Friday 26 July 2013

Looking forward to "Gaining Confidence ..."




On Monday I'm off to Ty Newydd for the week - an event I've been looking forward to since January! I think mine was probably the first application for the course at the Welsh writer's centre at Llanystumdwy; as soon as last year's course there ended I was planning this next visit - I love it there.

For those of you who are not familiar with Ty Newydd, it was Lloyd George's last home and he is buried a couple of hundred yards down the road on the banks of the River Dwyfor. The house is set in fabulous grounds with views over Criccieth Bay and is the epitome of faded elegance. Literature Wales runs a variety of creative writing courses there - poetry, prose, play writing, writing in health and social care - some a week long, some over weekends. This will be my fourth visit and I've not been disappointed in any of the courses I've done so far. The tutors have been excellent, the accommodation comfortable, the food good - one evening in the week you're expected to help out preparing dinner, but that's all part of the fun of it.

Next week's course is on "Gaining Confidence In Poetry and Prose". The two tutors are Paul Henry for poetry (I heard him read last year at the Much Wenlock Poetry Festival and was hugely impressed) and Tom Bullough for prose (I've not met him before but his reputation goes before him). I'm expecting great things of the week, so watch this space!

Monday 22 July 2013

A writing community

When I was working as a freelance lecturer I found that keeping contact with other professionals in my area of business was essential a) to ground me in what was happening in the larger health and care world and b) to maintain my sanity! For all the pro's of being self employed, a definite con can be the isolation often involved. Writing, I have found, can have a similar profile - but I have learnt from my previous experience how to deal with it.

My writers group Somewhere Else is excellent on a regular basis but I try to occasionally link up with other writers too for a breadth of vision and to find out what else is going on in the local scene. Once a month I go to Writers in the Brewery in Cirencester; it welcomes a variety of invited writers to read and discuss their work and provides a platform for others with an open mic session. It runs on the last Thursday evening of most months of the year.

This morning the Catchword group held their annual coffee morning with writers from all over Gloucestershire invited. It was hot, noisy and great fun - and the cakes (especially Sarah's raspberry and almond one) were fantastic! Great to hear about other people's projects, publications and proposals. Wilkie Martin's first comic crime novel "Inspector Hobbes and the Blood" comes out on Friday. Great excitement there! And I could share the news of my competition win earlier this week. My short story L'Ermitage has won the Onward Short Story prize in aid of the Theatre Royal in Hyde (and should be on the website shortly). After entering an awful lot of competitions with no joy at all and a few with modest success, that certainly made my week!

(If you are interested, my story The Journey, which won third prize in the Curry Mallet History Festival competition, can be read here (scroll down to 3rd Prize!))

Thursday 18 July 2013

Digging Up The Family

Creative non-fiction can cover some very diverse areas. For me a fruitful area for non-fictional inspiration has been the family history research I've now been carrying out for a number of years. Not that our family has been anything out of the ordinary, but you can always find the extraordinary in that ordinary. I've learned so much about social history - and it's been a lot more interesting than the political / military affairs of nations that passed as history in my school days!

Next month Vintage Script magazine will publish "Victorian Juvenile Justice", my article based on the experiences of my grandfather in the 1880s and 90s, when the theft of a loaf of bread and half a pound of butter earned him two weeks in gaol and two years in a reformatory - at the age of ten! Their last issue featured my article on mourning jewellry, a topic on which I'd known almost nothing until being given a brooch belonging to my grandmother in which was embedded a lock of her mother's hair; that started me off on a fascinating journey of discovery. The magazine, which comes out three times a year, is an interesting  mix of historical / retro articles and stories and it's well worth a look at if you have leanings in that direction.

Saturday 13 July 2013

Reading at Cheltenham Poetry Festival April 2013


A busy week


This week has been a busy one poetically. On Sunday evening I was at the monthly “Buzzwords” group at the Exmouth Arms in Cheltenham for a very useful workshop (based on Pablo Neruda’s Odes) and an enjoyable open mic session. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get to as much as I would have liked on the Ledbury Poetry Festival this year but on Thursday I did manage to make Naomi Shihab Nye’s very inspirational afternoon on “Silences and Strategies”. I certainly came away with some positive ideas for dealing with the inevitable periods of aridity to which we all succumb at times!

Naomi told a lovely story about a writer friend who was asked if he ever had doubts about his work. “Certainly” he replied. “I invite doubt in like a too frequent visitor, give it dinner and a bed for the night then wave it goodbye in the morning”. A skill I have yet to acquire!

Next Saturday afternoon, July 20th, sees Radio Winchcombe’s monthly poetry programme “Open Mike” with Guy Hunter https://twitter.com/openmike107 . You can hear it at 2pm on 107.1FM and on line and it’ll be repeated the following Wednesday at midday and 6pm. Along with the work of other Gloucestershire writers and poets from further afield you can hear my poem “Family Photos”. Do hope you can listen.

About me



Hello and welcome to my blog. A technophobe all my life, I have now decided to enter the 21st century! I live in Gloucestershire but look forward to sharing my enthusiasm for writing with other like-minded souls wherever you may be. 

In a previous existence I lectured and wrote nursing textbooks but in recent years I’ve discovered the joy of writing more creatively. Now I write short stories, poetry and some creative non-fiction. Two of my plays for voices have also been broadcast on local radio. I’m a member of Somewhere Else, a writing group based in Cirencester which recently celebrated its first birthday and which provides me with invaluable support, encouragement and constructive criticism.