My Writing Life
Last week was the Lancaster Litfest’s main series of events. First of all it’s great to see the Fest revived after a time of financial uncertainty. There was a series of events over several days and I went to part of the Poetry Day at the Public Library on last Saturday. This event focused on showcasing poets who have been published by two local presses, Wayleave and Emma Press.
I can’t write an unbiased account of the Wayleave contribution as the poets published by and the people who run it are local and part of a network of writers I know and whose work I have seen in many guises at readings and launches over the years. It is sufficient to say that the session was enjoyable and lived up to my, now very high, expectations of this press.
In contrast the work of Emma Press was completely new to me. They have published a couple of A6 booklets of the work of young poets. It was enjoyable to hear new voices and to see new work, although the participants battled against the poor acoustic and their nerves and inexperience at performing. The afternoon also gave an opportunity for us local poets to network away, which is always fun. There is much more to come as the poetry calendar fills up for the coming months.
April Poets are here again on Thursday 14th April at 7.30. at the Storey in Lancaster for their tenth year. It’s a great event and if you’ve never been, and live locally, go along. I’m going to miss this one as I’ll be away on holiday, but it’s a good night of poetry and music.
Last, but most certainly not least, as a member of Brewery Poets I have to plug the first ever Kendal Poetry Festival 24th to 26th June at Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal. We have a great programme with many top line poets and lots of workshops and open mics etc. Follow the link, look at the programme, and book.
See you there!
Reading Week
Have I any time for reading books and poetry mags with all this festival stuff? Well a bad back has laid me low this week so I have actually spent more time reading and writing than I usually would.
Poetry magazines have been my things lately. I picked up a couple at StAnza and the ones I subscribe to have come round with their spring issue. I have enjoyed reading Envoi, MsLexia and Magma this last week or so. As someone who wants to get poems into magazines I really think there is no better way than to read what they take and it’s worth the extra expenditure. None of them come out that often. I have also found my way into The Compass, an online magazine. I think the content is really good but I do find the interface via their website a bit irritating. I would be interested to know what others think. Maybe it’s just me being an old fuddy-duddy. I have been reading novels too, but more about those next time.
Hare in the Headlights
It’s confession time: I’ve been reading poetry magazines because I am currently sending poems off to various ones, one at a time, to see if I can get some of my stuff published. The blow came when last week when I received my first polite rejection, on the grounds that they have a lot of submissions, from Envoi magazine. I felt somewhat consoled when I read that J.K Rowling tweeted this week that the publishers who rejected her first detective novel, written under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith, advised her to go on a creative writing course!
So I have moved swiftly on and sent three poems off today to Magma to their issue on Comedy. There are not really funny poems but they do have humour and I hope to get somewhere with them. I’ll keep you posted.
That’s all for now.