Launched at last!

                                       

They say that all things come to those who wait - well occasionally we have to wait a little longer than we'd planned! But after a lengthy gestation and a long delivery, Writing A Life was eventually launched into the world on Valentine's Day. The staff at Monmouth library were as welcoming as ever and the sun deigned to come out to celebrate the occasion with us. My thanks go especially to Lydia Dowding, library manager, and to my five contributors, Marie Griffiths, Jennifer Harland, Tony O'Hare, Coleen Sadler and Grace Walsh, attendees at workshops I'd run who allowed me to share some of their writing in the text. It was lovely to have them taking part in the launch, which closed with Tony's rendition of his song Chips on the Mountain (Sglodion ar y Mynydd). So many folk songs over the centuries have evolved from life stories  - just one of the many and varied ways in which we can document lives and times, our own, our family's and other people's.

Thanks for the welcome - and the welcome back

A busy start to the New Year. I was delighted to be invited to speak to the First Friday group at Cwtsh Community and Arts Centre in Newport the week before last about Digging up the Family - especially as much of the action in that book took place within a stone's throw of the Centre, albeit a very long time ago! The group extended a warm welcome on a very cold night, and I really enjoyed meeting so many interesting people in such a pleasant venue. It was my first visit to Cwtsh (previously a small branch library) but it won't be my last. I'm hoping to run some workshops there later in the year.

Talking about an
aunt's Cub Mistress 
warrant signed by
Baden Powell himself

And I had another lovely welcome - or rather welcome back - at Women Aloud in Cheltenham yesterday. Over the past couple of years I've really missed the women's group that nurtured my poetry when I first set out on that path; it was wonderful to be back yesterday with old friends - and supportive critics! Some writers, I know, find writing groups unhelpful, but to me they're an integral part of a writing life and I've valued the ones to which I've belonged enormously. So, despite the geographical challenges now, I'm very happy indeed to return to the fold! 

Seasons greetings

                                                   

Perhaps this year more than ever we all need some light in the darkness. Nationally and internationally the last twelve months have seen so much turbulence, discord, ill-will and destruction; on a personal level for far too many people it's been a challenging year of hardship and sorrow. Whatever your faith or lack of it, however you're spending this Christmas season - I hope it will bring some light into your life, and for all of us some hope for a more positive future.

Looking for a Christmas present ...

                                           

.... for a writer / family history enthusiast in your life? Look no further! Writing A Life will be out in a few days now - as soon as copies are available, the details will be on my Buy My Books page. This book has certainly been a while in the coming but it's now very nearly here and I'm really excited to be "getting it out there". Having worked with so many people over the years, helping them to put on paper the stories they want - and need - to tell, I'm so pleased to now be able to get the message to a wider audience.

However "ordinary" we feel them to be, all of our stories - the personal ones and our family ones - have the potential to be fascinating, and they deserve to be told, whether for our offspring and future generations or a more general readership. There are plenty of more "academic" tomes on life writing, but this book sets out to be a gentle prompt, an encouragement and an innovative guide for those just setting out to piece together the jigsaw of a life or lives. And these dark winter evenings are a good time to start - so watch this space! 

Very nearly there!

For a short book that was meant to take a relatively limited amount of time, my present project has turned into a bit of a marathon! But the finishing line is definitely in sight now and the manuscript will be with the printer tomorrow. I have enjoyed working on it though. Life writing has been a particular interest of mine for many years now. "Writing A Life" offers guidance to people wanting to chronicle a story (their own or someone else's); it's based on the insights I've gained working with individuals and groups in the community and in residential care settings. Attendees at several workshops that I've run have contributed to the book too, and I'm very grateful for their input - it demonstrates beautifully the wide variety of styles and approaches that people can adopt.

As usual at the end of a project, there's a fair amount of catching up to do on the non-literary fronts! Things that have definitely gone on the back burners while writing fills the days. So it's time for a blitz on those before getting back in harness and picking up the pieces on the pilgrimage write-ups. Now the  autumnal weather is limiting the possibilities for the actual walks but at least I have the pleasure of doing again on paper the ones I've already done - as Laurie Lee said about autobiographical writing, that revisiting is "a celebration of living and an attempt to hoard its sensations".

National Poetry Day 2025

Happy National Poetry Day! For some of us every day is a poetry day but for so many people poetry simply doesn't feature on their horizon. Today the national festival, begun by the Forward Arts Foundation in 1994, is bringing it a little more into focus all over the country - in libraries and community centres, on social media and (crucially) in schools. The theme this year is "Play" and there are so many innovative resources available through the website to prompt all of us to have a play with, and to get creative with, words. From early childhood, poetry has been an integral part of my life and I firmly believe that every child has a right to enjoy it and to learn as much from it as I have.

At the moment though I’m focused very much on prose. A deadline that seemed an age away is now looming very large. I’ve got a half-completed manuscript that needs finishing, editing and sending off for printing within the next three weeks. Time pressure always focuses my mind but also panics me; with every publication I think “Next time it’ll be different” but it never is!

A big thank you though to the people who came to my Writing Our Lives workshop in Tintern last Saturday. It was, as always, such a privilege to share people's memories, to hear about their struggles and successes, their hopes and aspirations, and to help them think through ways of getting all those down on paper, both for themselves and for a wider audience. A really enjoyable and worthwhile day.

Shook Up!

 

 An interesting evening at the Melville Centre in Abergavenny yesterday. Ric Hool - who has done so much for poetry in the area, running the popular Poetry Upstairs for years, encouraging new writers and bringing together very diverse voices to great effect - was launching his new collection, "Shook up!" (Red Squirrel Press). A very prolific poet over the years, this is his thirteenth collection and a sizeable audience came to celebrate it. The evening got off to a cheerful start with music by The Grizzly Bears,  with some great retro songs, before Ric was introduced by the writer Ian Brinton.

A proud Northumbrian lad (although he's lived in Wales longer than anywhere else in his life), much of Ric's poetry is influenced by his roots. I particularly enjoyed his rendition of his dialect poem  about the myth behind the creation of the Farne Islands and North Star, his poem arranged around a Sat Nav's interminable instructions as he heads northwards towards Tyneside. His poems have such energy, such vitality. There are no long ones in this collection, but even the shortest of them - just four or five lines - repays reading and rereading. Brevity in no way means superficiality.