When we write about places – just looking
Lovingly ploughed Shropshire fields give up their ideas for poetry
Jeff Phelps
Sometimes it’s good to be a learner writer
We did a writing workshop on Saturday 24th September at Morville village hall in deepest Shropshire. Ruth Cameron led us through the story of Ceridwen, the powerful sorceress of Welsh legend, and we took turns to imagine ourselves inside the…
Feeling prehistoric
So I still use a pen and paper – a red one at that – well, sometimes. I like the feel of the biro on paper. I like the look of it, the messiness of it. Sometimes I write in…
Writing or typing
Thoughts from American journalist, essayist and environmentlist Rebecca Solnit on lithub : ‘Remember that writing is not typing.
Words on Water
On the morning of 20th August we went on the narrow boat, The Shropshire Lad from Lyneal Wharf to Ellesmere and back. We looked at poems inspired by canals and water, learnt about the wildlife and about the chequered history…
Flashes of inspiration
Blakenhall Writers’ Group in Wolverhampton asked me to lead a Saturday morning workshop about short stories… it’s flash fiction, and they’re preparing an anthology, as a look at their website will tell you, on the subject of ‘identity.’ Entries from…
Coming soon
This Autumn looks busy already. It’s a great season for being productive and doing things. I’ve been putting my two novels, Painter Man and Box of Tricks into a format for production as e-books, the first time they’ve ever been…
Wenlock Poetry Festival
Wenlock Poetry Festival runs from Friday 24th to Sunday 26th April this year in the lovely surroundings of Much Wenlock in Shropshire. There’s always an amazing atmosphere with stuff going on at The Edge arts centre, Wenlock Pottery, the parish…
Wellington Literary Festival 2014
I’m delighted to have been asked to lead the annual writing workshops for Wrekin Writers as part of the Wellington (Shropshire) Literary Festival. now in its eighteenth year. Wellington must be one of the few literary festivals where most of the events are…
Communal Poem
Meanwhile back in beautiful Shropshire the Much Wenlock and District U3A Creative Writing Group came together on 28th March to create a communal poem. I was delighted to help them create several, all written communally and all capturing a sense…
Wenlock Poetry Festival
I’m appearing at the Wenlock Poetry Festival along with Simon Fletcher of Offa’s Press on Sunday 27th April 2014 at 11am. We’ll be at Wenlock Pottery (off Sheinton Street) reading from the recently reprinted The Poetry of Shropshire. £6…
The Blog Tour
In The Blog Tour the writer responds on their blog to three questions about their writing – then links to three other writers who do the same the following week. I was introduced to this idea by Jean Atkin. She’s an…