It was a thrill and great pleasure to chat with Barbara Tucker on her Dialogues with Creators podcast (LINK). We talked about Colorful Crow Publishing a small, independent, thoroughly traditional publisher in Georgia, USA which is all set to publish my book ‘Pebbles in Our Shoes’ mid-next year.

‘Pebbles in Our Shoes’ is about how to build a resilient writing practice that can be with you life long: from giving yourself permission to write in the first place (that took me until I was over 40) through lifting yourself back into writing when all hope seems to have gone, to what to expect from your first book launch. We talked about Anne Lamott’s ‘Bird by Bird’ and Dorothea Brande’s ‘Becoming a Writer’, my two favourite how-to books, about how to get the most out of your crit group and writing buddies, and from the submissions process. Lots more besides. Barbara persuaded me to read some of my poems too!

I love Barbara’s podcast, not just for her searching chats with creative people of all kinds, but for her solo riffs on classics like ‘The Go-Between’, ‘Jane Eyre’ and most recently ‘Middlemarch’. Her years of teaching, her deep enthusiasm for literature and her own writing talent shine through.

When I was in New York a while back, I raised a cocktail in the Algonquin Hotel to the mighty Dorothy Parker and today remembered Beryl Cook’s ‘Bar and Barbara’. It was one of my mother’s favourite paintings. (She was ‘Cleopatra on Portstewart Strand’ from my latest book, Safe Ground published last year by Mica Press.) She adored the warmth of Beryl Cook’s humour which turns out, all these years later, to be timeless.

I hope you enjoy the podcast – LINK HERE. It’s available through Spotify, Apple and all the usual places. I’ll keep you posted about when Pebbles is available too.

#startwriting #keepwriting #critgroupswriting #writingbuddies #colorfulcrow