For a long time I’ve been promising myself a trip to Oxford to go to the Albion Beatnik and last night thanks to Cinnamon Press I finally got there. I thought that the bookshop would be a nice place, rather like Ottakars in Milton Keynes before it got taken over. What I had not expected…
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Let me tell you a story…
One of the lovely things that has happened since Convoy was published is that people keep bringing me stories about their own family history, often from the second world war but not always. There was the friend, whose grandmother had walked with Gandhi. But mostly they are stories from the war; and recently they have…
Convoy – the tour
After the launch on Monday there appears to be no stopping Convoy now. It has taken itself off on a global tour with stops at the following blogs so far; Ruth Downie Judi Moore’s Is Death Really Necessary Vanessa Gebbie If you would like it to pay a visit to your blog then do get…
Margaret Ann ‘Greta’ Davies, née Honeybill – 20th May 1933 – 5th April 1991
Today it’s the launch of Convoy in London on board HQS Wellington but I’m also remembering my Mum who would have been eighty. She grew up during the second world war and a number of the poems in the book are in her voice. She always encouraged me to write even at times when she…
World Poetry Giveaway
Well as it turns out that today is World Water Day I’m going to continue accepting entries for the giveaway for A Handful of Water for a little longer. You have until midnight on Sunday (UK Time) to leave a comment saying why you’d like to read it.
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…
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…
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
Editing
The main task for this week apart from an Award Board at work yesterday is to get back to grips with the manuscript. Ideally I’d take myself off to a quiet corner of Wales to do this free from distractions but instead I’ve taken leave from work. This part of the process is where external…
Somme and Arras – Maps, the Missing and souvenirs
I’ve already mentioned our guide, Jeremy Banning’s expert knowledge – he didn’t simply know where the English, French and German trenches had stood but also produced maps and panoramas to get us to understand. So we’d be standing in the middle of a field and like a magician he’d unfurl a long photographic image showing…