Poetry sale: Plunge Magazine

I’m back from a wonderful trip to the UK – much silliness, laughter and shenanigans ensued in London, Elmswell and Deganwy. I swam in a glacial lake in my underwear, took lots of photos of castles and the Welsh hills, watched trolling Saruman and enjoyed myself muchly in the company of dear friends. The only […]

‘Wolf Daughter’ online at Strange Horizons!

I feel like a fool because my poem ‘Wolf Daughter’ has been online at Strange Horizons for a week, and I’ve failed to notice before now! Read it here! Anyway! This is my celebratory wee-hours-of-the-night post. I feel really happy to have a poem in Strange Horizons – it’s a wonderful publication full of really […]

Poetry in Polu Texni: Beauty Remembers

Excellent news for this June Monday: my poem ‘Beauty Remembers’ is now online at Polu Texni. Read it here! * Since the poem was inspired by the tale of Beauty and the Beast, I think this is the time to wax lyrical about how much that fairy tale has inspired and continues to inspire me. […]

Poetry sale to Niteblade

News of yay: my poem ‘Bitter Mnemosyne’ will be appearing in the fantasy and horror magazine Niteblade. Am very pleased that this poem has found such a good home! It’s about memory, cherries, and a journey to the underworld. Greek mythology was one of my childhood’s great inspirations, so of course such themes surface occasionally […]

Whinging and worldbuilding

The pressure to come up with a brilliant post after a long time of not posting: I have it. So, I’ll just get this out, sans brilliance, but posted at least! I haven’t been writing too much recently. In the past month, I’ve written just a couple of poems and such – oh, and my […]

Drabble for my grandfather

Long time no blog. Busy, &c &c. ad nauseam. Last night at my writers’ group I led an exercise on description. We each brought an interesting object and then spent five minutes writing short descriptions of each. It brought out some really good stuff, I think – a nice exercise. And one of the objects […]

Sunday recs: Calls, swans, mermaids

I have several things I want to blog about, but life’s been giving me little time for reflection lately, and most of those potential posts require reflection. So, we’ll just do a very modest Sunday recs tonight. A poem: Learning My Way Around by Neile Graham, from Goblin Fruit’s autumn 2011 issue. Birds, breadcrumbs, calls. […]

Morning pages experiment

So. I said I’d blog about morning pages, so here goes! Definition Morning pages. Brief definition for those who don’t feel like clicking the link above (in which Julia Cameron outlines the original concept): morning pages are three longhand pages written in the morning. They don’t have to be – shouldn’t be – amazing writing. […]

Walking in snowbroth

Slept late, read a wonderful book for two hours, went for a walk. A poem rushed out, and I thought I’d share it here: * * * Crushed Ice I can’t see my future, the coming years are hidden but in this moment the sun’s shining on me, the sky’s coloured with promises. The night […]

Short stories: the challenges of brevity

I edited and sent off a short story today. Exciting! I should really write more shorts. The trouble is, I often tend to go for expansive stuff rather than the knife-sharp and short stuff… I’ve been thinking I should practise writing flash fiction to hone my short-writing skills. Was inspired by this piece in The […]