A Different Undertaking for NaNoWriMo

Lots of talk about just now concerning NaNoWriMo. I know that I could never sustain the narrative for a novel and putting aside such a concentrated chunk of time as it would demand is beyond me in my present circumstances anyway; however the idea of a limited period of time focussing on one particular writing project certainly appeals to me.

I got into the writing game initially because I wanted to put together a family history. That plan somehow went on the back burner pretty rapidly though, overtaken by branching out into short stories and poetry. But the desire to pursue it has never really gone away and now seems the ideal time to resurrect it. The forthcoming issue of Vintage Script will have the third in my series on "Digging Up The Family" in it (on the 1918 influenza pandemic). So here's to having at least four more articles completed between Nov. 1st and 30th!

What skeletons in the cupboard ...?!

Cirencester's Own Poetry Please!

I'm having great fun at the moment putting together and recording a programme for Corinium Radio's broadcast for the end of next month. I'm interviewing six people who live or work in the town about their connection to Cirencester and talking to them about their poetic likes and dislikes. At the end of each interview the person is choosing a poem which has a special significance for them to be read on air.

It's been fascinating to talk to a wide variety of people - including a newly arrived resident in a care home, a book shop owner, someone working with young homeless people, a curate, a hospital manager - and to find out about their poetic journeys. Their choices are as varied as their backgrounds, with poems from very different eras and voices.

If you'd like to listen in to the programme, it will air on Sunday Dec. 1st at midday on 87.7FM. If you live outside the broadcast radius, a few days after the live broadcast it will be available on the Corinium Radio website. Hope you enjoy it!

The Poets' Hare!

I had no idea that winning the Gloucestershire Writers Network poetry competition for the Cheltenham Literature Festival involved taking on custody of a hare for twelve months! But adorning my desk as I write is this chap; I've yet to find out his history and his actual significance but I know that he has spent time with some winning poets who have gone on to far greater things than I can ever aspire to, so I am delighted to have his company.

And the event at which he was presented to me was fantastic - I'm sure it will mark the pinnacle of my literary career! Along with the winner of the prose section of the competition and ten runners-up (including my colleague John Holland from Somewhere Else Writers) I was entertained in the Writers Room at the Festival before our readings in The Studio. It's quite a capacious venue and it was so exciting (if a little intimidating) to have a large audience of family, friends, local writers and general festival goers.

With Rona Laycock, writer and event organiser

The judges from both sections of the competition were with us - Jennifer Cryer, who had judged the prose, and Jennie Farley, who had judged the poetry. It was fascinating to hear the variety of work that had been inspired by the Festival title "Memory" - some autobiographical, some family oriented, some purely fictional.

The evening was concluded by Jennie with a wonderful selection of her own poems on the theme, speaking to us so movingly of childhood, parents, love and lovers.

I still haven't really come down to earth after it all. Over the past few days I've been to several other events with "proper" writers presenting their work and I just can't believe that I've been a small part of such an amazing festival!.

National Poetry Day

With Kyffin Williams painting "The Dark Lake"

 A great way to celebrate National Poetry Day - an afternoon at Swindon Art Gallery for the launch of "Separate Ways", the anthology of the Blue Gate Poets based on the modern art collection there. Those of us with poems in the anthology led the audience around the gallery and read our work in front of the painting which had inspired it; later Tamar Yoseloff (who had led the original workshop) read from several of her publications. Tamar has such a talent for using one work of art to inspire another - and equally to inspire enthusiasm for this approach in is those of us who can only dream of attaining such heights!

Tamar's reading

Here and There

Coming back from holiday is never great but at least this time there are several things to look forward to here - largely  on the Cheltenham Literature Festival which starts this coming Friday. Lots of poetry this time (including my own very small contribution in The Studio on Monday 7th at 8pm!) and some interesting talks I've booked for.

Before all that comes the Swindon Poetry Festival and on Thursday I shall be reading at the launch of the Blue Gates Poets anthology at the Art Gallery and Museum at 2pm - do come along if you're free (it is!). World Mental Health Day falls on October 10th this year and I'm also involved in a poetry reading in Cheltenham to mark that, organised by Anna Saunders, the director of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival. She's passionate about poetry being life enhancing for everyone - and indeed life saving for some - and I'm delighted to have been asked to contribute.

So that's the "Here" - how about the "There"? Well, the "There" was Ireland, where I spent a week with my daughter in Cobh, near Cork, in a wooden lodge that would make an ideal "write-away" venue! I've come back with loads of notes and ideas, but I'm afraid I achieved little in the way of actual writing - too busy out and about. The setting and seclusion would certainly lend itself to another, solo, visit though. And Ireland of course is a land of story tellers and writers - as so many of the postcards, books etc. remind you. To my chagrin however, they all major on the males of the species (James Joyce, W. B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde) - tremendous writers I know, but how about Maeve Binchy, Edna O'Brien, Kate Cruise O'Brien, Julia O'Faolain? Why, oh why are female writers so frequently overlooked?