Blog

  • Poetry Giveaway, Thank You and Invitation to Subscribe

    We are all drowning under the rush of organisations begging us to sign up to their newsletters before 25th May when data protection laws tighten up. Unfortunately I have to add to the deluge but as a sign of appreciation for loyal readers I’m running a little competition in which I will give away: A…

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  • Guest, S. J.Bradley

    Guest is the ironic title of this coming of age novel about a young man who squats in a former hotel. The title calls to mind the uninvited wedding guest or one of the absent friends and relatives your mother might raise a glass to at Christmas meals. Who is the guest here? Is it…

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  • Labelling Writers and Writing Labels

    There was a huge furore in the poetry world last week begun by Rebecca Watts’s article criticising what she refers to as ‘amateur’ spoken word poetry and three of its most successful artists – Holly McNish, Rupi Kaur and Kate Tempest. Part of the scandal was down to the personal, and arguably unkind, tone of…

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  • Herself Alone In Orange Rain, Tracey Iceton

    Picture a member of the Provisional IRA and you won’t be alone in imagining a balaclava-clad man in his twenties or thirties. Think again. ‘Official numbers are small but unconfirmed accounts report a 50-50 male-female attendance at IRA training camps,’ Iceton tells us in the author’s note of Herself Alone in Orange Rain. Women were…

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