Here we are at the beginning of the second third of the year. And I had such plans! I was going to have the manuscript of book #3 ready to go out to my readers (err, another month? Or maybe two?), I was going to have all my teaching for 2026 booked and ready (umm…), …
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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2024 – A year to remember/forget/survive/happen
So here we are again, with the final few hours of the year ticking down. It’s been quite a year. I’m not going to touch on news, current events, politics etc (just take argh as read) – I’ve had to stop listening to roughly half my podcasts for the sake of my emotional wellbeing (you …
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Falling in love (still/more/again) with teaching Shakespeare’s Sonnets
I’ve just finished teaching a five week course based (heavily) on Don Paterson’s Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets: a new commentary (and the amazing iPad app that goes with it – god I love that thing!). I’ve written about it before, and how much I enjoy his style of commentary – intelligent, engaged, but definitely a bit …
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A busy winter … (and spring … and …)
As the title of this post suggests, I’ve been a busy woman lately. Which isn't unusual for me at this time of year – historically my best and most productive periods of writing have tended to be in winter. But this year has been … different. Turns out that winning awards makes stuff happen! First, …
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