Here’s a snippet of one of the songs that Summer All Year Long are singing at the Vagina Museum on Friday. It’s a setting of Chloe Balcomb’s poem, Gutsy Menopausal Woman, which is in Menopause the Anthology. Music by Juliet Desailly.
Tickets via the museum, not eventbrite!
An introduction to the background of Birds Knit My Ribs Together
a debut poetry collection from photographer/musician/naturalist Phil Barnett
More to follow!
A week ago we took Menopause The Anthology out to Common Press in Shoreditch and read to a small but appreciative audience who were very willing to eat cake and talk poetry, menopause and fiction, and join in with an open mic.
Here are a few photos…
Lucy Lasasso, Anne Macaulay, Catherine Pestano, Clare Starling, Mary Mulholland, Jane McLaughlin, JP Seabright, Cherry Potts, and the book display!
Common Press have several copies in stock if you are local and missed the event.
We well and truly launched Getting by in Tligolian last week, with a live event in Galway on Monday and an online one on Tuesday
Here are the videos of the Q&A between author Roppotucha Greenberg and editor Cherry Potts.
The City:
The Language:
The Time-Travelling Trains:
impact of time travel on mourning:
getting the end right:
Buy the book from us in print or ebook.
I had a psychological menopause before the physical one. By my early fifties, I’d had enough of the whole business of menstruation and was ready to move on. Unfortunately, my ovaries were still hard at it. But as soon as my periods started getting the tiniest bit irregular, I decided that was it. As far as I was concerned, it was all over. Unfortunately, in fact, it was all over, bar the bleeding. Each time I had a period, I was taken by surprise. Each time, I’d think,
What? This, again? Really?
So that was the inspirational force behind my poem, Enough Already. It’s a villanelle, and I hope that the repeating, re-cycling form reflects something of its subject matter. I was delighted when I saw Arachne’s call-out for submissions to an anthology on the menopause. I was ready for it, and by then, I’m happy to report, I was through the menopause as well!
Join us online TODAY Friday 6th October at 1pm for our first sneek preview of the book, in advance of publication. Free tickets via eventbrite
Claire Lynn teaches Creative Writing around Northumberland. Her poems have been placed in the Bridport Prize (1999), the Wasafiri New Writing Prize (2017) and Marsden the Poetry Village Competition (2019) and have been published in Virago anthology “The Nerve”, the Ver Prize anthology (2017), the Wolverhampton Literature Festival Anthology 2020, Beyond the Storm: Poems from the Covid-19 era, The New European and Independent newspapers, and various magazines including Butcher’s Dog, Smiths Knoll, Writing Women, Other Poetry and Dream Catcher. Her poem Sixteen Summers was commissioned by the Ilkley Literature Festival 2022.
Back when we first started asking people to submit to Menopause: The Anthology, we said
This anthology will be published on Menopause Day, 18th October 2023. When, we have decided, all (post)menopausal women should celebrate their last period, since we never actually know when it happened. Memorial or celebration, you choose, but we will be having cake.
And now with the launches approaching, I’m starting to think about what kind of cake Menopause cake would be.
My go-to-cake for launches (partly because it travels, and cuts thin slices that hold together, well) is a chocolate/almond/brandy affair which comes with serious health warnings. Everything a person might be alllergic to is in it. It is also glorious.
This seems like a good starting point for a menopause cake to me. I’m thinking it should also have coffee in it, to up the ante. (Something I can’t cope with – I can’t drink it, but I can, sometimes, eat things flavoured with it.) But also something cooling – but what? Yoghurt?
I’ve made variations before – the one above is Solstice Cake, where one half is the main recipe and the other half is ginger/orange/almond, which through complex cutting and splicing creates the four seasons, or day/night/dusk/dawn depending on how you want to think about it.
What variations should be included in Menopause Cake?
Let me know what you think!
Here are the final poems from the online launch for The Arctic Diaries by Melissa Davies from back in April. Explore Fleinvær, off the north coast of Norway in poems.
The Arctic Diaries
Melissa is taking part in Edinburgh BookFringe, reading and talking about The Arctic Diaries, at Typewronger bookshop on Monday 28th August at 6pm get your tickets!
They Call Him the Salmon King of Norway
Seaweed
Treasures from the first boat
Bird Wife
Lookout Men
Værøy
Bird wife
Here’s the second half of the Q&A from the online launch for The Arctic Diaries by Melissa Davies from back in April. Explore Fleinvær off the north coast of Norway in poems. Melissa, a Cumbrian native, talks about the impact that Fleinvær has had on her writing and her life, complete with map and live feed to the island! The poems read at the launch will follow…
The Arctic Diaries
Melissa is taking part in Edinburgh BookFringe, reading and talking about The Arctic Diaries, at Typewronger bookshop on Monday 28th August at 6pm get your tickets!
Here are the first poems from the online launch for The Arctic Diaries by Melissa Davies from back in April. Explore Fleinvær, off the north coast of Norway in poems.
The Arctic Diaries
Melissa is taking part in Edinburgh BookFringe, reading and talking about The Arctic Diaries, at Typewronger bookshop on Monday 28th August at 6pm get your tickets!
Collectors
Coffee
The Fisherman remembers a Boy Disappeared
Halibut
Guardians
Fleinvaer is Made up of 365 Islands
Vanishing Act
Another slow start on my part – here’s the first half of the Q&A from the online launch for The Arctic Diaries by Melissa Davies from back in April. Explore Fleinvaer of the north coast of Norway in poems. Melissa, a Cumbrian native, talks about the place, people and stories that inspired the book. The rest will follow, when it’s been captioned!
The Arctic Diaries
Melissa is taking part in Edinburgh BookFringe, reading and talking about The Arctic Diaries, at Typewronger bookshop on Monday 28th August at 6pm get your tickets!
