Blog pals

Last night I went along to The Great Grog Poetry Night and had the great pleasure of meeting Barbara Smith. She is just as I expected, a warm and intelligent woman. She was first up and she read extremely well, which is a tribute to her courage for travelling to a new city and reading to a completely new audience. Her poems really come alive when she reads them, especially the ones about her family - the characters walk right off the page.

The other three readers were also very enjoyable, especially Alan Gillis, whose rhythms and amazing word choices rocked the joint with laughter and wonder.
And Claire Askew's work featured some really unusual themes, and Sally Evans read from her series poem The Bees, which is beautiful and features an elephant. I bought a copy for myself, but feel I must share it with my young nephew who is mad about elephants - to the extent that he fashions them from the red wax on Baby Bellings!

Well done Rob MacKenzie, it was my first time at Grog, shore leave is not easy to get around here, but I loved the relaxed atmosphere of the event. And he has some stellar future line-ups too.

I've have so much going on here it is just crazy. Arrangements for Heart Notes launches are going well, although I really struggle to do this kind of thing - it seems to feed every insecurity I have.

Also took great pleasure from noting some happy events with other bloggers, A Wanderer in Paris is expecting a baby and Absolute Vanilla has got married. Both lovely reminders that life is all about change!

Now back the chaos that is my life right now!

Catching the rays

It's too good to be indoors, and it won't last. So I'll catch up with everyone in a few days.

Meanwhile a few photos, two of a line of beech that were intended as hedge. but never cut, and a wee posie of blue flowers from my garden.

Later dudes!

Sunday Mix

Mary Chapin Carpenter, Joan Baez and Angus and Julia Stone

Randy Pausch's final lecture

I heard about this one the radio. It is a wonderful performance full of wisdom, wit and guts.


"Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want" A quote from his childhood football coach.

Heart Notes

I went over to Dunbar last night to an event that Colin And Jo Gibson were putting on for the Dunbar part of Tyne and Esk writers. They took over a local cafe for the evening and it was a nice environment for novice readers to try out their wings.

I picked up some copies of Heart Notes and it looks really good. The cover has printed really well, so my colour management software is really doing the business.
And the paper and text layout looks clean and crisp.

Colin and I are meeting tomorrow to think about a launch. I've got a few ideas already. The charity I help in Edinburgh has offered their meeting space for free if I want to do a reading there. It is very central so I may take them up on the offer.

Josh Ritter

Yay

Colin's told me Heart Notes will be ready by the end of the week. I can't wait to see it after all the work we've put into it.

The other Calder Wood Press publications are going to be a hard act to follow.

There's going to be a stall at our town festival soon, so hopefully copies can be sold there. I already have a woman asking me for a printed copy of the National Galleries' poem, as a friend in Edinburgh went to the event and would like a written copy prior to the anthology coming out next year.