Poetry Workshop
On Saturday February 5th I’ll be running a poetry workshop with Drayton Writers from 9.45 to midday. The venue is the Scout Hut on Shrewsbury Road, Market Drayton.
Jeff Phelps
Reflections
Dan Phelps has just produced the first CD of his own piano music. It’s called Reflections and of course comes highly recommended – ideal for helping you
First Draft Desert
If you’ve ever struggled to get to the end of the first draft of your novel or short story try the advice on: www.mywritingblog.com which I wrote for the blog of my good friend, Nick Daws. The advice is mainly to myself…
November 2010
The clocks went back this weekend. I really must speak to the pawnbroker to try and get them home… I think I’ve been getting confused between fiction and reality again. What you read about in novels isn’t real. It’s made up. …
Act Of Faith
Victor Hugo apparently said that a library was ‘an act of faith.’ I’ve been thinking about libraries because I’ve been asked to open the new Shropshire Youth Bridgnorth Centre Library in Bridgnorth on Tuesday 5th October. The first library I…
Being a Judge
Sunday 12th September. I’ve been asked to be a judge for the new Rubery Book Award. The award has been specially set up to promote independent publishing ventures, so if you know of an independently published book of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, children’s,…
Sunny Saturday at Morville
Saturday 26th June 2010 I did an outdoor performance of River Passage and a few of my other poems as part of a fund raising event for the next Wenlock Poetry Festival. Dan couldn’t be there (see link below) to…
Kites at Swanage
I JUST LOVED THIS photo of Sonia trying to fly a Chinese kite at the very end of August. One of those idyllic days in Dorset, this strange summer that was supposed to be full of sunny days that somehow…
Readers’ Group
A readers’ group is a ruthless killing machine. The readers’ group where I work gave its verdict on Box of Tricks this week. They’d had the book for about six weeks so there’d been plenty of time to absorb it…
Thanks
Well, I haven’t been a good blogger. But today I checked and found I have some followers. So, dear blog-followers thank you for being patient. I’m humbled. As my last blog entry was in January that is super-patient. Today I…
On Being Too Kind To Books
I was always taught to be kind to books and to treat them with respect. A bit like elderly relatives. Don’t fold the spine back, you’ll break it, don’t draw moustaches on the pictures of Noddy. Never write in the…
Losing A Grip On Reality
Isn’t it reassuring to know that according to a recent survey nearly one in four people believe Winston Churchill was a myth and more than half think Sherlock Holmes was a real detective who lived in Baker Street? This is…