‘Safe Ground’ is nearly off the ground

February 19, 2025February 19, 2025Leave a comment

We’re in the final proof checks of ‘Safe Ground’, well on course for publication by Mica Press on 25 March, 2025. This stage is indescribably exciting and I can’t wait to hold a copy in my hand.

Meanwhile there’s the Faversham Literary Festival to look forward to. I’m hosting the Poetry Hub this Saturday 22 February and notice that everything is sold out! I am scheduled to read in Faversham Guildhall at 5.30pm with Michael Bartholomew-Biggs (an excellent poet who has edited new poetry and poetry reviews at London Grip for many years) and Maggie Harris, a Guyanese poet and prose writer living in Thanet, who was awarded the Guyana Prize for Literature in 2000 and 2014 for her collections of poetry Limbolands and Sixty Years of Loving, respectively.

All three of us have new poems and old favourites to read to you.

Ashford library, Kent – World Poetry day, Thurs 21 March, 6.30pm

March 13, 2024March 18, 2024Leave a comment

This Thursday is World Poetry Day and I look forward to reading in Ashford library in Kent, from 6.30pm, alongside these excellent poets:

Maggie Harris was born in Guyana and has lived in Kent since 1972. A poet, prose writer and memoirist, awards include Kent’s Outstanding Adult Learner, The Guyana Prize, Commonwealth Short Story Prize and The Wales Poetry Award. Her poem ‘Canterbury’ is displayed in the city’s Westgate Garden, and the BBC-commissioned her poem for Kent, ‘Lit by Fire’, about the North Foreland Lighthouse.

Christopher Horton was a prize winner in the National Poetry Competition and the Bridport Prize and won first prize in the South Downs Poetry Festival Competition in 202. His pamphlet, Perfect Timing, was released by Tall-Lighthouse Press in 2021.

Jessica Taggart Rose is a writer and editor fascinated by human nature, the nature of time and our interactions with the natural world. She has poems published in the Letters to the Earth, Storm Chasers and ‘New Contexts’ anthologies, Confluence Magazine, Full House and Three Drops from a Cauldron. A founding member of Poets for the Planet, she lives in Margate where she helps to run the Margate Bookie Lit Festival and Margate Poetry Stanza.

This is going to be a really exciting evening. Many thanks to Christopher and the library for organising it. You can book your tickets at £2.50 each here.

Mary Evans poetry reading in Devon, Mon 11 January, 2021 at 6 – 7.15pm

December 6, 2020January 5, 2021Leave a comment

ARTS DESTINATION SOUTH MOLTON in DEVON is hosting a reading featuring the MARY EVANS POEMS AND PICTURES BLOG and I am delighted to join in a celebration of the work of this marvellous blog curated by Gill Stoker. The Mary Evans Picture Library, founded in 1964, is a beautiful little store house in south east London of millions of images of every sort. You have probably enjoyed their images on television and in newspapers and magazines all over the world without necessarily knowing where they came from. The Mary Evans website allows you to sneak behind the library’s closed doors. Images and poetry have always been good company and the Poems and Pictures blog is a marvellous browse, whatever your taste.

Please join us. It will be the ADSM’s first event of 2021 and is the first Zoom event for the poetry blog ever! The beauty of Zoom events is that, while we can’t necessarily go and dabble our toes in the Devon sea, we can enjoy the event wherever we are. The event is free.

Who’s coming to April’s Words on Waves? #Whitstable

April 2, 2019April 2, 2019Leave a comment

WORDS ON WAVES at HARBOUR BOOKS, WHITSTABLE has been warming our literary hearts this winter and our first spring event is this coming THURSDAY, 4 April 2019 from 6.45pm.

We’re looking forward to a magnificent line-up of local writers: Jessica Taggart, Clair Meyrick, Setareh Ebrahimi, Rosemary McLeish, Angela Dye and Ferretta Wilson, with me as your host.

Words On Waves is a series of monthly spoken word evenings showcasing a variety of writing talent and has a tendency to sell out fast. Writers of all genres have ten minutes each to amuse and amaze you, with a break at half time to refresh glasses. Tickets at only £3 each include wine.

Please book your seat by phoning 01227264011 or calling into the shop.

Who’s coming to Words on Waves?

January 16, 2019February 8, 2019Leave a comment

Words On Waves is a series of monthly spoken word evenings at Harbour Books in Whitstable and it’s the highlight of my month, not least because I get to host it. Writers bring magnificent words from all over the south east and beyond, and are encouraged to include work in progress so that sometimes we get exciting previews of projects that have not yet hit bookshop shelves. Writers of all genres are welcome and have ten minutes each to amuse and amaze you, with a break at half time to refresh glasses. Tickets at only £3 each include wine and you can book your seat by phoning 01227264011 or calling into the shop.

Our next Words on Waves is on THURSDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2019 @ 6.45pm and I’ll be thrilled to welcome Sam Rapp, Clair Meyrick, Callum Beesley, and our first publisher’s showcase, of writers published by Cultured Llama in Rochester:

Maria C. McCarthy, the herdswoman of her Cultured Llamas, has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Kent and won the Society of Authors’ Tom-Gallon Trust Award in 2015. After living for several years in Teynham, where she wrote in a shed looking out on boats on an orchard, she now lives in the Medway Towns, and looks out on boats on the river. Maria will be reading poetry from strange fruits (Cultured Llama, 2011) and There are Boats on the Orchard (Cultured Llama, 2017); and stories from As Long as it Takes (Cultured Llama, 2014)

Anna Maconochie is a London writer whose stories have appeared in the Erotic Review, the Dublin Review and the Bitter Oleander. Anna will be reading from her short story collection, Only the Visible Can Vanish, (Cultured Llama, 2016)

Ben Barton has been nominated for the Canterbury Poet of the Year Award and the erbacce-prize, and will be reading from The Hospital (Cultured Llama, 2018). Also a film artist, Ben’s film Stella Erratica was funded by the late David Bowie, and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. He lives in Folkestone with his husband and son, beside the North Downs.

Mark Holihan is a former Californian, now settled in Kent. He returns to Words on Waves, after a very popular first appearance with The Scatterlings, to read again from his Cultured Llama collection, There Are No Foreign Lands.

THURSDAY 7 MARCH 2019 @ 6.45pm:

On the eve of International Women’s Day, Words on Waves is proud to bring you The Rockhoppers (Maggie Harris, Mel Perry & Jackie Biggs) along with songwriter Jacqui Selby, Luigi Marchini, Sally Turner and Roger Tooth. A fascinating mix as ever!

THURSDAY 4 APRIL 2019 @ 6.45pm:

Our magnificent April line-up includes Jessica Taggart, Matt Chamberlain, Neelam Saredia Brayley, Rosemary McLeish, Sarah Jenkin, and Angela Dye.

And on THURSDAY 2 MAY 2019 @ 6.45pm, publisher & performance company Live Canon comes down the Thames from Greenwich to Whitstable for our second publisher’s showcase, bringing us journalist & author Mark Huband, Nancy Hynes, Andrew George & Tessa Foley.

See you there!

Words on Waves is back! Join us on 10 Jan at 6.45pm

January 2, 2019January 8, 2019Leave a comment

Chase away the winter chills with beautiful writing at WORDS ON WAVES at Harbour Books in Whitstable, Kent. Our readers include Steve Kendall, former life model Carol DeVaughan reading from her new poetry collection Life Class (Oversteps Books, 2018), Wordsmithery publisher and poet Barry Fentiman Hall, Christopher Hopkins, Angela Dye & Caroline Millar with something new, if there’s time, from Rosie herself.

Book your seat by phoning 01227264011 or calling into the shop.

Words on Waves, Whitstable: next year’s dates

December 9, 2018January 9, 2019Leave a comment

Words on Waves started in July this year in HARBOUR BOOKS, WHITSTABLE as a montly space for writers to read their work, published and in progress, to local literature fans. Writers come from far and wide and the combination of excellent words, a warm, relaxed atmosphere and Prosecco provided by the shop means it has a tendency to sell out fast.

On THURSDAY 10 JANUARY 2019 @ 6.45pm, our readers include Steve Kendall, former life model Carol DeVaughan reading from her new poetry collection Life Class (Oversteps Books, 2018), Wordsmithery publisher and poet Barry Fentiman Hall, Christopher Hopkins, Angel Cakes Dye & Caroline Millar with something new, if there’s time, from me.

On THURSDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2019 @ 6.45pm, you can hear Callum Beesley, Clair Meyrick, Sam Rapp, and a showcase of these four writers published by Cultured Llama in Rochester:

Maria C. McCarthy, the herdswoman of her Llamas, has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Kent and won the Society of Authors’ Tom-Gallon Trust Award in 2015. After living for several years in Teynham, where she wrote in a shed looking out on boats on an orchard, she now lives in the Medway Towns, and looks out on boats on the river. Maria will be reading poetry from strange fruits (Cultured Llama, 2011) and There are Boats on the Orchard (Cultured Llama, 2017); and stories from As Long as it Takes (Cultured Llama, 2014)

Anna Maconochieis’ stories have appeared in the Erotic Review, the Dublin Review and the Bitter Oleander. Anna will be reading from her short story collection, Only the Visible Can Vanish, (Cultured Llama, 2016)

Ben Barton has been nominated for the Canterbury Poet of the Year Award and the erbacce-prize, and will be reading from The Hospital (Cultured Llama, 2018). Also a film artist, Ben’s film Stella Erratica was funded by the late David Bowie, and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

Mark Holihan is a former Californian, now settled in Kent. He returns to Words on Waves after a very popular first appearance, to read again from his Cultured Llama collection, There Are No Foreign Lands.

STOP PRESS – The Rockhoppers are booked for Thursday 7 March, 2019 and Live Canon have offered to showcase four of their writers on Thursday 4 April 2019!

Book your seat by phoning 01227264011 or calling into the shop.