November marches on

Well, we are more than two thirds of the way through NaNoWriMo and I'm hugely impressed with how some of my friends are doing with their novels. Keep up the good work out there! My progress with my more modest goals has been steady, though somewhat slowed by domestic circumstances yet again. But I've completed an on-line course I was undertaking and have certainly got my outstanding writing projects marshalled into better order - I know what my priorities are now (largely relating to my "Digging Up The Family" write-up) and I'm beginning to wrestle them into submission.

But poetry has been top of the agenda over the past few days. Our monthly Cheltenham poetry event, Well Versed, saw a visit from Trisha Torrington, poet and printmaker, along with her partner, Michael Henry. They have collaborated on a number of projects and it was interesting to hear their different takes in poems based on shared experiences. Then yesterday evening was the long-awaited auction in aid of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival  (especially to support its outreach work); lots varied from Antonia Gilbert's wonderful chocolate truffles, through 1:1 sessions with distinguished local poets to a solitaire diamond ring. Well over £900 was raised and a good evening was had by all.

Today I was at Poetry Swindon's workshop with the American poet Kathryn Maris at the Richard Jefferies Museum. Based on the work of Jo Brainard, the theme was "I remember" and what a fascinating seam of recollections that tapped into with the group! Little time to follow them up with much concrete output, but I think we all came away with a lot of raw material from which to work.

Kathryn Maris