Monthly Archives: July 2012

Five Sentences with … LUIGI MARCHINI

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I wrote about Luigi Marchini’s Kilimanjaro climb recently here, but I forgot to nab him then for the five sentences, so it’s a pleasure to welcome him back so we can find out a little more about him.

You can read some of his work here, and find out what he is doing for writers in Kent at the Save As Writers page – and please note their Dickens Writing Competition deadline is 15th August. THERE IS STILL TIME TO ENTER..

But before you do, do read Luigi’s answers here…

When you were small, you wanted to …stay small forever and never venture into the big, bad world.

The one thing you can never resist is … I can resist anything except a blank page.

You may not say it aloud but…I am a fraud; I delude myself that I can write and others are too polite to tell me I can’t.


The last time you went ‘WOOP’ with excitement was … when Leeds Rhinos beat Wigan Warriors in the Rugby League Challenge Cup Semi-Final a few weeks ago.


Your five favourite words are …. oblivion, melancholy, adroit, popinjay, usurp – no idea why so don’t ask!

And some additional thoughts:

Favourite writing place in Kent (could be garden, café, bench, Margate shelter…): believe it or not at my pc! I used to write on trains and pay for people to type up my work but once I learned how to use a pc-and could afford to buy one-I found that I can actually think better here as well as type. The blank page is less of a challenge here than anywhere else.

A book about Kent or by a Kent writer you would recommend: this is probably cheating but Eliot wrote part of The Wasteland in Margate and Margate is mentioned in the poem. Loathe it or love it-and I veer between the two extremes constantly-it is as close as you will get to essential reading in English Literature outside of Shakespeare.

***

Thanks Luigi. And he really is as modest as these answers suggest (and as everyone who knows him will agree) so although I am tempted to gift him a photograph of the Leeds Rhinos as a thank you for coming on, I’m going to direct you instead to his fundraising page for his climb up Kilimanjaro. He is collecting money for Dementia UK, a very worthy cause, and so so near his monetary goal for the climb.

Go on, tip him over the edge, but not this one …

(I swear my jokes get worse. Nope, please no-one say anything…)

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What’s Happening in the Laureate Scheme

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The email asking whether I’d consider being the next Canterbury Laureate came out of the blue last summer, but I didn’t have to think twice before accepting.

It was the right decision. It’s been a fabulous nine months so far – almost impossible to believe it’s been such a short time, unlike my two pregnancies I have to say. I’ve discovered new Kent writers, judged the Canterbury Poet of the Year competition, worked with the festival office on the fabulous Wise Words scheme, visited gardens throughout Kent as part of my creative project, and discovered all over again why I live here.

Follow these links to find out some of the things that have been going on, or are planned for the last three months of my Laureateship…

THE WISE WORD SCHEME - This has been the main formal part of the Laureate Scheme. Teaching students from Canterbury ChristChurch University and MA in Writing Students from the University of Kent have been paired to give writing workshops to community groups under the theme – Wise Words. We will be appearing at the Herne Bay Festival on 22nd August, (information here), and at the Canterbury Festival from 13th to the 27th of October (details here). But you can also find out more – and add your own Wise Words – here. There are some really beautiful words of wisdom there already.

THE WISE WORD TEAM - As mentioned above, we’ve been so lucky with the eight student facilitators for the Wise Word Scheme – step forward… Denica Shute, Kasia Ladds, Delphine Levine, Nicky Gould, Katy Batory, Stephen Ireland, Eleanor Billingsley, Rebecca Varney. All of them have been co-ordinated by Virginia Bower and Patricia Debney. You can read Delph’s account of starting the project here and more first-hand accounts are coming.

KENT WRITERS – It’s been my pleasure to collate information about many of the Kent writers. You can see the growing list here, and new writers are being added every week so do keep popping back.

A LITERARY JOURNEY ROUND KENT’S GARDENS – This has been my creative project during the Laureate Scheme – you can read about it more here. I did imagine that I might be floating round gardens in the sun, but well, this hasn’t been the right year for it! What I’ve discovered though has been some fantastic fantastic stories – the topiary WW1 tank, a hidden shell grotto, the garden owner who was saved from an attacking lion by his folded up copy of Punch magazine, and how gasworks were supposed to be good for asthma. I’ve been writing a literary response to each garden I’ve visited, and trying to put the journeys between them into sense too. It’s highly personal, but gives a picture of Kent today. And also dispels the myth of what exactly might be the English bit in an English garden. I’ll be giving my first reading of the work in progress at the Canterbury Festival – details here.

HOMEGROWN - but before October, during the weekend of 8th and 9th September, you might find four of Canterbury’s public parks changed in unexpected ways! I’ve been working on what we’ve been calling a ‘gentle intervention’ for the Dane John Gardens, Westgate Gardens, Greyfriars and Solly’s Orchard, as part of The Wise Words Festival. Prepare to be surprised.

EVENTS:

22nd August – Wise Words at Herne Bay
8/9th September – Homegrown at the Wise Words Festival
27th September – Reading and open mic at Waterstones, Canterbury
4th October – Prizegiving for the Canterbury Festival Poety of the Year Award
13th October – Wise Words exhibition opens at the Canterbury Heritage Musuem
17th October – Reading at the Canterbury Festival

And now I’ll leave you with a selection of some of the favourite words of Kent writers – proof that we are nothing if not eclectic…

elucidate, mofussil, gremolata, bombazine, slither, limoncello, Anna, miracle, deceit, love, Vamonos con la musica al otro lado de la calle, disingenuous, potting shed, aplomb, pudding, Naptime, Mummy, munificent, rococo, vervaine, I love you, Hello Mummy, I will not give up, Can you perform for us?, We’ll give you a fee, oblivion, melancholy, adroit, popinjay, usurp, blubber, fiddlesticks, mantequilla (butter in Spanish), soliloquy, miscreant, Esox lucius, Legato, Tibouchina, Wildebeest, Scrofipascus, possibility, reflection, distillation, dance, aubergine, knuckle, heliotrope, rareripe, crinoline, splay, curl, curmudgeon, azamacaracadoo, cwtch, rhythm, soliloquy, Bougainvillea …

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Five Sentences with … Maria C McCarthy

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Anyone who starts her own independent publishing company is a woman after my own heart, so I’m happy to welcome Kent writer, Maria C McCarthy to the Five Sentences series today.

Maria is a poet, writer of short fiction and memoir, social networker, workshop leader, event organizer, and editor with indie press Cultured Llama. She has also written and broadcast as a columnist on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Home Truths’ (as Maria Bradley). Her first poetry collection strange fruits was published in 2011 by Cultured Llama in association with WordAid, with all profits going to Macmillan Cancer Support. ₤730 has been raised so far through book sales, multi-arts events and a book signing at a café that served strange fruits-themed cakes for the occasion.

Maria lived in the Medway Towns for twenty years and now lives in a village, Teynham, where she co-organised the first Teynham Arts Day in June 2012. And if all this wasn’t enough, Maria writes from a magic shed…

So finish my sentences, Maria…

When you were small, you wanted to … be a bird when I grew up. I later wanted to be an air hostess or a bi-lingual secretary. I also wanted the Beatles to come to my birthday party and to be more holy. I remember getting my prayerbook out when the priest came to visit, so as to appear pious. In truth, I was annoyed at having to turn the telly off while he was there, as Top of the Pops was on. I achieved none of these early ambitions, though I’m still hopeful of the bird thing.

The one thing you can never resist is … charity shops. I love a good rummage and love a bargain even more. I recently got kitted out for a wedding for £16.99 with a handmade dress and matching sandals. I can’t resist revealing how much I paid for my bargains either. I call it compulsory price disclosure, or CPD.


You may not say it aloud but… I couldn’t possible reveal that one.



The last time you went ‘WOOP’ with excitement was … watching a band called Los Salvadores. They are lovely young people who write and perform songs about Kentish history and legends. I have a Los Salvadores T-shirt. It’s the first band T-shirt I’ve worn in twenty years. I’ve seen them so many times they may think I’m stalking them.

Your five favourite words are ….
Gorgeous (the first thing my husband says to me every day is ‘Morning, gorgeous’)
Lovely
Llama
Biscuit (it’s the name of my seventeen year-old cat)
Robert Plant – that’s two words, but they go so well together. He was the lead singer with Led Zeppelin, for those that don’t know.

And some extras…

Favourite writing place in Kent:

I used to write in the cafes of Rochester, before a look round the charity shops. Then I moved house, and didn’t have a decent café nearby. Now I write in a converted shed at the end of my garden. It overlooks an orchard, which has many strange things dumped on it including boats, cars, a shipping container and, last winter, a Black and Decker workmate appeared overnight, standing in the snow between the apple trees. I am writing a sequence of poems about things I see from the shed.

A book about Kent or by a Kent writer you would recommend:

How to be a Dragonfly, prose poems by Patricia Debney. Patricia was my first creative writing tutor at Bridge Wardens College, and later taught me on the MA in creative writing in Canterbury. She knows how to write a prose poem, that woman, which is more than I do.

Thank you, Maria. And just for you (with a little tour of Kent too)…

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Highdays and Holidays – a writing competition from Crowborough Arts

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I’m pleased to be part of the judging panel for this competition run by Crowborough Arts. Here is the information from their flyer:

This year’s writing competition is on the theme of “Highdays & Holidays”. It might have been one of the best days of your life, or a day that was memorable for all the wrong reasons! Or of course, the whole thing could be pure invention – it’s up to you.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced writer, or if it’s your first time – everybody’s welcome! A prize of £100 will be awarded for the winning entry, with runners-up prizes of £50 and £25.

This year, we’re lucky to have novelist and poet Sarah Salway to judge our short-list. Sarah is Canterbury Laureate for 2012 and is currently working on a project about Kent Gardens. Her latest poetry collection, ‘You Do Not Need Another Self- Help Book’ is available now. Check out Sarah’s website: http://www.sarahsalway.net

To enter the competition, choose from the following: An article or short story (up to 2,000 words) or A poem (up to sixteen lines)

Entry guidelines:

 Your entry must be typed and double-spaced, with the title and page number appearing on each sheet. Do not put your name on your manuscript.
 Please also submit a covering letter giving your contact details and the title of your submission.
 Entry is £5. Please send a cheque made payable to “Crowborough Arts# to: Highdays & Holidays Writing Competition, The Old Post Office, South Street, Rotherfield, TN6 3LP
 Deadline for submissions is 15th September 2012
 Please note that work cannot be returned, so please keep a copy.
 The winners will be notified directly, and the result will be published on the Crowborough Arts website by 4th November 2012

And if you are entering, GOOD LUCK!

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A week in pictures…

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Sometimes you need to sit back and let someone else do the talking for you. So here are my photos …

It started with a weekend walk with Ken Titmuss, who does guided trails round parts of London using 18th century maps.

Ken added a whole new dimension to an area I thought I knew well. I highly recommend one of his walks.

Then to Whitstable, for a reading from the jaw-droppingly wonderful Wise Words team. It was all I could have hoped for, and more. I cried when one highly-published member of the audience said that we had reminded her of just how important writing can be, particularly in the community. Thank you everyone who came…

Sadly, the above isn’t the remains from our supper, but here is the Whitstable dawn I woke up to the next morning…

Then my research into the alternative signage we’re planning for Dane John Gardens on Tuesday uncovered the fact that someone has got there before me…

So I got the train up to London to meet with Viccy Adams who introduced me to And Other Stories, a publishing company with a difference. In the circumstances, Viccy’s badge seemed very appropriate…

We’ve both been doing an Arvon/NAWE coaching class with talented and lovely writers from all over Britain (and abroad). It finished yesterday and resulted in this…

HURRAH!

And there ended an exhausting and almost perfect week. I spent last night on the sofa watching the Olympic ceremony and am still not quite sure if I was dreaming or not…

Good though, wasn’t it? And also to see the creative and public sectors getting their proper recognition – I’d like to live in that feminist, funny, union-supporting, caring, eccentric, enterprising, ‘leftie, multi-cultural’ Britain.

Perhaps, with proper coaching, I will one day – does anyone know a coach????

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Whitstable Wise Words Tonight!

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It’s not just the weather that’s making me feel sunny today…

… it’s also the fact that we will be sharing some of our Wise Words work in Whitstable tonight.

We’ll be at Deco 5, 15-17 Oxford Street, starting at 7.30. Tickets are £3 on the door, and that includes a glass of wine or juice. There will be readings from our lovely students, from participants, and also me! We’ll have Wise Words artwork, chances to share our favourite quotes and also to be recorded for posterity (a Wise Words soundscape being made by the talented Sam Messer)…

I’ve even written a special Wise Words poem for the night using quotes from Wise Words forum.

It would be lovely to see you there.

And finally, I wanted to share this chance to take home a lovely Whitstable house – albeit smaller than some! Please support this raffle to win a dollshouse, it’s for two great causes.

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Five Sentences with … Geraldine Paine

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I’m very happy to have Geraldine Paine on here as part of my Kent Writer series today.

Geraldine Paine lives in east Kent. She’s been a professional actress, a specialist writer, teacher, lecturer and a magistrate. In 2000, she gained an M.Phil in Writing at the University of Glamorgan and since then her poems have been published widely including in The Interpreter’s House, Seam, The Rialto, Smiths Knoll, The French Literary Review, Magma, Envoi, Soundings, Equinox, The Frogmore Papers and londongrip.co.uk.

She has also been commended or shortlisted in several poetry competitions, and appeared in the anthologies; Shape Sifting, published by Cinnamon Press 2007, Hand Luggage Only, published by Open Poetry 2008, Buzz, published by Templar Poetry 2008, Sixty Poems for Haiti, published by Cane Arrow Press 2010 and Did I tell You? 131 Poems for Children in Need, and Not only the Dark, both published for WordAid.org.uk by Categorical Books 2010 and 2011. Geraldine is a founder member of Scatterlings, the Poetry Group, and I can personally vouch for the power of her readings.

Her first collection, The Go-Away-Bird, is published by Lapwing Publications 2008.

Lovely! So finish my sentences, Geraldine…

When you were small, you wanted … the older blond boy who lived in our flats to love me the best.

(Geraldine found this photograph of the ‘blond boy’ and generously shared it, so I couldn’t resist putting it in. How sweet is she? And him!)

You may not say it out loud but .. I like to play Little Richard at full blast when no-one’s around.

The one thing you can never resist is … a chilled glass of dry white, Sancerre or Pouilly-fumé maybe. A fresh Danish Pastry is pretty high on my list of irresistables too.

The last time you went ‘WOOP’ with excitement was… I tend to whoop when the perfect word comes to me. And when the England Rugby team wins.

Something that never fails to give you inspiration is … a blackbird singing, often after rain. Plenty of chances then.

Your five favourite words are, for the moment at least… Blubber, fiddlesticks, mantequilla (butter in Spanish), soliloquy, miscreant.

And I also asked Geraldine where she liked to write…

My favourite writing place is my study, looking across to the huge trees in the park opposite (but not too often).

Thanks Geraldine! And here are two thank you gifts – turn up the volume and sip the glass I’ve just poured…

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Five Sentences with … Will Gould

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My guest today is the artist, poet and gardener, Will Gould.

I met Will at last year’s Canterbury Poetry City as he was painting a poem along the length of the High Street using river water. On a more day to day basis, however, his practice runs in parallel with the creative development of the historic garden at St John’s Jerusalem, Dartford, Kent where he has been working since 2000. Will initially studied environmental science following this up with a degree in fine art, developing a practice creating sculptural installations in the landscape, using organic materials and minimal intervention. He now works in a wide range of media, bringing together landscape and the built environment.

Will blogs at Green Thoughts where you can read some of his poetry.

And here are Will’s five sentences…

When you were small, you wanted to … go fishing and play football but I had to stay in and practice playing the violin. We used to visit my dad’s family on the NE Coast of Scotland and the first thing that I wanted to be was a fisherman. Then I wanted to be a mouth doctor as a result of a fondness for Ribena and consequent frequent dental visits.
I never wanted to be a gardener and artist, they’re just the things that I like to do.

The one thing you can never resist is … Kentish cherries in season

You may not say it aloud but… I’m quite happy to write it down

The last time you went ‘WOOP’ with excitement was … when I booked a ticket to go to the End of the Road festival.

Your five favourite words are …. Esox lucius. Legato, Tibouchina, Wildebeest, Scrofipascus

And two more questions…

Favourite writing place in Kent:

The end of Deal Pier was the place that I began to try to write down what it felt like to be somewhere. It has a two tier staging so you can watch the fisherman down below and from high on long legs you can look back to the steep beach and hauled up boats.

A book about Kent or by a Kent writer you would recommend:

Green Thoughts by Sir Stephen Tallents is a lovely, personal, ramble through his experiences living in the property where I now garden. I often feel a connection with place and the past when doing something as mundane as lighting a fire or pulling reedmace from the moat.

**

Thanks, Will. I’m not going to admit how many of your favourite words I had to look up … (scrofipascus, scrofipascum, scrofipasca) … but there’s nothing I love better than pottering around in the dictionary, so here’s a thank you for coming on here…

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Five Sentences … with Sam Russell

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I don’t want all the writers in the ‘Five Sentences’ series to be well-known, because hopefully some – like Sam Russell – will be ones you will be hearing a lot more about in the future.

I’m going to let Sam introduce herself, because I like what she says…


I’m a writer swirling into my thirties like the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies will swirl into one another in the next 30 billion years. I live openly with fibromyalgia and collect mental health problems which I hope to turn into a necklace soon.

I graduated from Kent Uni in 2011 with an MA Creative Writing and have since been slowly working on writing my first novel which was started on the degree. I’m currently rekindling my relationship with poetry and am learning how to write short stories. I’ve have had an article on ‘Characters’ published in issue 7 of Inkspill Magazine. I’m aiming to get more work out there in the future.

And here are Sam’s five sentences:

When you were small, you wanted to …Be someone’s best friend. I came close on a few occasions though it went sour after a while. I don’t know why. I guess they found a new best friend who was better than me. I think if I translate that desire into my adult life, it would equate to wanting to be someone’s forever.

The one thing you can never resist is … Books. My Dad used to be a Lithographer (that’s posh for book printer) and he’d sometimes bring me home duff copies that wouldn’t make it past quality control. My obsession has grown over the years, deepened too. I love their form and texture, their bindings and the feel of their papers; their smell, new or old, is addictive and I have been known to lick the spines of books. Naturally this limits my access to libraries and bookstores. I save burying my face between the pages and inhaling deeply for when I’m on my own. And then maybe I’ll take it to the next level…

You may not say it aloud but…I have no idea what I’m doing. I say it sometimes and people laugh it off but really, I’m clueless. Writing a novel when you don’t know what you’re doing, when you’re winging it, is scary because people expect you to be in the know and intelligent. I dread the day I finish my novel and maybe get it published. I’ll have to do what politicians do: pre-approve questions and create stock answers if people want to ask me things.

The last time you went ‘WOOP’ with excitement was … When I found out I got a Distinction on my MA Creative Writing. I worked so hard to out-perform myself and get the thing I was unlikely to get because my first set of results weren’t enough to give me that final recognition. That and I live with rubbish health. The odds were against me.

Your five favourite words are ….

1. Beautiful. The letters are arranged in the most aesthetically pleasing way for me
2. Namaste. When you say this to someone, you are recognising their soul and your own as being equal and in harmony.
3. Differànce. I have a bit of a Derrida addiction and this word is both challenging and funny. My favourite joke is ‘spot the differànce’. If you know anything about Derrida’s essay on this word, you’ll get it. I even have it printed on a t-shirt. The irony (lol, shirt … Iron).
4. Naturally. For an adverb (the bane of all writing), this one is pretty smooth. I like rounding off the occasional sentence with it because it’s just so … Cool. Sometimes. Like all adverbs, it should be used in the right place at the right time.
5. You’ll have to forgive me for this last one but it’s the ‘C’ word. I love it. Used properly with impeccable pronunciation, it’s one of the few words in the English language that can disable everything around it. And what’s more, the etymology is fascinating; cropping up around 1230, avoided in public from 15th century and considered utterly vulgar since the 17th century. But it is a powerful word to describe the remarkable and unashamedly beautiful part of a woman’s body.

My favourite place in Kent has to be the deserted side of the Medway Estuary, opposite Gillingham. It’s full of wildlife, wild flowers and nice people walking their dogs. It’s the one place, when I’m feeling well enough, I can go and be absolutely alone, which is important to me.

Favourite Kent Writer? Scarlett Thomas, hands down. The End of Mr. Y is what made me take writing seriously, got me onto the MA and made me stay on it. I was tutored by my literary heroine. How many people can say that?

**

Thanks Sam! And as your present for coming on here, please find below a photograph of Derrida’s books..

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