There are some great stories on this link and I’m deeply proud that one of them is by Churchill Writer, Alice Toby-Brant. Alice’s writing is always worth looking out for. Congratulations, Alice!

My latest review for London Grip is of Charlotte Ansell’s marvellous collection Deluge, published last year by Flipped Eye. You can read it here.

On the Mary Evans Picture Library’s Poems and Pictures blog today – my ‘Mirror’ poem with its gorgeous, accompanying photograph:

The Mary Evans Picture Library is a wonderful archive of images, tucked away in a beautiful Arts and Crafts building in south east London. Every Thursday, the Poems and Pictures blog, curated by Gill Stoker, publishes a poem, old or mint new, accompanied by something from the archive. It’s absolutely gorgeous and an ideal oasis of calm for these uncertain times.

I’ve just had a chat with Jo at the Umbrella cafe and, sad news, we’ve decided that our Word of Mouth events in #Whitstable will go on hold until it’s wise to do this kind of thing again. I’ve let the writers know and we’re all together about the wisdom of this. I hope very much that when the time is right, we’ll start again as scheduled, beginning with our Raining Men event, then a celebration of artist-poets. Perhaps we could bring back our cancelled International Women’s Day event too.

Meanwhile it’s the perfect time to stockpile some poetry.

I’m thrilled to have my poem Carnlough Bay accepted for inclusion in the Northern Ireland section of the Places of Poetry anthology coming up soon. The anthology draws from the fascinating Places of Poetry map co-directed by Andrew McRae and Paul Farley.

Places of Poetry … aims to use creative writing to prompt reflection on national and cultural identities in England and Wales, celebrating the diversity, heritage and personalities of place.

The map is such a great idea. Goes to show that you can think something up (just guessing here) on a rainy Sunday and months later we’re all enjoying a beautiful reality.

Carnlough is a place my parents loved. My mother painted the harbour there in her last years and the pair of them probably dropped into the Londonderry Arms across the road in the course of the day. Thanks go to Anne-Marie Fyfe: it was on a poetry course of hers in Carnlough (with Cahal Dallat) a couple of years ago that I wrote a first draft of the poem. 

My Churchill Writers gave me flowers yesterday. I’m full of amazement & gratitude. What a fantastic lot they are.

We had our last session for the term in Churchill College, Cambridge yesterday. It’s a lovely chance to enjoy being together in an atmosphere where our writing selves, so often squeezed out in the rest of our lives, can flourish.

We shared out copies of our wonderful anthology – it’s even more exciting and beautifully written than I remembered – with special thanks to everyone involved in the publication, production of a stunning cover, sub-editing (that’s you, Caity Ross) and the writers themselves. You can order a copy here.

Lauren, a wonderful baker as well as a superb writer, brought us celebratory brownies which went down beautifully while we all discussed thrillers, using this blogpost of mine as our template. There’s always something new to be discovered whenever you sit down to write. During the exercise where we scribbled about our favourite thrillers, I found myself relishing not only the degree to which Endeavour (the young Morse) is an exile in his world, never quite fitting either with the police or the academic world, but also his, and Wallander‘s, capacity for naivete. Thriller detectives (whether they’re officially police or not) are usually well rounded characters with plenty of quirks. As well as a passion for justice, and courage, do we need them also to have a certain sweetness to accompany us through the dark thriller world? Holmes is not particularly sweet but Watson has it. Something to think about.

Have a happy writing Sunday.

At Faversham Literary Festival yesterday, poetry took over the whole day at The Limes pub. Poets and poetry do have a tendency to take over, I find, in the nicest possible way and the whole place was a rolling celebration of words, human vulnerabilities and laughter.

We started with a pop-up event featuring Word of Mouth #Whitstable. My guest poets were a wonderful range of published poets who’ve all read at Word of Mouth (originally Words on Waves): Sue Rose, Gillie Robic, Charlotte Ansell, Setareh Ibrahimi, Mary Anne Smith and (briefly) myself. It’s Mary Anne who looks as if she’s wearing John McCullough’s hat. These are all poets I admire very much and I was honoured to read alongside them. More details about them are here. Excellent husbanding going  on below, allowing Setareh to relax after her reading. John McCullough is an exceptional writer from Brighton, very moving – here he reads  from his excellent Reckless Paper Birds (Penned in the Margins). This is Luke Wright spellbinding us all with a beautifully crafted story that combines poetry, love and personal heartbreak, politics and rant: Remains of Logan DankworthAnother important highlight of the day was an hour devoted to Kent poet Rosemary McLeish who brought her poet friends Clair Meyrick and Barry Fentiman Hall in support. Sorry the photograph is blurry but this was an event of high emotion, generated by all three of these marvellous writers.

Faversham does actually have a ‘Love Lane’ so that was our title for an hour of poetry about love combining the words of Derek Sellen and Gary Studley with Mary Anne Smith and myself again. The breath-held hush while I read from Orion, my ‘classical love story’ published by Lapwing Publications in 2012, will stay with me for quite some time. 

Many thanks to everyone at Faversham Literary Festival for a fantastic series of events and for a complex, wide-ranging festival that hums along like a Rolls Royce and brings such literary excitement to us every year. One more day to go – see you there later!

The Churchill Writers’ anthology is not only published, it has just been catalogued at the Churchill College library. I am bursting with pride!

I set up the group in early 2011 and have been thrilled to watch writers develop confidence, skills and great friendships. Many thanks to all the writers who contributed and especially to Gervase Vernon who took care of the publishing mysteries and Caity Ross, our sub-editor, for bringing such an excellent final product together. 

In this, the group’s first anthology, you can find romance, mystery, sci-fi, memoir, poetry and an important extract from a forthcoming biography of Churchill College’s first Master, Sir John Cockcroft. You will also discover the range and excellence of the group’s writing.

It’s a wonderful read and you can buy a copy here.

It’s too long since I’ve been in Glasgow and the Medical Humanities ECR Group at the University of Glasgow are kindly putting that right in April. I’ve been asked to read from Six-Count Jive (Lapwing Publications, 2019) at their Public Health, Private Illness interdisciplinary medical humanities conference.

The conference website says: We want to interrogate the public/private distinction within health, medicine and wellbeing, and to examine the many and complex intersections between public health ideals and the individual experience of health, illness, body and mind. There is a call for related creative writing that might interest you – details are on their page here. The deadline is 24 February, 2020.

See you in The Butterfly and The Pig on Wednesday, 8 April.

Faversham is rightly proud of its excellent Literary Festival, happening for only the third time next month. As well as the many top writers on offer, the festival is hosting a whole day of POETRY AT THE HUB on Saturday 22 February, 2020. Tickets are £10 for the whole day – just £10! – or £3 for single events. Headliner is marvellous Luke Wright – tickets for his event are £8. Where’s The Hub? It’s at The Limes pub, 59 Preston Street, Faversham, Kent ME13 8PG. 

Between 12 noon and 1.00pm that day, please join me there with an outstanding and unusual combination of poets. They’ve all read at Word of Mouth/ Words on Waves so it’s A CELEBRATION OF WORD OF MOUTH #WHITSTABLE – you can book your tickets here.

Sue Rose‘s poetry is published by Cinnamon Press and Hercules Editions. Her latest, Tonewood (Eaglesfield Editions, 2019) luxuriously combines her beautiful poems about trees with Lawrence Impey’s black and white photographs. In 2009 Sue won the Troubadour Poetry Prize and was Canterbury Poet of the Year in 2008. She is a founder member of Scatterlings, a group of poets formed to give readings in Kent and beyond. She lives in Herne Bay and recently got herself a beach hut to write in.

Charlotte Ansell‘s collection Deluge was a Poetry Book Society recommendation last winter. She lives moored on the Medway and her floating but anchored life is reflected in her words. The Society says: Deluge by Charlotte Ansell, as with her previous work, displays an unerring emotional honesty. Confronting displacement, ageing, therapy, family, as well as social shifts like gentrification, Charlotte draws perspective from the community she lives in and distils it into the stunning exhortations and vignettes that make up this collection. Having moved from boat moorings in London to boat moorings in Sheffield, Deluge nods to the change with poems such as Queen of the North, which opens with “Oh my God Sheffield why/ do you always leave your coat at home?” and Dear Canal, a private note to the waters “still harbouring/ knives, forks and spoons.” 

 Gillie Robic is a Live Canon poet with two beautiful collections and appearance in several anthologies to her name. She has been a professional puppeteer for many years and designs, writes and directs for her company Suspended Animation in London. So, not only does she play marvellously with words, her storytelling is intoxicating too. 

Setareh Ebrahimi’s collection ‘In My Arms’ is published by Bad Betty Press. The Poetry Book Society says this: Spy on stolen moments between the intrepid and humanely flawed figures who populate Setareh Ebrahimi’s world. In My Arms is an assured and seductive debut, dancing to its own musicality. Setareh lives in Kent and is currently exploring the poetic possibilities of new motherhood. 

Mary Anne Smith is well known in the north Kent poetry world. She has been published in many magazines and anthologies, and has won prizes internationally, listed here on her website. She is well known for her beautifully told biographical poems about literary figures like Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf.