lovely to see/meet some Poetgal mates.

We’ve got the de rigueur roller banner, the Waitrose prosecco (on offer – yay!), the hired glasses and the press-ganged helpers.. .we’ve got the lovely poets coming to read (Catherine Smith, John McCullough, Abegail Morley, Anja Konig, man-of-the-moment Rishi Dastidar – no, not a Next Gen Poet yet, but just been appointed as one of the new Assistant Editors at The Rialto – plus Telltale poet Peter Kenny (launching his pamphlet) and myself.) Do I know yet what I’m going to read? No. Am I terrified? I’d have to break that down into 1) terror of what I’m going to say in front of my peers, many of whom are scarily illustrious poets, 2) terror of nobody turning up, 3) terror of so many people turning up they can’t get into the room and we run out of prosecco, 4) terror of the fridge breaking down and the prosecco being warm… and so on.

But here’s a nice thought to take my mind off it. On Saturday night I’m co-organising and singing in a concert with the super Lewes Singers, and have just learnt I have to sing a teeny (one minute) solo. And THAT my friends is more terrifying that any of it. Last time I had to sing an ‘almost’ solo (there were 3 of us) I had to have an emergency session at the hypnotherapist to get me through it. Gawds.

But … lots more excitement in the coming weeks. Firstly the Swindon Festival of Poetry on October 2nd – 5th. I’m really looking forward to catching up with poet friends from over that way, plus workshops with Jackie Wills and Cliff Yates, walks & readings with Maurice Riordan, Kathryn Maris, David Morley and others, and a class with the mighty Don Share. I wish I could get there on Thursday for the BlueGate Poets reading and Martin Malone and David Caddy on ‘The Editor’s Role’.

Then it’s back to Brighton for an all-day Saturday workshop with writers, on how to improve your social web presence ‘in a day’, at New Writing South. Should be intense but a lot of fun.

As for actual writing, tonight our Brighton Stanza meetings begin again after the summer, and tomorrow I’m starting with an online course at the Poetry School, looking at ‘left for dead’ poems and whether they can be revived. So that will be something to zero in on, and I’ll have deadlines to keep me going. I’ve not tried one of these courses before so it will be interesting to see how it goes, and whether it’s an improvement on the online poetry writing forum experiences I’ve had in the past.

I’ve also got plans for some interesting new features on this blog, including interviews, more about zines and blogs, and more poems from poets I’ve been reading lately, starting with Josh Ekroy – watch this space.

Books/ 06/05/2014

Heavenly Bodies, Starry Night

I admit Don McLean’s Vincent was one of my inspirations when it came to writing about a constellation – that and the challenge of writing a poem about stars without the word ‘star’ appearing in it.

It’s now part of an anthology of 88 poems (representing all the known/named constellations) and I’m dead chuffed to be a part of it. Big thanks to Rebecca Bilkau for pulling such a big project together, via Facebook, and to David Borrott (who I met on the Ty Newydd masterclass last year) for alerting me to the call for submissions. My copies arrived last week and it’s been fascinating to read the poems and see the very different routes people have taken with the theme. I’m not sure if it’s available to buy online yet but I have a couple of spare copies so I may do a giveaway, watch this space (so to speak).

There are some pretty cheesy versions of Vincent on YouTube but I don’t think you can beat this lovely live rendition from 1972:

Books/ 15/04/2014

Latest on the book, the pamphlet and more projects

Malling Deanery gardens and the Ouse — Taken on Sunday in the garden of friends

I don’t suppose you’ve noticed, but I’ve been a bit quiet on here the last week or so – not for any reason other than work though. I’ve fully recovered from the mini workshop trauma of a couple of weeks ago (I typed that as one word, workshoptrauma, which made me wonder momentarily if that’s a German word). Thank you for all the interesting comments on that one – it seemed to strike a nerve! But since then I’ve got back on the horse and the same workshop on Saturday was quite a different experience, it felt like we’d all taken a chill pill. Or maybe it’s just all the lovely blossom on the trees and the Spring-like weather. Last night we had a Brighton Stanza meeting in the open air – goodness! Summer must be acumen in. And I sold 3 copies of my pamphlet! Yeehaa.

Speaking of which, thank you to the kind purchasers of The Great Vowel Shift, it’s going well and has had two lovely reviews, one by Peter Kenny and another in London Grip. Very exciting!

Today I’ve been hard at it, on the home straight with the blogging book (all the copy is due next Tuesday). In fact I was just writing about time management and beating ‘bloggers’ block’, and by way of a break in the writing I’m (erm) writing this blog post. (Which comes under the heading of ‘do something different’ – although it’s not all that different, but anyway…)

Blogging for Writers - work in progress — Blogging for Writers – work in progress

The good news is I’ve hit my 45k word count, bad news is I still have 4 double page spreads to write, so I’m going to be a bit over. Then there’s what feels like a zillion photos to source and caption, expert bloggers to chase up for their contributions, and then going through it all and filling in the many holes, amending cross-chapter references, spell-checking, repetition-checking and all that stuff, then getting in a nice orderly zip for submitting. At least I have another month to get all the images sorted. Then it’s headfirst into the next book.

In the meantime tomorrow I have the last of my 3 session ‘Build your social web presence’ at New Writing South, and I’m speaking at their Publishing Industry Day on April 26th which should be fun. But I’m looking forward to getting back to my one-to-one mentoring work and having a bit more time for poetry sometime soon.

Last week I was contacted by Julia McCutchen of an organisation called IACCW to ask if I would be a ‘featured speaker’ for one of their monthly webcasts later in the year, plus there are one or two poetry readings in the pipeline for the second half of the year, so lots happening.

I hope the weather lasts and you have a lovely Easter break. Enjoy the blossom.

Courses/ 18/09/2013

Out and about the next few weeks . . .

There seems to be plenty happening at the moment, so here’s a quick round-up of some things I’m going to / involved with …

Firstly, please bear with me if I give a quick plug to my short course at New Writing South which starts tomorrow week, 26th September, 6.30 – 9pm for three weeks, on ‘Improving your social web presence’. It’s basically for any writer who has made small inroads into social media but may be struggling a bit – with finding the time, wondering what to blog or tweet about, not sure how to find writer communities online, struggling with the etiquette or thinking about a Facebook Page, that sort of thing. Lots of practical examples and exercises designed to help writers be inspired, develop useful contacts and find the joy in social media. It’s £80 for the 3 sessions and 10% discount for NWS members. I think there are only 2 places left but I’ll no doubt be running it again in the Spring.

Next Tuesday 24th I’m excited to be going to a Faber Social to hear Sam Riviere, Ruth Padel and others plus music. Yay!

Coming up very soon is my trip to Ty Newydd Writers’ Centre for a residential week with Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke. I have a feeling it’s going to be pretty epic and I’m so looking forward to it. Not sure what the broadband is like there, so I may be off the grid for a week and blogging about it when I get back.

Next month I’m planning to get to the Troubadour evening on October 21st to hear an array of lovely poets – it’ll be my first trip to the Troubadour, so am looking forward to that. Details of all the autumn Troubadour readings are here. The next day at Keat’s House in Hampstead, the idea of hearing poetry heavyweights Don Share and Maurice Riordan debate Ezra Pound’s ‘Don’ts’ is just too tempting. Tickets for that event are available from the Poetry Society.

Later that week a bit closer to home is Needlewriters, a quarterly event in Lewes. The October 24th event features our very own John Agard and Grace Nichols, so it’s bound to be a sell-out. I’m delighted to have been invited to join the organising committee of Needlewriters. It’s not really a committee as such – with minutes, officers and regulations – thankfully. (What is it about the word committee? We need a new word which encompasses the idea of a group of organisers working for a common cause, but without the connotations of officiousness, jobsworthyness and petty politics. Or maybe that’s just my take on it?)

Let me know if you going to any of the above, and let’s say hello.

PS completely off-topic but I noticed on the Popshot blog that Transport for London are seeking a number of poets-in-residence to work out of tube stations during the week of National Poetry Day – if you’re in London it sounds like a lot of fun – details here (PDF).

Angst/ 23/06/2013

Unaccustomed as I am

(So sorry about the weird asterisks etc in the following – just that last time I mentioned the B word I got immediately spam-commented and spam-followed by some decidedly un-poetic peeps.)

It’s been quite a busy week, easier to do it in reverse order – yesterday and Friday I was in London at the BritMums conference, speaking about b* logging (actually about b* log design, which really got my imposter syndrome alarm bells ringing. Bad enough presenting at a conference where I felt like an alien already – being about 20 25 years older than the average attendee and 100% less maternal.) That doesn’t mean I wasn’t delighted to speak there of course, and all the people I met were lovely. The event certainly had a friendly, supportive vibe. But nonetheless I was a teensy bit out of my comfort zone. Plus, the Waterstones stand at the show didn’t even have my book for sale – claiming they couldn’t get hold of it, even though the publisher pointed them to reserve stock for them to access. Even though I’m not on a royalties deal, it didn’t look good that my book wasn’t there. GRRRRR. ( I really liked the venue by the way – The Brewery, in the city – a great change from the terrible Hilton-type identikit conferences.)

Britmums Live weekend in London — From The Brewery to Catford precinct – two sides to London

Staying overnight in London did mean having the chance to see one of my good friends from schooldays and stay in her lovely big quiet house just a stone’s throw from where we went to school. It’s an area of south east London which as a teenager I never had much time for, but funny how going back there all I see are wide roads, leafy parks, a greengrocer on every corner and PLENTIFUL public transport links. *Sigh*

Last Monday I was in Tonbridge giving a talk on .. yes … the B word .. to a group of writers. The group is a newly formed ‘hub’, or outpost of New Writing South. The group included quite a few poets, including the lovely Abegail Morley – always nice to see a friendly face or two at these things! I was ready to feature Abe’s fab blog The Poetry Shed plus a whole host of others in my talk, but was thwarted by the Great Firewall of Kent County Council. Oh yes. Internet access? No problem – you just can’t bring up any actual websites, especially anything to do with poetry. There might be some LANGUAGE I suppose. So the talk about b* logging took place without visual reference to any actual b* logs. It kind of reminded me of the time I had to take an exercise-to-music class and my tape machine broke down. (In case you’re wondering, I just counted out loud. A lot.)

On the submissions front I’ve been sending off quite a few bits and bobs – some more hopeful/speculative than anything, but I seem to have written a good amount of stuff the last couple of months and although I’ve not had the chance to workshop any of it I’m just going with my gut instinct about what is and isn’t good enough to send out. So either way, the second half of the year should be eventful. I sent some poems to Under the Radar back in March, so I’m hoping to hear from them soon (?) – I’ll let you know, whether yay or nay. And then there’s that bit of good news I had about a month ago and it STILL hasn’t been made public and I’m getting REALLY itchy about it (or maybe that’s that the humungous mosquito bites I sustained the other day.)

That’s all for now – thanks for reading and I hope you have a super week.

Readings/ 11/06/2013

Upcoming events

Just a quick one … typing is a tad painful having just seen the physio about my shoulder (impingement of the supraspinatus and subscapularis, in case you’re interested).

A few things I’m looking forward to this month:

Tomorrow at the Lewes Arms is the launch of Margaret Wilmot’s Smith’s Knoll pamphlet ‘Sweet Coffee’ – should be a nice Lewes poetry event.

Monday 17th – Brighton Poetry Stanza workshopping group – although actually I can’t make it because I’m due to give a talk about blogging at New Writing South’s Tonbridge venue (time and venue tbd).

Friday 21st – Saturday 22nd – Britmums Live – the UK’s biggest bloggers’ conference, apparently (the people who run it aren’t british and I’m not a mum, but hey!) I’m making my ‘panel’ debut – always wanted to be on a panel! – and also giving a talk on blog design.

Thurs 27th – Needlewriters in Lewes – Clare Best & Sacha Dugdale – should be great.

Books/ 17/05/2013

Social media for writers, ‘Orgasm Management’ etc

This is not the blog post I started writing this morning – but that turned into a cod philosophical/ psychological discourse that I eventually decided wasn’t going anywhere. So I’ve saved it for another day when I might be able to better whip my thoughts into a proper shape.

Instead, more of straightforward diary entry. This week I’ve been a bit restricted by a sore leg – I’ll spare you the details but just to say I managed to strain a calf muscle a couple of weeks ago and as a consequence I’ve been limping about and avoiding walking any sort of distances. It’s definitely getting better though.

On Thursday I made it into Brighton for the last of my ‘Build your social web presence’ sessions for New Writing South (next course starting September). It’s been really interesting to work with a group of writers on this. Clearly, publishers are putting pressure on authors to share the publicity load and demonstrate their social media reach and influence. I’ve wanting for a while to pull together my interests in social media/ communications and writing/publishing and this is one of the strands that seems to be coming to fruition. I’m also talking to a large children’s publisher at the moment about social media training, and am working with a literary agent to help support their authors in building their online presence.

There’s also a strong possibility of a book on this subject, before the end of the year – I’ll keep you posted.

Something else I’m working on is an up to date list of UK poetry magazines, print and online, together with details of their Twitter & Facebook etc. Although there are a number of lists around, including the excellent Poetry LIbrary list, I’ve found that their Twitter or Facebook accounts aren’t listed, or they’re not always kept up to date – magazines tend to come and go, and I’ve often wasted time by seeking out (and sometimes submitting to) magazines that have clearly gone under but not told anyone. Anyway, it’s a bit of a mammoth task – I’ll post the first draft when it’s ready and hope you can help me by telling me of any you know to be ‘dead’ or others that I’ve haven’t heard of that ought to be included. Then if I can keep it up to date it could be a useful reference.

And last but not least, on Friday I went to see my very funny performance post friend Iona Jette perform her new one-woman show The Orgasm Management Monologue in the Brighton Fringe. I filmed it on a DSLR camera, my first attempt at such a thing and great fun to play with all the gadgetry involved. I’ll post a link to it when it’s up!

Category: Social media