virtual book tours
-
There were some strained moments last week on the Ambulance Box tour bus after the driver nearly fell asleep at the wheel in the Swiss Alps and the tour manager’s navigation nearly had us in Luxembourg rather than heading Londonward. But nobody has actually fallen out or off and, today, we reach our final stop
-
The Clockwork Gift is Claire Crowther’s second collection. It’s a rich and powerful book from a unique voice. I started off our chat by asking about the poem “Open Plan“. Andrew Philip: Welcome to Tonguefire, Claire. I love the unsettled and unsettling examination of contemporary family life in this poem. What was its genesis? Claire
-
The Ambulance Box tour bus nears the end of its journey this week as I pull into Switzerland and the blog of poet, academic and musician Andrew Shields. Andrew is a tough questioner! But I enjoyed it. Click here to read his questions to me about Scots and German, my poetics and lists.
-
I’ll be interviewing another Shearsman poet, Claire Crowther, here on Friday 31 July. The following poem comes from her marvellous new collection The Clockwork Gift. Open Plan They took the walls away without warning.The roof floated, a miraculous over of shelter.We were caught out. We cooled quickly. A sty? My hands made paws? My lover
-
Siriol Troup’s Beneath the Rime, her second full collection of poetry, was published earlier this year by the wonderful Shearsman Press. I first met Siriol when we read together at StAnza 2006, along with Richard Price, and was only too pleased when asked to take part in her virtual book tour. Andrew Philip: It’s a
-
If a disadvantage of touring virtually is that you don’t get long stretches of reading time on trains or planes, one advantage is certainly the ability to skip back and forth over huge stretches of ocean and land as if you had a little nut tree. Accordingly, this week finds me back in the USA
-
I’ll be interviewing the poet Siriol Troup here on Tonguefire on Friday, 24 July. The following poem comes from her new collection, Beneath the Rime. Nox Elephantorum– Elephant Night at the Coliseum Climb the railings by moonlight – you’ll find uson our knees in the ring, turning tricksunder the sky’s black awning. Such eloquentdesolation: the
-
Unoccupied as I am and have been, I’ve added another date to the Ambulance Box virtual tour: on 5 August, I’ll be at fellow Salt poet Anne Berkeley‘s blog Squared.
-
Others may be going on a summer holiday, but here at Tonguefire the Ambulance Box virtual tour bus keeps chugging along. It’s a remarkable engine, managing to pull me over the Atlantic and back in a week with barely a dampened spark plug to speak of. Today, it pulls into Cadwallender, the eponymous blog of
-
My Cyclone virtual book tour skips over the Atlantic today to stop in Ojai, California at poet Robert Peake’s blog. Thanks to the wonders of Skype and Robert’s technical know-how, you can see and hear us discuss the surprises of publication; language; the music of poetry; the importance of the page; and grief and hope.
-
Just back online after my trip to London for the Lemon Monkey reading (a fanstastic evening of which more anon) and a brief computer hiatus enforced by redecorating. All of which leaves me with two tour stops to catch up on. First of all, on Monday, as Rob Mackenzie and I sped southwards on the
-
Today’s tour stop is at the blog of Dundee-born artist Douglas Robertson. Doug has turned our chat via Facebook messages into a fine post about my sequence of “Hebridean Thumbnails”, incorporating the poems themselves and beautiful, deft sketches he has created to accompany them. I say it’s about the sequence, but that’s really only the
-
Whoops! I’ve got a day behind myself in posting the links to my Cylone virtual book tour. Thankfully, Claire Askew is on the ball and posted her interview with me on her One Night Stanzas blog yesterday as advertised. Drop by and read about how I became a writer, how I got from my first
-
This week, the Ambulance Box virtual book tour stops off at Fiona Veitch Smith‘s fine blog The Crafty Writer, a rich resource of information about the craft and business of writing. Click here to read my poem “Lullaby”, our discussion of writing as therapy, the marketing of writing in Scots, getting your poetry published and
-
Lifting the Lid: the Ambulance Box virtual book tour gets under way today over at Our sweet old etcetera … the blog of the Scottish Poetry Library. Pop by and read about my earliest influences, Weebles, my writing methods and more besides.
Amy Jo Philip 