All Blogposts

  • Uncut Poets, Exeter

    Uncut Poets, Exeter

    I really enjoyed reading at Uncut Poets at the Phoenix Arts Centre in Exeter last week.  Before the event, my lovely friend Emily treated me to a delicious Turkish meal at the Dinosaur Café.  I ordered a mixed salad – one generous spoonful of every type of salad on the menu – with home-made hummus, warm haloumi… Read more

  • Not feeling all that ‘fresh’.

    Not feeling all that ‘fresh’.

    ‘Fresh’ is this week’s Photo Challenge at WordPress and here are a few daffodils (from our front garden) which always put me in mind of Spring, season of fresh, new beginnings. I’m not feeling all that ‘new’ myself, after a busy few weeks at home and work. However, things I am looking forward to include:… Read more

  • A New Lyrical Ballads: Bristol Festival of Ideas

    A New Lyrical Ballads: Bristol Festival of Ideas

    On Friday I went to the New Lyrical Ballads event in Bristol, part of Bristol Festival of Ideas,  and listened to 23 poets read their specially commissioned poems for a new version of Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s 1798 collection.  New Lyrical Ballads will be published this Spring and two Radio 4 programmes are also imminent. There were… Read more

  • Pinch, punch, the redux

    Pinch, punch, the redux

    It’s the first of the month! First of March! Mornings are becoming lighter, nights are descending later, birdsong is sounding more exuberant.  The crocuses are out! It’s a good time for exclamation marks! The year is still young enough to make plans! Taking stock. On the first of every month, at least one person arrives at this… Read more

  • How to recruit volunteers

    How to recruit volunteers

    :Useful information for arts organisations and charities. One element of my part-time job with The Reader Organisation has been to recruit volunteers to work as Facilitators in the weekly Read Aloud Groups I’ve established in five (soon six) Wiltshire Libraries.  The groups are specifically for people with dementia, or other illnesses affecting memory,  and their carers. Challenging… Read more

  • Low Blogging Energy, High Writing Energy!

    Low Blogging Energy, High Writing Energy!

    Is this a thing?  I think I’m experiencing it!  I’m ploughing through my unfinished poems and despatching them to magazines at rates previously unknown to me.  I have eight poems out with four different magazines.  As most magazines take between 4 – 8 months to respond to submissions, I’ve decided to send them in twos… Read more