The Next Stage…..

The next stage….

Having produced my first ever publication in November last year I’m now being asked what next…? Poetry is my first love and now that the Christmas period is past I’m looking forward to getting out in my log cabin and getting the creative vibe going again. I have a children’s story already written with a wrap round concept of encouraging parents to read to their children. My teaching career was very much focussed on working with adults to improve their literacy skills and increase access to the written word. Afterall, if no one had ever read to you as a child how would you know how to do it for your own children? I also have a novel about half complete about a dyslexic young man’s school and work experiences and how he was supported through his difficulties and accessed the world of literacy, recognising the strengths that he already had but lacked the keys to unlock them. So that’s where my next writing goal is – but I just love learning. To this end I am currently undertaking an online photography course. I hope you like the picture at the top of this blog. I took it recently on one very frosty January morning.

My November publication of ‘And the grass has just got longer’ is a collection of poems about life, love and loss. Each poem comes with a short explanation of its history in order to make my work more accessible to all. I hope you see the recurring theme here of increasing access to words. Now, I know that poetry is not everyone’s cup of tea and several people have said to me ‘Poetry? Nah’ but much to my delight, possibly because there is a local connection or possibly because the subject matter has touched people, I have managed to change at least a few minds.  One person said to me recently ‘I don’t do that poetry **** but reading a few of your poems has had me in tears’. Another very moving experience occurred over the festive season when a young man asked me if I was the lady who had written the poetry book. I confessed that I was. Studying A level English he has to study poetry which he admitted he hated. Someone he knew had bought my book and he had started reading it and he told me, with a huge grin on his face, that it had turned him on to poetry. He has got to do an extended reading project and he is going to use my book. We discussed various approaches, including him interviewing me, as the author for him to write his assignment. How satisfying it is to have touched other people’s lives in some small way.

And so, my lifetime’s aim of making the written word accessible to as wide an audience as possible has taken a very unexpected turn through my writing. It therefore comes with quite a weight of responsibility while I mull over future works….