2012 - The Year I Read Even More Books and Even Wrote One

As an end of year sign off I thought I should probably write a few things about my reading and writing activities. I'll keep it brief. Firstly, on a personal note I should say this has been a mixed year. A lot of my family have suffered with various illnesses and I lost an aunt in February. However, my twins have kept me rather busy and entertained on the positive side.

In terms of books I've read here are some that have been key this year. I discovered Hilary Mantel this year; I devoured 'Beyond Black' and 'Giving Up the Ghost.' Next year I plan to read more. This year I also read new poetry by Kim Moore and loved her pamphlet 'If We Could Speak Like Wolves.' Another poetry collection that I enjoyed was Daniel Sluman's 'Absence Has A Weight of It's Own.' Daniel's book was launched by Nine Arches Press at the same time as mine. It's received some good reviews and I hope it continues to do well.  Will Buckingham's novel 'The Descent of the Lyre' was beautiful; a wonderfully conceived piece of work. Geoff Hattersley's 'Inside the Blue Hebium' was a quirky joy and Jacob Sam-La Rose's 'Breaking Silence' was a pleasure too. Through the serendipity of reviewing I was also impressed by Meredith Andrea's 'Organnon' and Chris McCabe's 'The Restructure.' In terms of not 2012 poetry Allison McVety's 'Miming Happiness' and the 'Making for Planet Alice' women's poetry anthology were good too. I'm scratching the surface with a teaspoon here, there was a lot of stuff I enjoyed. It was nice to get reacquainted with Danny Abse's 'Funland' which I read in ninety-ninety-something and forgot about. Carrie Etter's 'The Tethers' was also another fairly recent book which I read for the first time this year. Her reading at 'The Flying Goose' in Summer was terrific and being able to 'hear' the poetry on the page enhanced my enjoyment. Ian Duhig was another good reader at the Leicester Poetry Society in May, as was Ian McMillan around the same time. I wish I could cover everything on this blog, there's more I could mention. Of course I still have a long reading list so I will be reading more of 2012's books and previous years far on into the 2010s!

I said I'd keep this short. I can't. Obviously I was really pleased about my debut collection 'Melanchrini' out in July. It was long listed by one of the judges for the TS Eliot prize, I'd read about it by accident in The Guardian Review section. I nearly died. It's doing alright, some good, thoughtful reviews here and there. It was fabulous to launch it at the Ledbury festival in July. I've been lucky enough to do some buzzy readings this year and sell a few books! I loved doing the Wordsmiths & Co. reading with host Jo Bell in December. Also PROSE. Yes I realised I also write PROSE too (now and then). That's PROSE, not poetry. My short story 'A Daughter's Wedding' was a featured in the 'Overheard: Stories to Read Aloud' edited by Jonathan Taylor and published by Salt. Alongside some really strong writing by Hanf Kureshi, Vannessa Gebbie, actually look it up here if you like!

Crystal Clear turned into a poetry publisher of six excellent pamphlets (look here friends!) and we continue to run the mighty Shindigs in Leicester along with Nine Arches Press. Apart from the public readings I've been quiet, not submitting much, trying very hard to work on what I've got. I'll try and get back on the horse next year, but after the book I'm trying to get my next 'projects' (whatever they are) into some perspective. A year is not a long time in poetry, so I'm taking my time despite my natural impatience. I am following the words of Hilary Mantel: 'You may have to creep towards it...'

Let's finish with a song. As a teenager I was a huge Blur fan and only a week ago I'd actually found out they'd released another song this year. I'm slow! In the words of Damon Albarn 'But I am going to sing Hallelujah, Sing it out loud and sing it to you...' Sayonara 2012.

Ledbury

I'm reading at the Ledbury Festival on Sunday 8th July at the Shell House Gallery at 4pm. This event is the official launch of Melanchrini. I have of course been practising: standing in my bedroom with a stopwatch, reading to the metal frame of the bed, remembering to make eye contact with the lamp and the alarm clock. Of course I'm nervous. My fellow debut Nine Arches Press poet Daniel Sluman launched his collection Absence Has a Weight of its Own the previous Saturday. I'm also proud that the Crystal pamphleteers will be reading; Andrew Graves and Aly Stoneman at 12:15 and Jess Mayhew, Charles G Lauder and Roy Marshall at 2pm.It should be a great weekend. I've booked a couple of tickets for the Simon Armitage reading at 12:45 and the National Poetry Competition, the day before at 6pm. The tickets for this event are free by the way. I'm really looking forward to hearing Allison McVety reading her winning poem 'To the Lighthouse' and also Zaffar Kunial reading his third place poem 'Hill Speak.' I'm embedding these poems below because I think they're wonderful:

I'm Pregnant!

No, that's a lie. It's only true in a metaphorical sense, and you know how writers like that sort of thing. Ok, I'd like to announce that my debut collection Melanchrini is scheduled for publication in Summer 2012 with Nine Arches Press! I'm part of the debut series which features first collections from Andrew Frolish, Alistair Noon, Daniel Sluman. Phil Brown's Il Avilit was recently launched in London and I've heard tell it was a great event. I'll be looking forward to getting a copy very soon. Why Melanchrini? It's a Greek word meaning 'dark featured' for women, the masculine is Melanchrino.I was called Melanchrini when I was growing up, by my family. So it's personal choice, but it also rhymes with Martini, and I think that's a good thing. I like the chime with melancholy too. You can read about the debut series here: http://www.ninearchespress.com/debut.html

For the record, when I was pregnant, four whole years ago, I wrote a blog entry on how I thought I'd never write a word again. I had morning sickness from hell and it interfered with everything creative. The creativity was obviously being diverted to the twins, who were at that point floating around in the womb.The website is falling apart due to neglect, but it's still out there in Internet la la land for the time being: http://jonnyandmaria.blogspot.com/2007/12/on-not-writing-great-novel.html