The Poem is a Question

Last Saturday I headed off to London for an all-day workshop all day workshop with Katy Evans-Bush. She has been immensely helpful is providing advice as I’ve been finishing Convoy but this was the first time I’d had  the chance to go to one of her workshops. This was a reprise of a very successful workshop…

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The writing week

Mine starts with an email from my publisher saying that at a book fair the previous week the sales reps had approached her having already picked up Convoy. They wanted to know more about it. You can’t have a better start than that. Gratified though I was I still had that feeling I got sometimes…

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Girl in White – An interview with Sue Hubbard

Some months ago I mentioned Girl in White, Sue Hubbard’s most recent novel which was published in the autumn. Sue kindly agreed to be interviewed for this blog about her writing. What inspired you to write about Paula Modersohn-Becker? I learnt about Paula Modersohn-Becker when my first poetry collection, Everything begins with the Skin, (Enitharmon) was…

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Honouring Issac Rosenberg

There is currently a campaign underway to honour First World War poet Isaac Rosenburg by erecting a statute near Birkbeck College and the Slade where he studied. I was rather shocked to learn that this will be only the fifth statute of a poet in London and only the second in Britain of a Jewish…

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110 Days and counting

The useful thing about having your book listed for publication and appearing in ‘forthcoming titles’ is that some websites like Waterstones provide a form of count-down to publication so it’s 110 days to go. Between now and then I am going provide on this blog more information about the people who inspired the poems. There isn’t…

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New Year’s Day

   The year has got off to a good start, with some writing, cake baking and a long walk and I’ve just gone back to the draft of the poem I wrote this morning. That one is not ready to be shown to anyone yet so I’ve leave you with Kim Addonzio’s poem New Year’s…

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Cecil Beaton and Edward Thomas

Yes I know they sound unlikely companions but bear with me… Earlier this week I went up to London for what turned out to be a double pre-Christmas treat. The Imperial War Museum (IWM), which is about to close its doors in January for six months, is currently hosting an exhibition of Cecil Beaton’s war-time…

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And the winner is…. Vanessa Gebbie

I’m so pleased that Vanessa has won the Troubadour International Poetry Prize. The results were announced earlier this week and can be read on the Troubadour website. congratulations to the other winners all excellent poems http://www.coffeehousepoetry.org/poems

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Looking at Art

At the beginning of last month I joined a school outing to the National Gallery in London. I’m a school governor at the local primary school that both my sons attended and they often need extra adult help for school trips. You’re normally allocated a group of five or six children to keep an eye…

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My Next Big Thing

I’ll start by thanking  LIndsay Stanberry-Flynn for tagging me in the Next Big Thing which provides the opportunity for writers to answer questions about their current writing project. Lindsay is a novelist and short story writer. I recommend that you buy and read her prize winning novel,  Unravelling and her next novel The Piano Player’s…

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