Last week I wasn’t able to get along to the first Pighog poetry night in Brighton as it was Nick’s birthday so we ate out at the Jolly Sportsman in East Chiltington (lush). BUT I’m looking forward to the next one on March 28th as Judith Cair, a lovely poet who I know from various workshopping groups, is launching her pamphlet The Ship’s Eye.

Tomorrow is the meeting of the Brighton Stanza, and we’re combining the reading and workshopping groups into one. Although we had booked our workshopping dates, the pub omitted to ‘put them in the book’ and as a result we were bumped. So we thought we’d combine the 2 groups for this month and next. Anyway, we’ll play it by ear and do whatever people want to do on the night.

Then on Wednesday I’m facilitating the ‘First Wednesday’ poetry group here in Lewes at Pleasant Stores, run by Colin Bell who’s away this week. It’s a new group and I’ve only been to one event myself. It’s mostly a reading group, there’s no workshopping. So I shall take plenty of current magazines and collections to share and read a few things from, and hopefully others will too.

Next Saturday 9th March is the New Writing South Publishing Industry Day at Brighton Library which should be brilliant: many good speakers/writers and industry experts, plenty of opportunities to network with writers, publishers, agents etc. I’m presenting a short session on ‘building your online writer presence’ as a taster for my new course running in April/May. Do come along if you can, and say hello.