When I moved to this coast in Kent, I fell in with a warm, vibrant writing community and can’t wait to let you know what is coming up for me in the next couple of months.

On Monday 13 January, 2020, I am looking forward to returning to read alongside Isabel Rogers at WINCHESTER LOOSE MUSE: 8pm. This event celebrates the best of women’s writing and I’m deeply honoured to be invited. I’ll pay my respects to Jane Austen in Winchester Cathedral again when I’m there. 

On Saturday 25 January 2020, I’m off to Deal, Kent for a poetry reading at 6.30pm in the Deal Bookshop along with Christopher Hopkins, Maggie Harris, Derek Sellen and Mary Anne Smith with Angela Dye as our host. With luck, Angie will read some of her marvellous poems too. This is part of a chain of launch events for Christopher’s latest book The Shape of a Tulip Bird and we’re all delighted to be involved. Please join us. 

On Thursday 6 February, 2020, 6.30pm, Word of Mouth #Whitstable will be a GREAT BIG OPEN MIC OF LOVE in honour of St Valentine’s Day.

Everybody is welcome to read for up to FIVE MINUTES and your time in the limelight can have an Un-Valentine’s flavour if you like. There are many kinds of love & we can explore and honour them all in prose, poetry, non-fiction, drama, memoir and music. As ever, this is a FREE EVENT and the lovely, licensed Umbrella Café will be open.

Here is a visual prompt if you’d like one…

I have been invited to facilitate TWO WORKSHOPS AT THE FAVERSHAM LITERARY FESTIVAL on Saturday 15 February, 2020:

10 – 11.30am – THE ESSENCE OF STORYTELLING

12.30 – 2pm – GET WRITING – KEEP WRITING

On Saturday 22 February, 2020, FAVERSHAM LITERARY FESTIVAL is hosting a whole day of poetry at The Hub: 

• Between 12 noon and 1.00pm that day, please join me in A CELEBRATION OF WORD OF MOUTH #WHITSTABLE in the company of outstanding poets Charlotte Ansell, Sue Rose, Gillie Robic, Setareh Ibrahimi Franklin & Mary Anne Smith; and
• between 5 and 6pm, I will join poets Fiona Sinclair, Derek Sellen, Gary Studley, Mary Anne Smith and Luigi Marchini in A FESTIVAL OF LOVE POETRY. Will I bring my barnacled heart with me? You bet. 

Please come to all and any of these events if you can. I wish you a happy writing time, wherever you are.