2011… All Change.

I am one of the world’s most infrequent bloggers and I realise that my last blog was over a year ago. Well, I’ve been busy. Too busy. My main energies have been focussed on my three days per week work for Writing West Midlands. This has included preparing our National Portfolio Organisation application which was submitted to Arts Council England at the end of January 2011 and driving our on-going work with writers.

Other work has included working to launch a new independent organisation to manage the Essex Book Festival and more work with Warwickshire Libararies’ Fantastic Fun With Words festival. My GFA application to Arts Council England on behalf of Wenlock Poetry Festival was successful, as was an application on behalf of Swindon Festival of Literature. I have kept my contacts with the Dutch Literature Foundation, including two Dutch poets in the Ledbury Poetry Festival.

I have also been working on a collection of poetry to be published by Smith Doorstop in Autumn 2011. This has been an enormously time consuming process although it has been a joy to work with my editor Peter Sansom. Last year (2011) saw two radio projects come to fruition: an Afternoon Play on BBC Radio Four set in an apple orchard (and recorded in an apple orchard) and an adaptation of the poem The Nightfishing by W S Graham which was broadcast as part of BBC Radio Three’s Between the Ears series.