Autumn Happenings

It looks like this Autumn is going to be particularly eventful for me.

On Saturday September 16th I’m going to be borrowing a time-turner to do two events in one day. In the morning, I’ll be reading for Caught by The River at The Good Life Experience in Hawarden in Flintshire.

In the evening I’ll be back up in Grasmere for a reading and discussion to close Dorothy’s Colour, an exhibition of art and poetry by Zoe Benbow and Sarah Corbett, at The Wordsworth Trust. 

The following weekend I’ll be over in Newcastle for the Penguin Random House Write Now scheme, getting advice on a non-fiction project I’m working on. I’m so thankful to have been chosen for one of the writing days, and hope it will help me move forward with the book.

The weekend after that, I’m returning to Wigtown Book Festival, where I’ll be reading with Claire Askew. I’m very excited that this means we’ll be there for the festival ceilidh, and will try to have a) recovered from my last ceilidh injury by then, and b) acquired some ankle support. Will has been reading bits of Diary of a bookseller to me to get us in the frame. We were intrigued that the book covered the 2014 festival we were at, and relieved not to recognise ourselves in the pages.

A little over a week later, I’ll be in London for the launch of the 2018 Gladstone’s Library writers-in-residence programme, celebrated with an evening at the National Liberal Club on Monday October 9th. I’m going to be in residence in the library in February 2018, and will be posting details soon of the workshop and talk I’ll be doing as part of my residency.

The following weekend sees me crossing the North yet again for the Durham Book Festival Rich Seams Northern Poets event. I’m beginning to think I need a dragon, or to learn to travel by map. The other poets featured are Degna Stone, Kim Moore, Malika Booker, Mark Pajak, Melissa Lee-Houghton, Pippa Little, Ruby Robinson, Zaffar Kunial, Vidyan Ravinthiran and Seán Hewitt, and we’ll be introduced by Durham Book Festival Laureate Andrew McMillan. You can support the production of a special vinyl recording of this event through Unbound. Rewards include the chance to have a poem commissioned by whichever of the poets you choose, or to meet the poets backstage for a post-recording drink.

I’ve then got a little gap, before reading with Elizabeth-Jane Burnett at Kendal Mountain Festival, Saturday 18th November. I can’t wait to read Swims. There’s a great literature programme at KMF this year, with lots for everyone.

Somewhere in between all this I’ll be making shiny jar-fulls of jelly, trying to keep swimming outdoors as long as I can hack it, running my poetry reading group at Dove Cottage each month and, oh, writing, of course.