A sick kitty, Arvon, podcasting and MA latest

Help! I’m just emerging from a fraught couple of weeks. Two weeks ago our cat Bobby suddenly developed a life-threatening condition. He’d only been officially ‘ours’ for less than a fortnight. He’s on the mend now, but I think the shock of it all (including not being insured, plus a week or so of cleaningRead more ⟶

Breaking this week (poetry and tech)

The eagle-eyed reader of this blog may have noticed a few wee changes in the look of it. Yes, I’ve changed the Theme, but it all happened rather more quickly than I was expecting, and the day before I was giving a blogging workshop. So I spent four hours trying to make my broken blog lookRead more ⟶

New poem on Ink, Sweat & Tears

Very nice of Helen Ivory to take ‘Left’, for Ink, Sweat & Tears. It’s the closest thing to a love poem I’ve written, I think. Whether it was appreciated as such (by the person it’s about) it’s hard to say! It’s a poem I workshopped at our regular Mimi Khalvati group here in Lewes. I seemRead more ⟶

January’s off to a great start

Happy New Year! I’m particularly upbeat about 2013 – already there are lots of positive things going on in both work and play (not sure where poetry sits on that spectrum but I’m doing my best to blue the edges, little by little.) On New Year’s Eve I had an email from Helen Ivory toRead more ⟶

Getting published/entering competitions – tips from the experts

The weather’s terrible, I am a ‘music widow’ today and I feel the urge to reconnect with what makes poetry good, and conversely what’s BAD about the stuff I’ve had rejected lately. Yes, it’s time for some serious reading and some BIG edits! I recently came across Tim Love’s excellent LitRefs Articles blog – andRead more ⟶