I had a wonderful time in Devon, celebrating my birthday with a poet friend, en route to the Ways with Words Literary Festival at Dartington.  I read in the morning with the other ‘new’ Oversteps poets (David Broadbridge, Christine Whittemore and Richard Skinner). We all bought a copy of the other poets’ books.  The weather was glorious and I enjoyed a healthy salad lunch with a few women poets where we compared notes and exchanged experiences and gave one another tips and suggestions about new outlets.  In the afternoon a number of Oversteps Books poets read their poems on historical figures.  I read four poems, including Joan and On reaching his 102nd birthday which imagines a long life for a writer who died young.

I came back to some good news: my poem Leaving Czechoslovakia, 1964 that didn’t do anything in an annual competition had caught the eye of the editor administrating this competition, so it’s now included in the anthology Songs for the Unsung, which Grey Hen Press expects to publish this autumn.  It’s just a good reminder to send work out into the world…

The launch of the new printed magazine Strix is at the Hyde Park Book Club in Leeds tomorrow, Wednesday 5 July, from 7:00pm.  Editors Ian Harker and Andrew Lambeth are looking for poems and short fiction for the next issue.  My poem Whitby Scenes made the first issue and I’m sorry to miss the launch: I’m heading down to Devon where I’ll be reading later this week at the “Ways with Words” literary festival at Dartington and meeting up with a poet friend en route.