writer
I'm writing at speed on Christmas Eve to wish you all a Happy Christmas. There have been times in my life when I've been completely alone on Christmas Day, times when I've been with friends, times with family, and twice when I was working (as a Nanny) in a foreign country with someone else's family.… Continue reading Best wishes for Christmas
After the happiness that came with an email from Gareth Lewis telling me that tall-lighthouse would like to publish my pamphlet (which I mentioned here) there was a time of staring. Staring at my computer screen (sometimes on, sometimes off), at my hands, at the wall, out of the window, at a sea of printed… Continue reading An update about my pamphlet
Tomorrow I will put on my poetry head so I can write poems. It will be so easy. My work colleagues have already snapped my working head inside a polypropylene wallet. No emails to be spat out until Monday. My children will sit on my mother head while they're doing their homework or being driven… Continue reading Putting on my poetry head.
Getting to know people through their writing. I met my husband, Andrew Horsfall, in September 1993 while we were students at West Sussex Institute of Higher Education (now University of Chichester) and we lived on campus at Bishop Otter College, Chichester, in a small 1930s block of student accommodation called New Hall (now, I believe,… Continue reading How I met my husband
It seems that some people are already off on their travels for the summer. There have been tweets and blogposts from glamorous-sounding European cities and far-flung mountain ranges. I can hear the suitcases and rucksacks being dragged from the tops of wardrobes, the snap of elastic as last year's swimsuits are optimistically pinged into place… Continue reading Summer’s here and I’m still writing
Had a weird experience yesterday when I ran a writing workshop and only one person turned up - and she was 40 minutes late! I'm quite accomplished at promoting my own writing events and I usually manage to drum up enough interest to make my workshops viable but, in this instance, I wasn't responsible for… Continue reading The gift of an empty room
2023/24 UPDATE New workshops in Bradford-on-Avon. Details here. ________________________________________________________________________ NEWSFLASH FREE WRITING WORKSHOPS (POETRY AND SHORT FICTION) SALISBURY LIBRARY You are invited to join writer Josephine Corcoran in these enjoyable workshops. In a supportive, friendly environment you will: • read and discuss a variety of poems and short stories to inspire your own work. •… Continue reading Writing Workshops and Events in and around Wiltshire (and beyond!)
February already and what is everyone up to? I really enjoy Robin Houghton's blog so I thought I would follow her example and share some of what's been happening in my life. Robin reports regularly on what she's reading, where she's sending her poetry and where it's been accepted/rejected. She also shares information gleaned from… Continue reading Reading, Writing, Rejections, Acceptance
Anita Chapman's interesting blogpost about the benefits and drawbacks of taking excerpts from the first draft of a novel to a writing workshop has got me thinking about when it's best to take poetry. At what stage of the writing process will scrutiny by others benefit a poem? It's a relevant question for me because I've… Continue reading When is the best time to workshop a poem?
It's been almost two weeks since I started a separate blog for poems, 'And Other Poems'. At first I thought this would simply be an uncluttered space for my own poems but I quickly decided that I wanted to include other people's work. How, then, to acquire poems? Could I just select poems that I… Continue reading Hey Presto! Poems have arrived in my inbox.
Josephine Corcoran 