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Congratulations are in order for another Salt poet and friend, Tony Williams, whose book The Corner of Arundel Lane and Charles Street has been shortlisted for this year’s Aldeburgh prize! I wish Tony all the best for it. The Corner … is an absolutely cracking collection and would be a deserving winner. (The full shortlist
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Being Notice of a few Readings and Workshops coming soon to a Town possibly — hopefully — somewhere near you. On Monday 4 October, I’ll be in Newcastle reading alongside Rob A Mackenzie and Red Squirrel Press poets Kevin Cadwallender, Tom Kelly, Eleanor Livingstone and Alistair Robinson. It’s part of Red Squirrel week and is likely to take
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I’ve recently surprised myself by joining Twitter and quite enjoying it. You can find and follow me here. In fact, there’s a whole list of Salt authors on Twitter you can follow in one fell swoop.
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It’s turning into Video Thursday here at Tonguefire, but I simply couldn’t resist posting this one. It’s funny, draws you in and it’s uncomfortably true to life. I knew nothing about this guy until Mairi Sharratt posted the video on Facebook today. Altogether a brilliant, subtle, highly entertaining piece of book promotion (or, rather, author promotion): (Gulp.
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Dundee — city of jute, jam and journalism; city of Discovery; city of life sciences and computer games — was looking splendid in the sun as I rolled up a week past Friday for my reading at the literary festival. It’s a fantastic train ride up along the east coast from Waverley, not least that
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It has been, I know, far too long. So I’m doubly sorry you’re not going to get much of a post out of me for the moment. Suffice to say there’s too much to catch up on: the Salt Scotland launch, the HappenStance birthday party and said Fife-based press winning the Michael Marks Award. Plus
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Last week, Scotland’s official makar and most inventive living poet Edwin Morgan reached the grand age of 90 and published a new book Dreams and Other Nightmares: New and Uncollected Poems 1954-2009. Simply amazing still to be publishing at that age and to have uncollected poems worth collecting from that stretch of time. But then,
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As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m delighted to be reading at this year’s Dundee Literary Festival on Friday 25 June in the lunchtime “Poem and a piece” strand at 12.30. For your £5, you not only get to hear — <modest cough> I didn’t write this bit of copy — “this stunning new
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It’s great not only to see a Salt book on the shortlist for the inaugural Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry* but that the book in question is Chris Agee’s powerful, heartbreaking, profound Next to Nothing. The book records the years following the death of Agee’s daughter in poems of great honesty and
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Geri Loup-Nolan and I had a really productive meeting yesterday to start pinning down the form of our radial poem participation project for Hidden Door. It’s beginning to come together in exciting ways. I’ve collaborated with artists before, but this is the first time the form of the work has been quite so collaborative. In
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To celebrate the fact that The Ambulance Box is now available in paperback (£9.99, but there’s 20% off at the Salt online shop, of course), here’s that wonderful track from The Beatles. The harmonies! The guitar riff! Is there a more exemplary pop song?
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It’s a touch rough and ready, perhaps — not the steadiest cam in the world — but I’ve just discovered this video of a little over half my Merchant City Festival set lurking on YouTube. You can watch me read “Cardiac”, “In Question to the Answers?”, “The Invention of Zero” and “The Ambulance Box”. (I really
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Yesterday, my copy of The Forward Book of Poetry 2010 arrived through the post. And a lovely job they’ve done of it too. The cover design is strong, elegant, and simple; the book is pleasantly thick and chunky in the hand. Indeed, the back cover proclaims it “the biggest yet” of the Forward books, with
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Here’s the poster for the Merchant City Festival writing conference: It doesn’t have my name on it, but I will be workshopping and reading as previously advertised! Times are still to be confirmed, but it looks like the workshop will be about 2 pm. Check the ONE magazine site for further updates on the line-up.
Amy Jo Philip 