I’ll be running two beginner poetry courses this autumn. One of these is an online general poetry course, open to anyone who’d like to start writing poetry, or to take a fresh look at the nuts and bolts of how poetry writing works. The other course will be in-person (in Cardiff, UK) and is specifically focused on poetry that explores neurodiversity, open to anyone who has (or who thinks they might have) lived experience of neurodivergence (diagnosed, self-diagnosed, or undiagnosed). Continue reading
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Ten Years of Book Blogging! A Celebration, Reflection & Top Ten Books
I launched my book blog 10 years ago, on 18th March 2016. So this month I am celebrating 10 years of book blogging! To mark the occasion, I’ve selected my Top Ten books for Ten years of Book Blogging… and I’m also partnering with local bookshop, Book Space Cardiff, to offer free copies of How to Start a Book Blog: A Step by Step Guide via Instagram (scroll down for more details).
A lot has changed in those ten years. I started the book blog because (after being made redundant from a job I loved) I was fed up, bored, and jealous of a friend who had a blog, and I also had quite a lot of time on my hands… Continue reading
A Summer of Publication: Poetry, Fiction and The Submission Process
As with buses, you can wait many months for a poem to be published, only to find that several publications come all at once. Suddenly, it looks as though you’ve become incredibly prolific, when the reality is that much of the writing and editing has been going on behind the scenes for several years! This summer has been particularly fruitful for me. I’ve also been lucky enough to be involved in a poetry-chain project organised by Gill Connors, and the launch of my poetry-film (which I began work on last summer) will take place at the end of October. Continue reading
An Online Creative Writing Course: Writing Neurodiversity
I’m really excited to be teaching five different creative writing courses next year (2025-26) and all of these short courses will be taught online, so that means anyone, from anywhere, could sign up! One of these creative writing courses will be aimed at fellow neurodivergent writers. If that’s you, and you’re interested in reflecting on your own experience of neurodiversity through writing, then keep on reading… I’ll be posting more details about the other four courses very soon! Continue reading
Back to the Book Blog: Teaching, Readings and Reviews
I used to love writing blog posts and book reviews, and then I became a PhD student. From 2019 to 2024 I buried myself waist-deep in research while juggling a career as a freelance poet, creative writing teacher and academic. So I’m afraid this blog has taken a back seat for a while. Inspired by some of my fellow poets and their fabulous writer blogs (Natalie Ann Holborrow and Zoë Brigley, in particular) I am going to try and add a new blog post at least once a month, so here we go… Continue reading
The End of an Era: Completing the PhD at Gregynog Hall
In December 2019 I visited Gregynog Hall for the first time – a gorgeous, rambling old mansion in mid Wales, where the annual Cardiff University Creative Writing retreat takes place. I was still working out what the plan would be for my PhD over the coming years, with no concept of what 2020 would bring. Continue reading
PhD Progress, Poetry, Collage and My Book Launch!
I have struggled a lot with my health over the past few months, but I also have a lot to be thankful for in what is effectively the final year of my PhD. The two writing retreats I attended in December were fruitful. I spent much of January writing new poems based on the January Writing Hour prompts provided by Kim Moore and Clare Shaw, inspired by the response to my interactive poetry museum display last autumn. Continue reading
The Joys of Poetry Editing and Writing Retreats
I love editing my poems. There’s a thrill in getting that first draft down on the page, but nothing beats spending hours, days, weeks, months (even years) pondering over a poem, testing out words, switching line breaks, finding the perfect form. However, I’ve never been in quite this position before, knowing that the final changes I’m making right now will end up as an actual book of poems. My debut collection Octopus Mind is due for publication in July, and the deadline is looming. Continue reading
Poetry in the Art Museum: In So Many Words
For the past nine weeks I’ve enjoyed seeing my PhD theories come to life, in the form of an interactive poetry display at National Museum Wales. The response has been phenomenal, beyond anything I could have imagined, and it’s been a real privilege to see so many people interacting with the display in different ways. Continue reading
Soaking up the Poetry at Ledbury Poetry Festival
I’ve just spent two fabulous days losing myself in the delights of language at this year’s Ledbury Poetry Festival. It was hot and sunny, and although many of the events were available to watch online, I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere of being right there, in the old town of Ledbury. The workshops were held upstairs in the Heritage Centre, a quaint (and very wonky) building, with a sloping floor. Continue reading
A Creative Writing PhD – The Third Year (Part 1)
It feels like this year has been busier than ever, probably because in-person things have started happening again, and it’s so nice to see real people!
The academic year started off with a bang, as my first ever peer-reviewed journal article was published online! The title is ‘Shaping the Lyric: Literal and Metaphorical Blank Space in the Poetry of Emily Berry and Ocean Vuong’ and it’s freely available online if you’d like to read it. It began life as a 2000 word essay for my MA, a few years ago, and I’ve spent many, many, many hours re-working and extending it for publication. I initially tried a different journal, and made it all the way through the peer review process, only to be turned down at the last minute. I’m so glad I decided to try again!
A Creative Writing PhD – The Second Year
My first year as a creative writing PhD student was fairly eventful, with a pandemic taking over every aspect of life from March onwards. Looking back, I think the routine of PhD work, with the opportunity to immerse myself in research, was the main thing that kept me going through the lockdown. The second year has included teaching online, running workshops online, organising a conference (also online) and plenty of reading, mainly from the comfort of my own home. For obvious reasons, I don’t have many photos! Continue reading
Poet in Residence at the Cynon Valley Museum
For the month of June I’ve been writing and posting new poems on the Cynon Valley Museum website, responding to their online art exhibitions, and artefacts from their collection. I was privileged to work at the museum for a few months last year, before starting my PhD, and was impressed by their high quality art exhibitions, some of which you can now see online. Continue reading
Interview: Creating a Book Blog in Lockdown
The other day I was delighted to hear from someone who had read my book How to Start a Book Blog: A Step by Step Guide and used it to create their own brand-new book blog, making the most of the lockdown, and the extra time they’ve had to spend at home over the last few weeks!
So here’s an interview with Megan, creator of the ‘Behind her Books’ blog…
What makes a good book blog?
What makes a good book blog? That’s the question I asked when I decided to create a book blog of my own, and to celebrate the beginning of a new year I’m giving away two free copies of my book ‘How to Start a Book Blog: A Step by Step Guide’ which is full of tips and advice for anyone interested in book blogging (see details of how to enter this giveaway below). Of course everyone will have different ideas about what makes a good book blog, but here are my top five… Continue reading
Poetry – Feedback, Submissions and the #100Rejections Challenge
How do you decide which poems to submit to which magazines, and when? How do you cope when your poems get rejected? And how do you respond to critical and constructive feedback? These three questions are ones which I’m sure every poet grapples with, and I’ve certainly had my fair share of grappling this year. It’s helpful to pause and look back every now and then, so here are my reflections on taking part in the #100rejections challenge… Continue reading
Being Published – An Interview with Gareth Davies
Gareth Davies’ novel humans, being has just been published by Cinnamon Press. The book centres around Vic, a middle-aged comedian whose wife has just left him. Vic must come to terms with his new life as a part-time dad, looking after his son (Elis) whilst attempting to get back into the dating game, unsure who he’s looking for, or how to find her. He soon discovers that life can become quite confusing, and his best friend Mia is having troubles of her own…
Book Review: On Poetry by Glyn Maxwell
On Poetry is not just another book about poetry, it’s in a whole category of its own. It’s short, and concise, but also full of irony, subtlety and humour. It has a simple structure and purpose, to break poetry down to its basic elements and encourage you to pick them up for yourself, beginning with ‘white’ – a chapter which considers the essential element of white space on the page – the one thing that, Maxwell argues, divides poetry from prose. After reading this chapter, I had to put the book down to process it for a while, and then I read the whole chapter again. It’s that kind of book. Continue reading
Writing on a Global Scale: An Interview with Dylan Moore, Hay Festival International Fellow
Dylan Moore is a writer, editor, critic and English teacher living in South Wales. His first book Driving Home Both Ways was published by Parthian in 2018, and he was named as the Hay Festival Creative Wales International Fellow for 2018-19.
Dylan and I met a few years ago, when he happened to marry one of my close friends, and I was chuffed to hear that he was given the Hay Festival Fellowship, a programme that allows a writer from Wales to participate in international Hay Festival events throughout the year, in Colombia, Spain, Peru and Mexico as well as Hay itself. I thought it would be interesting, as he nears the end of this momentous year, to find out how it has shaped and developed his work as a writer… Continue reading
Three Years of Blogging – Part 1: Fiction & Festivals
I launched this book blog on 18th March 2016, with no idea where it would lead me. Looking back over the last three years it’s hard to believe all that has happened in between. Reviewing books written by other people gave me the courage to look back at my own writing again, after years of relegating it to a dusty shelf, and to send it out into the world. So, to celebrate my three-year blogaversary I’ve picked out some of the posts I’ve most enjoyed writing, including my top three fiction reviews and my top three literary festivals… Continue reading