Sometime last year I took my daughter to a friend’s birthday party. As I stood in the café area of our local swimming pool, chatting to one of the birthday girl’s grandparents, hands deep in the pockets of my bulky khaki-coloured parka, I suddenly had a moment of what can only be best described as déjà […]
Seeing Myself in My Parents; Seeing My Parents in Myself Read More »
A couple of weeks ago I had a total of 20 creative pieces ‘out there’ in submissions land. I was pleased with the progress I’d made, considering my time for creativity (and the organization time necessary for sending off and keeping track of subs) is so limited. I went to bed with a sense of
Our Cat, a Little Bird and Some Thoughts on ‘Persuasion’ Read More »
I’m sure that many people are aware of how the UK government’s interference with the education system is failing children. You only have to read this powerful article about the school, work, world problem – and this one by my friend Sophie – to see that something is very badly wrong with mainstream education. I
When Poetry Saved The Day Read More »
Oh dear, my title has given away all the exciting stuff I was going to explain. Never mind. So yeah… I haven’t really ‘done’ New Year’s Resolutions for a few years now, and that’s mainly because those huge, rather amorphous resolutions like: I’m going to lose weight! Get richer! Become famous! (<– the
New Year’s Resolutions? No thanks. I’ll do ‘Sustainable Positive Habits’ Instead. Read More »
I had intended for this blog post to be about some books that I read recently and greatly appreciated, but instead, something rather big happened here in the UK which derailed me. (Apologies to writers Angela Topping, Kate Garrett, Sarah James and Jessica Starr – reviews of your books will be along later.) I
Neoliberalism: the invisible monster Read More »
As some of you already know, as an HSP I’m slow to react to stuff. Which is why I’m not writing a new year’s resolutions post in January; I’m still thinking about stuff that happened in December. Our Christmas was rather fraught and we’ll probably always remember it as the one where our youngest was
A Christmas argument… and cognitive dissonance Read More »
As an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) I often find the world overwhelming. Sometimes I think it would have been good to live long ago before television and the internet, and the crazy thing that is social media, were invented. But I’m equally aware that not having things like antibiotics and antibacterial soap and clean water
Social media, high sensitivity and overwhelm Read More »
Things have been super-hectic here, what with the usual summer activities – Sports Day, the school play and the village fair – but also my own work publishing other people’s books has kept me very, very busy. I recently published a middle-grade children’s/crossover book called Oy Yew, by Ana Salote. It is simply a superb
Overwhelm, publishing and our favourite children’s books Read More »
Having just now come to an end of a period of mentorship I am taking a break. I am in an ‘interlude’. For the past year I’ve been a mentor to a wonderful woman. The year before that I mentored another remarkable woman. Without going into too much detail, I wanted to write about what
The Mentor’s Journey (Interlude) Read More »
When I was about fifteen or sixteen, I had to write a kind of list poem for my English studies. I think I called it something like ‘Nervousness’ and it was a whole list of things that made me feel ‘nervousness’. My teacher corrected me, writing that ‘anxiety’ was a better word to use. She