Wednesday 19 October 2022

Launches - and a relaunch!

This has to be the longest gap between posts since I started this blog. Summer has definitely given way to autumn, the mornings are dark and chilly and the evenings are fast drawing in. Health problems have plagued the family for the past couple of months; life has been very out of kilter and hence writing has too. But something like normal service has now been resumed and will hopefully be maintained!

As well as getting to grips with quite a backlog of work, this last week has seen two very enjoyable trips out for book launches. My Catchword colleague Pam Keevil launched her latest novel Wild Girls (Black Pear Press) on Sunday at Stonehouse Court. Pam writes with such a light touch about some very relevant, very topical issues - coercive control for example in this story of two women from quite different cultures who both face challenges on many fronts. As one reviewer wrote, it's a "warm-hearted book about old troubles and new beginnings" - and well worth a read.


Then last night saw the launch of  A Century of Poetry - 100 Poems for Searching the Heart by the poet and ex-archbishop Rowan Williams at Llantilio Pertholey. One of his reviewers commented that "you could spend a lifetime absorbing" this anthology; it's far from being a conventional religious or devotional text and there's a huge variety of poems in it, each with a fascinating commentary by Rowan Williams. There's the work of Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist poets, of agnostics and atheists; some poems are amusing, others deeply moving, but what they all have in common is their ability to unsettle, to make the reader question, look further. Two of my favourite poets - U. A. Fanthorpe and Charles Causley - feature alongside many I haven't met before but look forward to getting to know. As another reviewer puts it "each poem ... is a door ajar, which Rowan Williams nudges open, inviting us in" - there are lots of rooms to explore.