I’m thrilled to let you know that Mica Press has accepted my fifth book of poetry for publication next spring or summer. Mica is an extraordinary little press in Wivenhoe near Colchester run by Leslie Bell. In 1984 Les, with a striking miner and a lorry driver to help, carried a second hand press into his sitting room to carry out his poetic dream. Life doesn’t flow in straight lines and it wasn’t until 2012 that Mica was really under way as one of the most select and excellent presses in the UK.
Just when winter feels never ending with the festivities far behind us, here on the Kent coast we have Faversham Literary Festival to cheer up our February. This year’s programme is as stunning as ever including Tim Peake, Jeanette Winterson, Roger McGough, Glen Matlock, Dame Kelly Holmes, Holly McNish… on and on goes the fabulous line-up.
For writers, there are so many treats like a memoir class on Saturday 17, a local author showcase on Sunday 18, a writing ‘walkshop’ on the 24th, and short story writing and ‘literary exploration’ both on Sunday 25.
Poetry features as always with the Poetry Slam on Friday 23 evening – come and hear among others T S Eliot prize winner (2021) Joelle Taylorand have a go yourself – and on the Saturday the Poetry Hub introduced by Angela Dye and me.
First off at the Hub (Saturday 24, 11am), in Faversham’s medieval Guildhall in the centre of the town, I have the treat of reading with poets Bethany Goodwill and David Dykes who run the monthly poetry event Big Trouble in Rochester.
Fiona Sinclair, Nancy Charley and Clair Meyrick come next, then Amy Acre and Christopher Horton. At 2pm, Derek Sellen, Gary Studley and Greta Ross take over, followed by Katy Evans-Bush and Jacqueline Saphra. Maggie Harris and Setareh Ebrahimi read at 4pm, including an interview of Maggie, and at 5.25pm we close with the all-important Open Mic. All tickets are free – please come.
I’ll be marshalling too throughout the week – say hello if you’re there!
My Churchill Writers are meeting this afternoon, online because of weather at this time of year in the UK and because so many of us are unwell. Here are some prompts for anyone who can’t be with us – five to ten minutes for each one, just to see where they take you. Longer if the writing is taking hold:
On Christmas Day Dennis Greig passed away after a valiant fight with the HHT that has plagued him and his family, and cancer.
Dennis said that he and his wife were proud to be poetry midwives and my goodness, they were magnificent at it. When Dennis accepted my first book of 17s in 2010, I was putting a cruel marriage behind me and with Lapwing I felt safe for the first time in a long while. Dennis was unique in the depth of his support for all his poets. Poetically, if he saw a glimmer in us, he nurtured it, always gently, selflessly. Personally, where it was needed he did the same, constant and fatherly. I’d never thought of myself as a poet but he managed to give me the confidence to say I am one. I will always be grateful.
Dennis was a poet himself, recording Northern Ireland’s euphemistically named ‘Troubles’ in Belfast with intelligence and lyrical sensitivity. Poetry was rising from the rubble of civil war then and Dennis was one of the important writers at its heart. In 1988 Dennis and his wife Rene (a magnificent artistic force in her own right in theatre, script writing, dance and inter-sectarian work) set up Lapwing Publications. Over the years they produced over 500 distinctively beautiful slim volumes on high quality paper, each white or cream cover with one of Dennis’s chosen thumbnail pictures on the front, all hand pressed in Belfast. I recognised one across a crowded poetry reading in east Kent last summer, unmistakably a Lapwing book, a gem.
Damien Smyth of Arts Council NI, a fine poet himself, has described Lapwing as ‘a press only marginally second (in Ireland) to Salmon Publishing in the volume of its output and sturdiness of its platform for new voices’. Both Lapwing and Salmon pride themselves on the high proportion of women poets they publish.
Rene was undoubtedly Dennis’s engine and they had one of those powerful marriages that gathers, warms and heartens anyone near them.
Dennis deserves his rest now. The past year has been impossibly hard for him and his loved ones. My condolences to them all. No publisher ever worked harder, for Lapwing and for his poets, and Lapwing’s achievement will always shine, not just in the Irish and English-speaking poetry worlds but worldwide. I am proud to be part of it.
Lapwing Publications in Belfast has been my happy poetry home since 2010 when Dennis Greig offered to publish my first book, Sweet Seventeens. Over the past three years, Dennis has been coping with incredible courage with a sharp decline in his health.
In 1988 Dennis and his wife Rene started Lapwing after chatting with Michael Longley and Mairtin Crawford about the need for an independent Northern Irish based poetry publisher. The Arts Council NI helped with a modest sum to start with but for much of its existence Lapwing has been financially independent from any arts body.
Dennis’s son (publisher and writer) Amos Greig says: Over those 36 years Lapwing has published roughly 400 poetry pamphlets, chapbooks and collections helping new and established writers reach a new audience and Dennis has provided years of service to the poetry community both in Ireland and abroad, both in guidance on poetry matters and from time-to-time personal support, all this without any funding. Several of the poets they have published have gone on to be published in other poetry houses and won several literary accolades.
As so often happened with Dennis, he became my friend as well as publisher. In 2010 my life turned upside down and while I found my bearings, Dennis’s encouragement and welcome of my words was a treasure. I am deeply honoured to have four beautiful Lapwing books of my poetry, hand made in my native Belfast, and to be part of the community of Lapwing poets all over the world.
While the Greig family copes with Dennis’s health issues and their own (the family have HHT), Lapwing is offering the sale of backlist PDFs. You can contact Amos Greig through Facebook or through the contact email for Amos’s excellent poetry magazine, A New Ulster: g.greig3@gmail.com
I wish the whole family a turn for better health soon and peace to recover.
If Lapwing is not able to reply to your contact and you would like to buy any of my books, I still have a few and can send you copies for £10 each including postage to the UK and Ireland: rosiejohnstonwrites@gmail.com
Rosie Johnston 