We’ve lost another one. After mourning the loss of Kevin Ireland in 2023, then Vincent O’Sullivan in 2024, the triumvirate has been completed by the death of Brian Turner yesterday. Like Kevin and Vincent, I had had the pleasure of meeting Brian through CPC on a number of occasions. I can remember emceeing a reading …
New Year, New Resolutions for Writers: time to fan-girl (or -boy, or -non-binary)
This is a post I was going to … um, post … quite a while ago, but then life overtook me. And then (metaphorically) ran me off the road, and I’ve been trudging my way back to (metaphorical/mental/temporal) civilisation ever since. It comes from discussions with my students about what it means to be a …
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Possessing Unpopular Opinions 2 – Ink IS Innovation
The following is the final draft of the talk I gave for Ink versus Innovation back in August. I don’t go into a huge amount of detail on any one point – four minutes is a lot faster on paper than you think – so for those who are interested, four sources that you might …
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Possessing Unpopular Opinions – Ink versus Innovation
Back in August, I was invited to take part in a gloriously quirky event at WORD – Unpopular Opinions: Ink and Innovation. It’s run by a great organisation called Publica, and the idea is pretty simple: get six people to make an unpopular argument on one side or another of a common topic, and then …
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Ambivalence, productivity, plans and blaming Selima Hill
One of the things I’ve been working on over the course of the last fifteen months is a series of poems that started when dad was dying. I am what I am: a writer. There is always a part of me that stands apart, and starts shaping words around whatever experience I’m having, or seeing …
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A Dark Feathered Art 