never knowingly without a pen
All of my family, husband, daughter, son, son's girlfriend, and me, are off to Greenbelt this weekend for the first time, and we're all taking wellies and waterproofs and layers and a torch, as we've been advised by more experienced festival-goers than us. I'm looking forward to reading with Nancy Campbell, Sasha Dugdale and… Continue reading In which I’m packing for Greenbelt
There are a few things I'd like to tell you but I can hardly keep my eyes open, even at just gone nine in the evening. I did a three hour walk this morning with my husband and daughter and I can still feel all of my muscles tingling. It was meant to take "about… Continue reading Too tired to blog
If we were having coffee, I'd tell you I've been in London for a few days, with my teenage children (hardly children any more but that's for another post) seeing family (lots of family) and two very good, longtime friends. I'd tell you the weather was warm, sunny even, actually hot, and I wore dresses… Continue reading #WeekendCoffeeShare: In which I’m not going on holiday
My children's exams are over. For my son, a season of campouts and festivals has already begun. My daughter also has exciting, if slightly less grungy, plans. Four years worth of scrawled-on paper, deep piles of exercise books, text books, files, revision cards, notebooks, stationery, bottles of Rescue Remedy, school uniforms, pots of lunch money… Continue reading At the year’s halfway point
I'm not really taking part in #NaPoWriMo this year although I do feel steeped in poetry. I have attempted to write (or at least start) a poem a day in the past and found it fun and exhilarating. I promised to review some poetry books for a magazine so I've been reading those and making slow… Continue reading A quick update during National Poetry Month
There have been a lot of lovely things going on in the UK poetry world recently, including festivals in Birmingham and in Scotland, and a writing retreat in Cornwall, and they've all gone on without me, although I've enjoyed reading about them and seeing pictures on social media. I would have gone to all of… Continue reading Mostly waiting
Town Hall Poets are a Poetry Society Stanza group who meet regularly at Trowbridge Town Hall, and other places, to read and talk about poetry, workshop each other's poems and arrange open-mic nights. We're also lucky enough to be the Trowbridge Chapter of the Candlestick Press Collective, which means that we receive complimentary copies of… Continue reading ‘Ten Poems from Ireland’ (Candlestick Press)
A quick update about what I'm up to. I'm still waiting to hear about a few submissions and I've sent out several poems to competitions. In recent years I've been trying to focus on magazines rather than competitions but I decided to ring the changes a bit and see how I get on. In the next… Continue reading A quick update
...and other thoughts about being away from home. I'm just back from three nights away in Sheffield where I met up with all but one of my Aldeburgh Eight friends. We've been trying to meet up again for some time and we managed to arrange to converge in Sheffield for one of the famous Writing Days… Continue reading A visit to The Poetry Business in Sheffield
As Januarys go, this one hasn't been too bad, so far, not taking into consideration world events, of course, although yesterday's amazing marches across the world have filled me with hope. I've had five - FIVE - rejections in the past six weeks, not all poetry or writing related, but, surprisingly, I'm unbowed. Could it be… Continue reading A good January, so far
Josephine Corcoran 