We all know that it’s just about impossible to make a living from being a poet. So poets try and do other poetry-associated activities, such as workshops, readings and talks, to eke out a living.
Sometimes they get to visit schools and talk to the children about poetry and about being a writer.
Continue reading “quis custodiet…?”
I was down in Seville at the weekend, at the Feria del Libro, for a cuentacuentos session and book signing.
Of course, people go to bed very late – the women in the next room to me in the hotel clearly didn’t go out till after 11:00 on the Friday night and came back at about 4:30am. It seems odd, though, that the best part of the day – first thing after the sun gets up and while it’s all still fresh and cool – should be wasted. Particularly as, by lunch time, Seville heat can be suffocating.
Continue reading “books and their covers & a glimpse of fame”
Any author will tell you that the process which results in a book reaching the bookshop shelves is long and, at times, tortuous.
My own experience makes it five and a half years from the original poem being written to its appearance this month as Bubbles, a bilingual children’s picture book, now available from Topka.
Continue reading “from poem to picture book”
I’ve already had a moan about Starbucks and their grammatical inadequacies, but now I’ve found further reason to complain.
At the weekend, I had to meet a fellow writer who lives in the centre of Madrid; she suggested we meet in Starbucks. Not my first choice, perhaps, but no problem. When I got there, there were two customers at one of the tables, and no one else in the whole place. The camarero – I bet he’d have called himself a barista – took my order.
It annoys me that the smallest measure in Starbucks is “tall”. It annoyed me more that the waiter wanted to know my name.
Continue reading “personal details to go”
Decades ago, in a Playboy interview, Connery said something along the lines of, “It’s not the worst thing to slap a woman now and then.” Since then, this has been quoted and mis-quoted, and on many occasions the actor has been made out to be in favour of violence towards women.
I’ve always believed he knew what he was saying.
Continue reading “apparently, Sean Connery was right”
don't confuse the narrator 