Out into the world ...

What an amazing evening it was on Tuesday - I was surrounded by so many friends and writing colleagues for the launch of "Digging Up The Family"; New Brewery Arts in Cirencester is a great venue and we celebrated there with wine, cakes and nibbles and, as always, a good open mic session afterwards. Nearly everyone read poems or prose inspired by family - I'd obviously touched a chord!

My family, both past and present, have given me so much in the way of inspiration for poetry and fiction as well as for the social history I've just published - I have a lot to thank them for. Through my research I learned so much about my forebears and the worlds in which they lived - and a lot about myself too. Time consuming and frustrating as it was at times, I'm so glad that I pursued the project and I'm delighted that readers are telling me how interesting they're finding the end result.

Before I launch into another major undertaking though, I want to tidy up and complete some smaller ventures I've been working on. Today of course is the last day of NaNoWriMo and the exercise I set myself for the month - the 1000 words a day of memoir - has provided some good (if somewhat disorganised!) material to incorporate into one of them. "Fragments", my people watching poetry collection, is nearing completion too. Perhaps the New Year will see a new direction - I've got several ideas but they all need some careful thinking through before I commit to anything!

My thanks to everyone who made Tuesday
such a great evening!

"Digging Up The Family"

Rudyard Kipling wrote "If history were taught as stories, they would never be forgotten." Unfortunately, that was certainly not the way I was taught history during my school days. Then there were lists of dates to learn, battles to memorize, treaties to understand. And it was definitely "his-story" - accounts of famous men and their military exploits, their political intrigues and conquests of far-flung places, none of which I could relate to. It was many years before I learned that real history is also "her-story"; it's the exploration of how ordinary people were born, lived and died against a backdrop of their wider society. And as such, it has come to fascinate me.

Tomorrow my very modest contribution to history writing is published. Whilst the stories in it - of conflict and romance, crime and retribution, economic hardship and personal triumph - are based on my own family, they are also universal. For the Carters and the Garretts from whom I come are not the great and the good about whom biographies are usually written or television programmes made. They are ordinary people of their time and place, their lives woven into the fabric of the everyday world. They are the people behind the statistics, the individuals who make up our common history.

You can join my quest to unearth the reality of life for so many of the working classes, from the farms of Dorset and Pembrokeshire to the mines, foundries and dockyards of Monmouthshire, from the days of George III to the aftermath of the Second World War. "Digging Up The Family - A Lesson In Social History" is published by Matador (ISBN: 9781788038997); it's available from Troubador Publishing Ltd at £7.99. I hope you find it as interesting to read as I did to research and write!

Stop the world - I want to get off!

Sometimes I think it would be nice if the world could slow down for a couple of days, just to let everyone catch up with themselves. Certainly this past week has been helter-skelter from start to finish, with little time to draw breath - some very enjoyable events but no time to get a real grip on things. The NaNoWriMo challenge doesn't help! That's a full time job in itself.

The evening event in Droitwich, at which a group of us read poems inspired by the recent art exhibition at Hanbury Hall, went very well indeed, despite the venue owner and several attendees getting caught up in the aftermath of an accident and arriving in a rush only minutes before the start! As we had been unaware of which pictures other poets had chosen, a few of us found we had written from the same ones - for example two of us had chosen "Malvern Hills", a landscape by Peter Hawkins. Far from being a problem, this was fascinating; the resulting poems could not have been more different and prompted some discussion on the highly individual perceptions we have of identical situations or experiences. Many thanks to Nina Lewis, the Worcestershire Poet Laureate, for inviting me to take part in the project.

Nina Lewis

Yesterday saw an interesting workshop with Angela France on the unexpectedly poetic topic of shopping - I'm certainly no shopaholic but I can now see the value of a good bit of retail therapy as inspiration! My two favourites of the poems discussed were "The Fat Black Woman Goes Shopping" by Grace Nichols and "The Seed-Shop" by Muriel Stuart - if you don't know them, they're certainly worth looking up. The workshop preceded a most enjoyable poetry lunch, hosted by my friend and colleague Kathy Alderman - lovely food and a great chance to catch up with what people are up to.

But the highlight of my week had to be the arrival of the first copies of my book, "Digging Up The Family - A Lesson In Social History". It's being published next Tuesday, November 28th, and I shall be launching it at Writers in the Brewery in Cirencester - if you're in the area, I'd be delighted if you joined us, 7 - 9pm in the New Brewery Arts Centre. The book has had a long and at times eventful gestation, so its final delivery is more than welcome!

Having the occasional break ...

Well, the NaNoWriMo challenge that I set myself is certainly proving time consuming but I am now 13,000 words in, so I'm beginning to feel that the memoir I thought was dragging its feet is now properly on the move again. But I did allow myself an evening off yesterday to go to hear a reading by my friend and colleague Belinda Rimmer in Waterstones, an event organised by the Gloucester Poetry Society - and I'm so glad that I did. All the poems Belinda read were new to me; many were based around memory and it was fascinating to hear her talk of their genesis. It made me ponder on how much of ourselves and our background we reveal in our poetry, if only our readers / audience have the key to unlock it. Thank you for a really lovely evening, Belinda.

Belinda Rimmer

I shall be speeding on with today's word allocation this afternoon so that I can justify another evening off tonight - with my colleague Kathy Alderman, I shall be going to Droitwich for the poetry reading arranged by the Worcestershire Poet Laureate, Nina Lewis, further to the art exhibition on show last month at Hanbury Hall. The reading will be illustrated by slides of the original paintings, all the work of a local art group. It's open to the public and we'd love to see you there if you're in the vicinity - 7.30pm  at Parks Cafe, Victoria Square, in Droitwich.

A saving grace

I've been very fortunate in the past to have the experience of reading and writing poetry with people, vulnerable for a variety of reasons, in many different settings; I've seen so many examples of the benefits that it can bring. But if you've ever wondered at the practical value of poetry, do go to this site today -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-41852073/poetry-touched-the-still-alive-part-of-me

I found this immensely moving, to hear how the experience of creative writing has changed the life of Alex, a man homeless for 30 years. Hear him read his poem "In the worst of times ..." and find out how poetry reached what he terms "the still alive part of me."

In a similar vein - I was delighted on Friday to find out that a poem of mine will be included in the Carers UK anthology "Not In The Plan" which comes out at the end of the month. It was written for the Jo Cox Prize, in recognition of the contribution of young carers, and I'll be reading it at a celebratory event in London on November 30th. Our health and social care services in this country would collapse were it not for the huge input of family and informal carers and each year Carers UK provides a platform for poetry and prose celebrating their contribution. It's a real privilege to take part in it. 

Two nights out and thirty days in!

I've had a couple of very enjoyable nights out in the last week - at a "Dylan Thomas dinner"  organised by the Penallt Art Group in the Wye Valley for what would have been the poet's 103rd birthday, and at Writers in the Brewery in Cirencester with the very much alive and kicking Matthew Caley. Matthew read from "Rake", his fifth collection, which contains - in his own words - many "back handed love poems." Covering everything from time travelling to misery memoirs, his reading was both amusing and thought-provoking. But actually, to use the term "reading" is quite incorrect; the poems were very skillfully performed - not in the flamboyant manner of some performance poets (which I often find quite off-putting), but with great verbal dexterity and precision.

Matthew Caley

And now here we are into November - NaNoWriMo for those brave or foolhardy enough to tackle the first draft of a novel in 30 days! I wish them all well - it's certainly not a challenge for the faint-hearted. But I've decided on a challenge of my own this year to keep them company as they slog through their 50,000 words. I've always been a slow, methodical writer - a practice that has served me well enough in the past, but one that I might take leave of absence from for a month to experiment with some other approaches. A recent article by the writer Jenny Alexander on "Free Range Writing" - essentially breaking out of your box - caught my interest. I've got two projects underway at present (a memoir and the completion of my people-watching collection); I'm aiming to make substantial progress with both by the end of the month, writing at least 1000 words a day of the memoir and having the poetry all set to go out into the world before Christmas. To achieve that, I think the rest of my life goes on hold from here on in!