Wednesday 22nd February 6.30pm, we are launching our first book of 2023, Saved to Cloud, by Kate Foley, at Keats House.
The algorithm
of my own life, faded
and spidery,
is written,
not keyed in.
Kate takes a slightly jaundiced but clear-eyed look at the state of the planet, and our over-reliance on technology as a lens to review her relationship with religion and memory.
And for International Women’s Day on Wednesday 8th March at 4.30pm, we have a prepublication event for More Patina than Gleam by Jane Aldous at St Colomba’s-by-the-Castle Church Hall in Edinburgh.
In her 70th year, Jane decided to write a novella in seventy poems, exploring a fictionalised version of a life she almost lived.
This series of poems, based in post war Edinburgh, tell linked love stories, including the story of Linda, fleeing with her eleven-year-old daughter from England and an abusive relationship. In hiding as a lady’s companion in one of the city’s suburbs, mother and daughter settle into their new life in Elsie’s rackety house, and encounter a variety of characters who will change their lives forever.
At last! We are all systems go with the Online Festival
Our very first event is this morning at 11am, there are a couple of tickets left if you hurry …for Why Flash Fiction? Writing Workshop with Cath Humphris, donation (recommended £5) details
Then this afternoon 17:00-19:00 we are launching Hiatus the ‘Best of’ eBook for Solstice Shorts, chosen by public vote, with readings from authors this is a FREE event details and tickets
Tomorrow, the first of our events that address our fondness for speculative fiction, 19:00-21:00 a discussion led by David Turnbull
Longevity In Fiction: Time Bestowed, Time Stolen
plenty of tickets left £6 more details
The Festival as a whole is quite an eclectic mix, readings, discussions and workshops for writers, and about writing, or the business of being a writer. We invite you to join us!
continuing the speculative theme, on Saturday 14/01/2023 11:00-13:00 we have a workshop with Elizabeth Hopkinson Tales of Transformation: Bisclavret Details and tickets £8
and discussion/reading Clare Owen Sunday 29/01/2023 11:00-13:00 Cormorants and #cornishgothic: creative ways to write about YA mental health.
£5 details and tickets
In the 1980s, faced with a rebellious body, I stole my mother’s tarot deck and asked it about my health prognosis. Three times in a row, the outcome card was the tower, which is the second-worst card in the deck. Throughout my 20s and from then on I struggled with disability. On 16 March 2020 I contracted Covid, and I’ve had daily symptoms since then.
Twice I nearly died. I couldn’t breathe. Just standing up left me doubled over, gasping for air. I’m an expert patient and there are 6 doctors in my family, and I am no medical layperson, and I thought, at best, I had a 50/50 chance of getting through April 2020 and 2021.
I chose to write, obsessively. That and bloody-mindedness got me through. Somehow. The result is this book. I don’t really remember last April, except that I wrote over 55 poems. If I were a pop psychoanalyst I’d say that hovering on the threshold of death rendered me liminal, and made mythic themes easier to access. But I’m not.
These poems are based on the 22 major arcana in the tarot deck, an extra or trump suit, which starts with the fool: number zero, generally portrayed as carefree, their possessions in a small bag, stepping off a cliff. They journey through the themes of the other 21 arcana. The magician, trump 1, is the occult guide, wielding four elements. In French the magician is called the juggler, Le Bateleur—I took that word and wrote about a bateleur eagle, a bird of prey that constantly adjusts its wings in flight, like a juggler.
Arcanum 2 is the high priestess. She’s on the cover of the book, twinned on a playing card with the teenager. The high priestess symbolises, among other things, maidenhood. She progresses to the empress, full womanhood or motherhood. Some decks change the hermit to the crone, the third moon phase, post-menopausal, of women. The crone shows up in this book as the lamplighter, and also as a really quite delightful, feminist snake. The high priestess has long been the card used to stand in for me in tarot readings, too. (As a teen, readers used the empress. I grew into the priestess. Yes, this is the wrong way around.)
Other poems are taken more literally from tarot pictures. Strength is often portrayed as a woman besting a lion—and I used lion as metaphor in “There May Have Been Lions” and “Life in Captivity”. “The Girl in the Raven Mask”, a Petrarchan sonnet which was published in Acumen, is ekphrasis on the temperance trump in the Hush tarot. “Broken Tower” was also inspired by that deck.
Still other poems riff on the meaning of the cards. There are three poems about hope, which is what the star connotes. Two of the hope poems were written for Turtle Mountain Animal Rescue, the only animal shelter in a 2000 square mile area so far north in North Dakota it’s nearly Canada. There is a semi-feral dog at the shelter named Hope, who runs wild in the summer, but always returns when faced with bitter northern winters. She simultaneously herself and a metaphor in “Hope”.
I’m at my best as a poet when I’m storytelling, as in “Why Snakes are Always Female” and “A Little Space” or, more mischievously, in “Devilskin”. Modern tarot decks, whether they’re standard Rider-Waite-Smith decks; something themed, like the dragon tarot; or based on pop culture, like the Disney villains tarot, are tools to tell stories, whether personal or universal. Many of these poems, like “Hagged”, which is about my Long Covid, and “Dr. Wick”, about the struggle to get a diagnosis for my disability, are very personal for me. Of course, a deck of 78 playing cards isn’t responsible for anything in my life, apart from this book and a few medieval card games I play, but, still, the odds of the same card in the same spot three times in a row is pretty slender…
We’ve got a bit ahead of ourselves with launches this month, launching Jennifer A McGowan’s How to be a Tarot Card (or a Teenager) at Oxford Poetry Library last week,
Jennifer A McGowan
Oxford Poetry Library Launch
and Anna Fodorova’s In the Bloodat the Czech Embassy on Tuesday, with Jude Cook chairing and Lisa Rose reading the excerpts, but it is actual publication day TODAY – Congratulations both!
Thanks to Phoebe and team at the Oxford Poetry Library.
Thanks to Jude and Lisa, and the Janas at BCSA, the Czech Centre and Czech Embassy for hosting, and Lutyens and Rubinstein bookshop for handling the sales, and to Erik Weisenpacher for video and photo and audio recordings; it was a novel experience to just turn up, introduce and sit in the audience!
Anna & Jude swapping books copyright Erik Weisenpacher
copyright Erik Weisenpacher
copyright Erik Weisenpacher
copyright Erik Weisenpacher
copyright Jana Nahodilova
If you missed either or both, do not despair, as there is a joint launch 6.30 next Tuesday, 1st November, at Keats house, with readings by Carrie Cohen. You can get your free tickets from Eventbrite – there will be cake and soft drinks
Here’s a couple of photos and recordings to give a flavour of the evening.
Oxford Poetry Library Launch
Jennifer A McGowan
Introduction
How to be a Tarot Card (or a Teenager)
Jennifer is launching again in London on 1st November at Keats House with Anna Fodorova, our other October author, with her novel, In the Blood. Free, cake, soft drink etc as usual! Get your tickets
And will be taking part in an online event with our friends In Words on 29th November. To register for this one you need to contact irena(at)in-words(dot)co(dot)uk and she will send you the link in good time.
25/10/2022 7pm Launch of In the Blood in discussion with writer and literary critic Jude Cook, with readings by actor Lisa Rose at the Embassy of the Czech Republic. Hosted by British Czech and Slovak Association, the Czech Embassy, the Czech Centre London and Lutyens & Rubinstein bookshop. [tickets £10]
01/11/2022 6.30pm a joint event at Keats House for How to be a Tarot Card (or a Teenager) and In the Blood with readings from actor Carrie Cohen free tickets
24/11/2022 6.30pm at Keats House Launch for Routes by Rhiya Pau.
29/11/2022 7.30pmIn Words are helping us celebrate our 10th Anniversary and the launch of Routes by Rhiya Pau, with an online showcase of 4 of our recent poetry books: Routes, How to be a Tarot Card (or a Teenager), A Pocketful of Chalk and Paper Crusade.This will be on Zoom. To access, contact In Words.
We have a few events planned for the launch of Michelle Penn’s book-length poem, Paper Crusade, starting on publication day…
Tuesday 21st June 2022 10:30(ish) an experimental (ie we don’t know if it will work) live zoom to our Facebook pageEnchanted Island Books. Michelle will talk about which six books she would save if she was shipwrecked on her island. We will record as well, just in case.
Wednesday 22nd June 2022 19:00 online launch with readings, Q&A, chat and optional audience participation involving Shakespearean insults and Haiku, get tickets
Friday 24th June 2022 18:45 for 19:00 in person Launch at Keats House Library 10 Keats Grove NW3 2RR There will be readings, discussion and cake (very bad for you, anyone whose been to a launch before, you know, everyone else you’ve been warned.) get tickets
This spring and summer we’re taking A470: Poems for the Road / Cerddi’r Ffordd on the road! Join us at one of the bilingual events below, as we visit libraries and bookshops up and down the A470 (and surrounding areas…).
Past
28th May: Cardiff Central Library Hub Readings from Kevin Mills, Tracey Rhys, Mike Jenkins, Nicholas McGaughey, Morgan Owen, Christina Thatcher, Jeremy Dixon, Sian Northey, Sîon Aled, Lowri Williams and Des Mannay. watch the video
30th May: Storyville Books, Pontypridd Nicholas McGaughey, Jeremy Dixon, Stephen Payne and Sîon Aled read from A470 in an evening of poetry, with music and nibbles too! watch the videos
31st May: Siop Lyfrau’r Hen Bost, Blaenau Ffestiniog Simon Chandler, Sara Louise Wheeler, Haf Llewelyn, Lowri Williams and Sian Northey read from A470 in Blaenau Ffestiniog. watch the videos
1st June: Owain Glyndŵr’s Parliament House, Heol Maengwyn, Machynlleth, SY20 8EE Pulling up outside Senedd-Dy to stretch their legs and catch their breath, editors Sian Northey and Ness Owen talked with Poet Sara Louise Wheeler about how A470 came about, the process of creating a bilingual book and the translation decisions they had to make, reading some of their favourite poems from the book on the way. Watch the video
30 June: The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth An evening of bilingual poetry readings and conversation with Ness Owen, Sian Northey, Pat Edwards, Diana Powell, Sara Louise Wheeler, Siôn Aled, Jeremy Dixon, Rhys Owain Williams, Rae Howells, Lowri Haf Williams, Sandra Evans, Gareth Writer-Davies.
Editor Sian Northey was joined by Sion Aled, Sara Louise Wheeler, and Lowri Williams to read and talk about the book.
Thursday 21st July: The Hours Cafe & Bookshop, Brecon, VIDEO
Readings and conversation with Gareth Writer-Davies, Clare E Potter, Diana Powell, Sian Northey and Stephen Payne.
24th July: The Poetry Pharmacy, Bishop’s Castle, Nipping over the border into Shropshire for Readings from Sian Northey, Gareth Writer-Davies, Jeremy Dixon, Ness Owen, Pat Edwards and Stephen Payne at the world’s first walk-in Poetry Pharmacy.
We’re excited to announce that our live event at Keats House to launch our Where We Find Ourselvesanthology is sold out!!! However, you can still join us to celebrate publication of this fantastic collection of stories and poems of maps and mapping from UK writers of the global majority at our online launch on November 4th. 7-9pm.
Coming Soon
Be quick though – tickets are selling fast! Tickets available here.