rejections – Robin Houghton

Blog/ 07/07/2022

Oh hello! Quick catch up

What was I doing all last month? Mostly singing (I passed my Grade 8 with merit – hurrah!), the odd party (friends with birthdays and/or launches), gardening (what was possible with the scaffolding up), executor stuff for my sister, making jam & chutney from all the rhubarb, and seeing an old friend from my adidas/Nike days who was over from the States and came to see me for a day. So a LOT of excitement. As regards poetry:

A few disappointments – the usual rejections, also my collection is somewhat in mothballs at the moment for various reasons, and may not see the light of day after all. But I’m oddly upbeat about it. I feel I’ve kind of moved on and am working on new strands. I’m bad at feeling pleased about poems for very long, they go stale on me and I just can’t bring myself to stick by them. This happens even if a poem is published somewhere – in fact especially so. I hope this is normal. Anyway, I’m sure at least some of the poems will find their way into a pamphlet or collection at some point.

On the positive side – I’ve re-joined the Poetry Book Society. I didn’t renew for several years, for various reasons. I still don’t really like the magazine they send out, and the ‘selection’ process, with different selectors every season or so, does seem to mean a lot of the same poets popping up on a regular basis. However, I do need to widen my reading in a more systematic way. It feeds into my writing but also into the podcast. We’re just coming up to our Season 2 finale, in which I interview Fiona Sampson. Fiona got me thinking about many things, for example I was inspired by the way she spoke about her tenure as editor of Poetry Review. So I’m already fired up about Season 3 of Planet Poetry.

Also positive – Richard Skinner has taken a poem of mine for the next issue of 14, a welcome acceptance email after a tranche of NOs (thank you, thank you!) Plus I have a poem out in the latest edition of Prole, and in the Autumn I’ve a poem in the 100th edition of The Frogmore Papers.

And of course I’m still plugging away at the list of poetry magazines and their submissions windows. The big quarterly update was last month, and I also send out end of the month reminders. I’ve got a good list of subscribers and people are very appreciative. So now I’m thinking about what else I can offer. Watch this space.

Angst/ 16/09/2021

Trying to write the next poem

I’ve just been editing an interview I did with the wonderful Kim Addonizio recently, for Planet Poetry. I’m a huge fan of Kim’s and in my keenness not to sound like a goofy fangirl I’m slightly worried I wasn’t complimentary enough or warm enough. Which is probably silly. But there was something very reassuring about hearing her say (when asked what are you working on now) ‘I’m just trying to write the next poem’.

The other day I queried a magazine about a submission I made in March, only to be told the poems had been rejected months ago but for some reason I never got the memo – they were extremely apologetic, which makes it worse in that I couldn’t feel annoyed with them! So that led me back to my submissions record, and the realisation that I’ve had 31 poems rejected by magazines this year so far and only two accepted. In my defence, I’m not sending as many poems out as I used to, because I’m writing more of what I think of as ‘collection’ poems, which don’t necessarily stand alone. I know that placing poems gets harder all the time as the sheer number of poets submitting to mags keeps increasing (and hey! I’ve done my bit to help that! I must be mad!) but I also know that good (enough) quality will out. It’s just hitting that good enough sweet spot is all. And all a poet can do is just try to write the next damn poem.

Anyway, all this takes me back to poets like Kim – both her poetry and her wise words on the craft. Her Ordinary Genius is never far from my desk. When I find snippets that really speak to me I collect them and stick them on the wall: ‘the language we reach for first is the language we know’ (not a good thing, in case that wasn’t clear!)…’if a poem goes nowhere it’s dead’ …. ‘write colder’… And then there are her witty, eye-opening, multi-layered, highly original poems with all their many, many ‘I wish I’d written that’ moments.

Do subscribe to Planet Poetry if you’re interested in hearing the interview (and interviews with tons of other great poets). Look for it wherever you get your podcasts.

titles by Kim Addonizio — Books by Kim Addonizio

Blog/ 08/03/2019

On #100rejections … (and 2 subscriptions)

The other day on Twitter I saw Penny Shutt mention #100rejections. Intrigued, I followed the hashtag and felt I’d stumbled on some sort of masochistic cult…

“Heard the outcome of a GDC scholarship that I applied for…!
Didn’t get it! All good, another ✔️ for #100rejections.”

“Holy EFF I might make #100rejections in the first month at this rate. I’ve got 11 in two days. Go me?”

“This year was the first year I seriously submitted work to literary journals. My goal: #100rejections”

Can this be true? My first thought was along the lines of ‘duh? I’ve easily got a hundred bad poems right now which I could send to a cluster of fine mags and be guaranteed rejections’. But I guess that’s not the point.

I started thinking of the high octane telesales people who talk about how great it is to get knocked back, because every rejection means you’re closer to making a sale. I can’t really see the logic in it – just feels like statistics gone nuts. But then again there’s no logic in my preferring the word ‘declined’ to ‘rejected’ when poems don’t make the cut with an editor. As someone pointed out to me recently d’you mean as in ‘your credit card has been declined’? All-righty.

Louise Tondeur helpfully pointed me in the direction of this blog post from 2016, by Kim Liao. Here’s an extract:

My ego resists mustering up the courage to submit writing to literary magazines, pitch articles, and apply for grants, residencies, and fellowships. Yet these painful processes are necessary evils if we are ever to climb out of our safe but hermetic cocoons of isolation and share our writing with the world.

[…]

Perhaps aiming for rejection, a far more attainable goal, would take some of the sting out of this ego-bruising exercise—which so often feels like an exercise in futility.

I can see how we all have to play whatever mind games it takes in order to submit our work for outside scrutiny and still retain the confidence and/or determination to keep going. But aiming for rejections feels to me like an ‘exercise in futility’ in itself. I wonder if by trying to ‘protect’ the fragile ego in this way you’re just feeding the problem by elevating the status of a rejection – increasing its significance, rather than allowing yourself to move away and on from it.

There was a good recent discussion of #100rejections on Twitter, starting with this comment by Natalie Ann Holborow (@missholborow) which struck a chord with me:

“Not sure about this #100rejections thing. Surely it’s knocking yourself back before you’ve started? For me, it means more to aim high, work hard & use rejection as a valuable way to improve so that I can be my very best next time. Rejection happens, but I don’t need to seek it.”

Perhaps aiming for 100 submissions a year (on the basis that you may get some acceptances in among the rejections) is one thing, although personally I know my creative brain goes to sleep if I turn the business of writing poetry into a numbers game. I do berate myself for not sending work out, it’s true, but I’d rather not send at all than send for the sake of achieving some numerical goal.

It’s obvious I’ve come late to the #100rejections party – Kim has written about again here, three years later, on ‘What collecting 100 rejections taught me about creative failure‘, during which time various writers and artists have run with it.

I can see how the #100rejections meme works for some people – movements create camaraderie if not community, and Kim Liao’s assertion that ‘since I’ve started aiming for rejections, not acceptances, I no longer dread submitting’ clearly holds good for many. But it’s not really my bag.

In other news, as a couple of magazine subscriptions come to an end I’ve just subscribed to The Moth and Stand to take their places. Neither are journals I’m familiar with, but I know them by reputation and am looking forward to seeing what they hold.

Blog/ 07/01/201906/01/2019

2018 poetry submissions stats

Dear oh dear. Well, I promise to deliver the ‘ups and downs’ of poetry submissions, and 2018 was slim pickings for sure.

Number of poems sent out to journals: 25

Number accepted: 4

Number declined: 15

Number awaiting reply: 6 (3 have been out for 300 days/43 weeks, 3 for 53 days/8 weeks)

Number poems entered in competitions: 10

Number poems placed in competitions: 0 (1 was ‘highly commended’)

I had 4 poems in anthologies and took part in one poetry installation.

I also wrote two private (yes, paid!) commissions.

In previous years I’ve been sending 40 to 50 poems out to journals, so in some ways 2018 was a slack year. It’s not that I haven’t been writing. I think maybe I’m more cautious about what I send, and I spend more time than I used to trying to decide the most appropriate place to send each poem. On the other hand anthologies, installations and commissions are very interesting and it’s exciting to be branching out a bit.

Blog/ 21/06/2017

A midsummer stock-take

It’s the longest day of the year here, and the hottest. I love these long days and warm evenings and we’ve been making the most of the garden and living by the sea. Somehow blogging seems less appealing!

However, having just been inspired by Marina Sofia’s Fortnightly Round-up, I thought maybe it was time for another quick stock-take.

Submissions

I’ve a few poems I should send out out – somewhere, right now, considering the longer I leave it the slimmer the chance of getting them placed anywhere before 2018. And one of the poems in question will be in my Cinnamon pamphlet, so if I want to see it in a magazine first I need to get a move on before it’s too late.

Currently there are only 5 individual poems out, three to a magazine and two to a competition, or six including the one I sent to Poetry News, but if they’d wanted it I would have heard by now, so I’ll be sending that one out again.

Quite a few poems are forthcoming – Brittle Star recently took a poem for their next issue which launches next week at the Barbican Library in London, I’ve got one in Magma in July, and in August three in Obsessed with Pipework and one in Prole.

I missed the Bridport deadline, not that I ever seem to do much in that, but you just never know. In the recent Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition it was great to see Katy Evans-Bush’s name among the winners. Katy is of course an established poet, but she’s also well-known as a poetry blogger and I wonder if for some people she’s a blogger first, poet second. So it’s good to see her poetry taking centre stage. I assumed my own entry for the comp had sunk without trace but then I had an email from Peter Sansom to say my collection had been shortlisted, which I was genuinely pleased about. I know I tend to dismiss the whole shortlist/longlist thing generally, but when it’s a big prize I can now see why people might put it on their biog. Although I’ve no public evidence for said shortlisting as it’s not published on the website. Oh well! It’ll be our secret!

One good thing about not submitting too much is of course you get fewer rejections. Three poems were returned to me recently by Poetry Review, so no luck there yet. In fact anything with ‘Review’ in the title tends to reject my stuff. Oh well, the challenge continues.

Current projects

I have a project bubbling under at the moment and although my first attempts to tackle it are a little rough around the edges, I’m taking my time. By way of research I’ve been reading The Poetry Cure (Bloodaxe, 2005) an anthology of illness edited by Julia Darling and Cynthia Fuller, as recommended by poet friend Sarah, and Of Mutability (Faber, 2010) by Jo Shapcott, as well as Granta issue 138 on ‘Journeys’.

On a different note, (ha!) in two days’ time I’m taking a Grade 6 singing exam, something I decided six months ago it would be fun to do, and it’s turned into a huge test for me – both to overcome my nerves, and my attitude, which is to expect to sound like Cecilia Bartoli on just a few lessons and the odd bit of practice. I am a fool! Or a glutton for knockbacks!

Great article

I was browsing Wayne Burrows’ website recently and came across this excellent interview he gave a couple of years ago – there’s so much in it I’d like to quote, instead I’ll just recommend it as a great read. His answers to questions about his influences, his writing habits, his regrets, and things such as ‘do you find it irritating when someone misinterprets your work?’ and ‘is poetry a dying art?’ are fascinating and entirely free of any self-importance or sense of ‘lecturing’ his reader.

Events coming up

I’ve got a busy poetry week ahead. This weekend I’m going to Anne-Marie Fyfe’s workshop at the South Downs Poetry Festival in Lewes, and I’m also looking forward to seeing Anne-Marie again at the Troubadour on Monday evening, where I’ll be one of the massed ranks of poets reading at the season finale on the theme of planets, stars, constellations etc. Do come if you’re in spitting distance.

On Thursday 29th June I’ll be going to a Cinnamon pamphleteers reading in London featuring Neil Elder, Tamsin Hopkins and Sarah Watkinson.

Next Friday 30th June I’ll be one of the Hastings Stanza Poets reading at The Bookkeeper bookshop on Kings Rd, St Leonards on the opening night of the St Leonards Festival. Free! Come along!

OK that’s it, I’m off for a dip (OK, maybe a paddle) in the sea!

Angst/ 24/03/2016

The rejections behind poem acceptances

Apparently I’m well known for broadcasting my rejections, but that’s no reason not to tell of the acceptances. Just when I was thinking I’d lost my way (the second half of 2015 was particularly bleak in terms of one rejection after another) some poems have come good. Specifically: a poem forthcoming in Poetry News, another in The Interpreter’s House and three in Bare Fiction, in which I’ve never made an appearance so I’m particularly encouraged by that. Two of the five were ‘problem children’, as you can see from the stats below.

I have a relatively new-found interest – looking at the drafts/rejection history of a poem once it’s accepted to see it I can learn anything from it. I love being able to write poetry on the computer. I save all drafts, or rather I save a draft the last time I work on it during a day. So generally I save one draft per day max. Otherwise ‘version control’ would be pretty much out of control. But I find I do go sometimes back to old drafts, and it can be a great help in moving the poem forwards years later. Looking at historic drafts, scrawled across with the workings-out of poets before the word processor, I wonder how they managed to see clearly where the poem was going – all those pen and ink changes, then typing (or writing) it out again, only to find the line breaks or form just looks wrong.

Details, details

Here are the timelines for each of the forthcoming poems – (they’re not in the same order as above):

Poem A – written April 2015, 4 drafts, 1 previous rejection
Poem B – written June – October 2015, 2 drafts, 2 previous rejections
Poem C – written Jan 2013 – Jan 2016, 19 drafts, 5 title changes, at least 6 previous rejections (I am so pleased to see ~~the back of this~~ this one find a home!)
Poem D – written Jan 2014 – March 2016, 8 drafts, 2 previous rejections
Poem E – written November 2015 – March 2016, 5 versions, 1 previous rejection

Interesting that there’s really no pattern to all this, but I think it does show that the ‘bottom drawer’ thing is useful – at least a couple of these poems had been put away for some months before I got them out and worked on them again. Of course, there are plenty of others in the bottom drawer and who knows if any of them will come to anything. But the process is fun, isn’t it? Just as long as SOME of them find homes eventually.

One thing I’ve noticed is that (if one can believe the hype!) submissions to magazines seem to be ever increasing, and magazine editors are under more pressure than ever. In this climate, congratulations are due to those editors who manage expectations and communicate well about where they are in the process. I hope, for their sake, that giving Facebook or website updates reduces the number of email enquiries from individuals. I certainly feel that the submissions turnaround times are at least as good as they always were, despite the rising tide of submissions.

Rejections (actually I prefer ‘Failed Submissions’)

On the thanks but no thanks front, in the last couple of months I’ve seen 5 poems sink without trace in competitions and 9 poems rejected by magazines. Ah well.

I now have nothing outstanding – eek! Must get something out!

Angst/ 26/01/201626/01/2016

The Reading List, winding up

First: general ‘how I’m feeling’ stuff, feel free to skip down if you’re short of time

Apologies for the silence these last few days. The usual self-employed person’s dilemma of feeling like rubbish and simultaneously wanting to stay on top of work and not let people down.

Yesterday I had to leave early from John McCullough’s poetry workshop at New Writing South, for fear of irritating everyone with my endless coughing. Once home, I went to bed for two hours. And being a fast day was good, especially the no-alcohol bit. So the upshot is that I’m feeling much improved today (but not well enough to go to choir rehearsal tonight.)

The Reading List

My mini-review series ‘The Reading List’ has come to an end. It was just SO 2015! There are plenty of excellent other blogs featuring reviews, and looking at the stats for this site I could see that the initial interest in mine had levelled out. However, I’d like to assure you I’m still reading, and now and then I may well be moved to blog about individual poetry collections.

What I’ve enjoyed lately: Mark Doty’s Deep Lane, full of pathos, warmth and even farce – there’s a lovely tale of the narrator locking himself out of his house not once, but twice, and having to clamber through the window ‘which makes me think / this was what it was like to be born: / awkward, too big for the passageway…’ (‘Spent’).

I’m meandering my way through Mark Ford’s essays on poets, as gathered in This Dialogue of One (Eyewear). They are thought provoking, well researched and accessible (but not so ‘accessible’ that I don’t feel I’m being educated!) For example, this morning I read about the controversy surrounding the interpretation of Emily Dickinson’s work and how her editors disagreed about how it should be presented – as pure manuscript, or as ‘visual productions’. It made me think about her poems quite differently. If she’d been around today I think she would have wholeheartedly embraced everything from graffiti to video and sculpture in the course of expressing herself. Probably not a performance poet though, given her reserve. But a kindred spirit to Banksy, perhaps?

News of poetry rejections, submissions etc

Last week I spent a few days going over the poems I’ve been gathering for a next pamphlet. I haven’t entered the Poetry Business pamphlet comp for a few years now (since my over-confident days!), because I feel it’s the ‘big one’ as regards pamphlet comps, and the odds of winning are low. Also, I don’t feel I’ve had a strong enough submission, the time hasn’t been right, etc. But a funny thing happened as I was reading and ordering this latest group: they seemed quite good. So I thought I’d just do it, and enter. I ruthlessly ditched a couple that seemed weaker, although I like them. I’d also resurrected a poem that first saw light of day in The Interpreter’s House about 4 years ago, but that I’d been working on to improve since. In the end I had 21 poems. I wasn’t sure about the title, but I never am. Anyway, it’s sent now. Never to be thought about again, until I can try it somewhere else!

Are you currently sending out pamphlet submissions? What’s your feeling about them? I once heard a poet talking about how she wouldn’t send out her MS unless she’d first paid a professional poet to edit it. Is that usual? I just kind of naively thought you put it together yourself, did your best to order the poems, eliminate any stupid errors, and … send. And if someone liked it, you then worked with the publisher/editor to hone things up. Do share your own experience of this, I’d love to know.

Meanwhile I received yet another rejection last night, to add to the one last week. Talking about kicking a sick poet when she’s down. Still, not quite as bad as getting a £100 speeding fine three days before Christmas – Top of the Season to you, DVLA! Still, as regards the rejections (I prefer ‘DECLINED’ as a folder name) I console myself with the fact that several of the re*****d poems had been out so long I’ve since revised (and hopefully improved) them. We shall see, when I try them elsewhere. On the good news front, Charles Johnson of Obsessed with Pipework has found space for my 2 poems in the February issue, so I won’t have to wait until May to see them in print and settled down.

And MORE good news – Telltale Press has at last been accepted by the Poetry Library as a legitimate press, which means we will have a listing on their website and that all our forthcoming pamphlets will be available there. Another small but significant sign of recognition, and gratefully received.

Angst/ 23/12/2015

Submissions stats for 2015 – the good, the bad, etc

I know there’s nothing festive about submissions stats, but I haven’t shared any in a while so in case you’re interested here goes…

Recent acceptances/ currently forthcoming

One poem in Brittle Star, one in Ink, Sweat & Tears and two in Obsessed with Pipework. All due to appear sometime in Spring 2016. Big Love & Thanks to editors Jacqueline Gabbitas, Martin Parker, Helen Ivory and Charles Johnson. Just for fun, here are some facts about these four poems (they’re not necessarily in the same order as above):

Poem A – written Feb – April 2015, 2 drafts, first submission
Poem B – written July 2014 – Nov 2015, 5 drafts, 2 previous rejections
Poem C – written June 2014 – Nov 2015, 10 drafts, 1 previous rejection
Poem D – written August 2014 – Nov 2015, 6 drafts, 1 previous rejection

Poems currently out and waiting on

2 out for 85 days/12 weeks
6 out for 71 days/10 weeks
2 out for 53 days/8 weeks
2 out for 41 days/ 6 weeks
1 for 32 days / 5 weeks

I have about 5 more which I think are nearly ready to send. There are a few submissions windows closing soon – for example Bare Fiction (9th January) and Popshot (20th January), and others opening (The Interpreter’s House in February, for example.) January is also a good month for competitions – the Kent & Sussex (deadline 31 Jan, judge Anne-Marie Fyfe) and Magma (19 Jan, judge Daljit Nagra) are two that come to mind, although I’m not sure I’ve anything with comp-winning potential at the moment.

The year in numbers – rejections and all

Since the start of 2015 I’ve had a total of 44 poems rejected by magazines and 18 unsuccessful competition entries. On the positive side I’ve had 8 poems taken by magazines, 1 second place in a competition and one longlisting. In addition I had 2 (different) pamphlet submissions longlisted and work in 3 anthologies. This doesn’t make for a stellar year in terms of ‘hit rate’ but I was pleased to make a first appearance in both Brittle Star and Prole, and on the whole I’m cautiously optimistic about where it’s all going. More to the point I have two new projects bubbling under and I’m enjoying experimenting with my writing – inspiration has come from many different sources this year and I’ll be talking more about that probably in my next post.

I hope this is an interesting yardstick for anyone else in a similar position – people tend to be a bit coy about announcing how many rejections they’ve had, but I think that it’s actually more enlightening (and maybe encouraging?) than just hearing about the acceptances. I also can’t see any reason not to talk about rejections since if you’re sending out regularly then surely they’re a fact of life and nothing to be ashamed of.

Ah! I feel a lovely quiet, indoorsy sort of Christmas coming on – much as I’d love a walk along the seafront on Christmas day the forecast is RAIN RAIN RAIN with a side of GALES. So let’s see. Wishing you a peaceful and happy Christmas, and thanks so much for reading, commenting, sharing, recommending and supporting this blog. LOVE.X

Image credit – Bo’s Cafe Life

Angst/ 30/09/2015

On not letting the competitive instinct crush creativity | poetry submissions stats

OK here goes.

I know some people will wonder why on earth I admit to all this in public. The reason is this: I’m sure I’m not the only person who gets downhearted about rejections, or who has self-doubts about my abilities as a poet. It’s fine not to show it if you do, and some people genuinely have no self-doubts. But I’ve also lived long enough in the belly of social media to know what a toxic and stressful environment it can be when you’re feeling vulnerable. So I think it can help to know you’re not alone.

It’s also very easy to have a skewed view of how things are going. For example, my feeling is I’ve had a poor year as regards getting stuff published. Every magazine I pick up I see a poem by Poet X or Poet Y, or I read the latest edition of Exceptional Poetry Magazine, and I think WTF – where’s my stuff?? I start to wonder what happened to the optimism and self confidence I had a couple of years ago. Or even the ability.

BUT… it really helps to do the numbers. Here’s what I found out when I looked at the stats from the last 12 months:

50 poems sent out in 74 submissions (some poems went out, got rejected and went out again)
48 rejections by magazines
9 failed competition entries
5 poems no response from magazine
4 poems lost by magazine
1 poem withdrawn because I had changed it a lot in the time I was waiting for a reply
5 poems accepted by magazines
1 poem placed 2nd
1 poem longlisted

plus a pamphlet shortlisted.
I have only included competitive submissions in the above, for example I’ve not included anthologies or anything submitted by invitation. I’ve also not included poems currently out and awaiting reply (16 poems in 4 submissions).

Now what this says is that 10% of poems submitted to mags were accepted for publication (5/50), 18% of poems sent to competitions achieved some kind of success (2/11), 14% of poems submitted to magazines were either lost, or presumed lost (no response in a year and no reply to enquiries) – 9/63.

I had a very good publication record in my first year of getting material placed (2011-2012), and in a way that’s the problem – I haven’t managed to keep that up. But actually, a 10% success rate seems fair. It doesn’t stop me feeling I’ve had a bad year and Must Do Better. That’s really just the competitive instinct in me.

What I find is that by looking at the numbers I can separate out competitive instinct from the creative instinct, and not let the former crush the latter.

Quality of work is so hard to gauge, and it’s so clearly not the only factor when it comes to publication – yet it’s the first thing we question when work is rejected – ‘maybe my poems are actually rubbish!’ It’s a blow to the confidence. But if you trust a bit more in the stats, it can help put everything in perspective. Focus on writing MORE and writing BETTER – yes – but keep accurate records and once a year or so do a stocktake. I find it’s really worth it.

What do you think? Stupid to get bogged down in numbers? Helpful for painting a clearer picture? Stop crunching numbers and read more Bishop?

Blog/ 16/08/2015

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 period with moving house, developments with Telltale Press and a Lewes Singers concert in 6 weeks’ time to organise and promote. So who knows when I’ll get down to any quality poetry-writing time.

If you’ve been following the house move saga, just to say that contracts were finally exchanged on house (double hurrah!), so by the end of September we will be homeless unless we can find a flat to rent before then. We’re already seen several places in the last few days but it’s clear that in the rentals market the good stuff goes within 24 hours, a week at the latest. Plus there are dirty tricks galore. So we are sharpening our elbows.

I did no writing at all on holiday, and not a great deal of reading – but a lot of sleeping, swimming in the sea (without requiring a wetsuit – bliss) sightseeing and eating/drinking. So I’m a bit behind in my ‘read a poetry book a day’ project – although I’m back on track, have been reading some stunning poetry and the next instalment of postage-stamp-size reviews is coming soon.

There are plenty of exciting things to look forward to in the next couple of months – I’m giving a talk at New Eastbourne Writers the week after next, on blogging/social media & writing, then I’m lucky enough to have been invited to a lovely reading/writing afternoon with local poet friends, there’s my first visit to the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival to plan, Telltale Press’s debut at the Poetry Book Fair and forthcoming readings in Lewes and Bradford-on-Avon. Plus a house move. And a concert. Oh! And enjoying watching my first grandchild, Hazel, finding out about the world around her.

Tag: rejections