I’ve spent the morning pacing around the house, manuscript in hand, growling (I have a sore throat) the poems aloud. I’ve finished the final poem about the Gloucester Sea Gladiators and polished some of the others. Even my hairdresser, Juliet got in on the act earlier. The manuscript went with me to the hairdressers first…
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In the beginning…’
I’m very near the end of the process of putting together my first collection to be published by Cinnamon Press next year. When I say near the end this is not so much me sprinting for the finishing line as edging my way up a cliff but my fingertips but I’ll get there. I’ve started…
Discovering Paul Durcan
A poet I’ve discovered recently whilst on holiday in Ireland is Paul Durcan. ‘Discovered’ is not quite the right word as he was a poet I was aware of but hadn’t got around to reading properly. He has a new collection out and so was all over the Irish papers while we were there. ‘All…
I name this ship – book launches
November has been a month of book launches for me, mostly friends books. By some miracle of organisation I’ve managed to get to three of them. The first was a Cinnamon Press launch for three North Walian poets, Steve Griffiths, Marianne Jones and Pete Marshall. This was held in a welsh language bookshop, Palas Pendref…
The original War poetry
Over the last week I’ve been reading Homer’s Iliad, finding my way into this rather daunting epic poem eased by Robert Fagles excellent readable translation and Alice Oswald’s latest collection Memorial. What Oswald does is to focus entirely on those who died – the boring bits as she refers to them. Of course Memorial is…
Writing away from Home
“There is no better air than here for work” John Maynard Keynes I’ve managed to line myself up two writing courses for this autumn. Last weekend was the Tilton House retreat led by Vanessa Gebbie. At the end of October I’m off to North Wales (again) for a whole week of writing with Cinnamon Press…
Publications and Successes
It still feels as if I’m in catch-up mode with this blog as I have some publication successes from earlier in the year to report. My poem At Sea received an Honorary Mention in the 2011 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition and was published on-line in Southword 19A. Two of the poems from the Malta…
Thinner than a Hair Giveaway
I have one copy of Thinner than a hair to give to a lucky reader of this blog. All you have to do is post a comment telling me why you’d like it. On 21st July I’ve chose a winner. Meanwhile the blog tour continues on Clare Dudman’s blog.
Thinner than a Hair Blog tour
Today I’d like to give a warm welcome to Adnan Mahmutovic, Bosnian author of the prize winning novel Thinner than a Hair, which is available from Cinnamon Press, together with Refuge(e) a collection of short stories and poems. Thinner than a Hair is told in the first person by Fatima, who is growing up in…
Winners and Sucesses
National Poetry Month seems a long time ago now. The winners of the two books I was giving away were Evelyn and Valerie. I’m about to have a poem published in Orbis and another of my poems was awarded highly commended in a recent competition.