Some Brilliant News

So those of you who have read my posts on putting together a collection and sending out work might be pleased to know that all the hard work has finally paid off. My collection Bird Sisters will be published by Nine Arches Press in Spring 2016. To say I am pleased would be the understatement of the year. I am absolutely delighted. Jane Commane is my editor (yes I have an editor) and I am very much looking forward to working with her. Nine Arches won the Saboteur Award for most innovative publisher last year. They publish some really interesting poetry and prose and I love their journal Under the Radar so I am very pleased that they have decided to publish me.

If you happen to be at Wenlock Poetry Festival this weekend Nine Arches are the publisher in residence.

Submissions and Inspiration

I am making a concerted effort this month to make at least one poetry submission per week - it doesn't sound like much I know but it is far more than i have been doing. I realised that I had let things go woefully on the submissions front when a few weeks ago I decided that maybe it was time to submit to The Rialto again - after all a few months had passed since I last submitted. I was shocked to discover that the last time I submitted work to the journal was actually 2012! It was a real wake-up call. I knew I had been slacking on the submissions front - and even more so since I finished my collection last year. I think the lack of movement on that front has made me lose my enthusiasm somewhat - as well as for some months quashing my creativity altogether. I am pleased to say that I am now back in the writing saddle - in part due to Jo Bell's 52 Blog - every week she posts a writing prompt and links to poems around that week's themes. It has been surprisingly inspiring - and somehow once you start writing again more and more comes. Now I just need to man up and ask the publisher who has had some of my poems for eight months to make a decision.