I hope you have all enjoyed this year’s retreat – the posts remain active, so spread the word.
And in case you have more room for poetry – let me present the first issue of CONTOUR the WPL Poetry Magazine. Packed full of Worcestershire in words, photos and interviews. ENJOY and share!
We hope you enjoyed the archives on offer in the NEW library yesterday. Here are some more links for you to enjoy from previous INKSPILL retreats.
with Alison May
https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2015/10/24/inkspill-guest-writer-interview-with-alison-may/
with David Calcutt Poet, Writer & Playwright.
https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2015/10/24/inkspill-guest-writer-interview-david-calcutt/
with Nina Lewis
https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2015/10/24/inkspill-workshop-2-creating-characters/
with Gaia Harper
https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2016/10/22/inkspill-guest-writer-interview-with-gaia-harper/
Deanne Gist and her Two Minute Tips
In 2016 I was lucky enough to book Roy McFarlane as a Guest Writer and he produced an in depth workshop series exclusively for us.
You will find links to other parts of his INKSPILL workshops at the bottom of the post, I strongly advise you trawl through all the exercises. It is more Masterclass than Workshop!
Roy McFarlane Workshops on Writing Loss
Finding your voice, what editors know and look for, the idea of better writers, editing and more.
Watch this interview with Writers and Editors Victor Dwyer and Charlotte Gill talking to to Ian Brown about modern writing in 2014 from Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
We asked Stephen Daniels for a workshop activity. Get your pens ready!
‘Wordslast’ is a poem from Stephen’s debut collection. 
It started life as a workshop poem, written in one of Hilda Sheehan’s workshops. Stephen shared the poem during his interview earlier and now shares the exercise.
We read a poem called ‘deer suddenly’ by Carola Luther (the start of the poem can be found here here) – in the poem the poet pushes together words to add pace, to surprise and for originality.
I was then asked to try the same – push words together, maybe even pull them apart and see what happens to your writing.
My poem ‘Wordslast’ does something similar but I used the reversal of these pushed together words to drive the narrative. I think this technique is a good way of surprising yourself with writing, and the experimentation can help us find a way into subjects that can be tough for us to access otherwise.
We asked Stephen a series of quick-fire questions and he was game enough to share his results.
Here are the questions – maybe you would like to comment with your own answers below.
And now here are the questions and Stephen’s answers. (We didn’t want to sway yours!)
Confident writer or anxious?
A confident writer – an anxious self-editor, and my own biggest critic!
Slow or fast?
Fast, Fast, Fast… I tend not to do anything slowly… life is too short!
Planner or plunger?
Plunger… I find that planning tends to over complicate things.
© swindontheatres.co.uk
1) How long have you been writing?
Not long really. I started writing Poetry in March 2015. I was encouraged to write by my creative writing tutor (and now very good friend) Hilda Sheehan.
2) What tips would you give to someone starting out?
Read – write – read – write – repeat! It is so important to read when you are starting out – I learned more from reading than I ever did writing and it exposes you to different styles. This is what helped me find the writing style that worked for me.
Secondly, don’t worry about being bad. I think it is important to just write at the beginning – being good should be secondary, that will come with time, but I think most writers struggle with feelings of inadequacy. My advice is to write through it – I think we all have to write the personal, cheesy poetry to break-through to the good stuff!
Stephen Daniels had his debut pamphlet published by V. Press in 2017
3) Where did ‘Tell Mistakes I Love Them’ start?
I had written a lot of poetry and had been lucky enough to have much of it published. So I started thinking about what I could do next. I looked at the body of work I had created and realised I had a strong theme running through some of the work and started to pull it together.
I had around 50 poems which were semi-autobiographical, telling tales of my life, my family and my anxieties. I went through them all with some poet friends and whittled down the poems to around 30 and the line ‘Tell Mistakes I Love Them’ stood out on one of my poems and I felt like it summed up what I was trying to say.
The poems can be quite devastating, and I liked the idea of optimism running through them – even though some times it can be really, really hard to spot!
4) Why V. Press? (I know you did lots of research – admirably so)
I have read a lot (A LOT) of poetry over the last two and a half years, and I found V. Press by accident, I read a poet called Claire Walker and loved the poem – so I bought her book – which was published by V. Press – I read it in one sitting and fell in love with it.
My first poetry love! The content was amazing, but I also loved the way the books were produced and I felt a strong affinity with the style of poetry. So I started buying more V. Press books.
I have nearly all of them, and love them all. So when I found out V. Press had an open submission window, I sent them my manuscript. They were the only place I had considered, and thankfully the editor Sarah Leavesley enjoyed my poetry enough to offer to publish it!
5) I know we shouldn’t have them, but a favourite poem from your book?
I shall skilfully avoid this question and my own ego – by bowing to the people! One of the biggest surprises of having a book published is the poems that resonate with other people.
The poem that has resonated most with people was not what I expected but it has been a very pleasant surprise and that is ‘Wordslast’ a poem that came out of a Hilda Sheehan workshop… I will share the workshop task below so that you can try it!
Wordslast
Now she shouted shutwindow
Shutwindow now she shouted
So I said windowshut
Windowshut I said so
Opendoor now please come in I said
I said Please come in now opendoor
Dooropen now she screamed at me
Now at me she screamed dooropen
Lockedgate She demanded now
She demanded lockedgate now
I replied gatelocked now
Now gatelocked I replied
Now she questioned clearroad
Clearroad now she questioned
Roadclear now I answered incorrectly
Incorrectly I answered roadclear now
Wideeyes she pleaded with me
With me she pleaded wideeyes
Eyeswide I struggled to tell her
I struggled to tell her eyeswide
Handhold she asked me to
She asked me to handhold
Holdhand I said closing my eyes
Closing my eyes I said holdhand
(Previously published in ‘And Other Poems’)
Also published and discussed here https://louisacampbellblog.wordpress.com/2017/06/10/signpost-twelve-wordslast-by-stephen-daniels/
6) Describe your typical writing day.
I crave a typical writing day!! Unfortunately, like editing, I tend to write in the space in between things. I tend to give myself time in the evenings to write, but if I am struggling to put anything meaningful on paper I always have book nearby as an alternative.
7) Where do you write?
Anywhere, I find my best poetry tends to happen when I am watching people – on a train, in a pub, in a park etc. but sometimes an idea just grabs you and you have to write it there and then. I find that if I don’t capture it at that point, it rarely comes back again!
I always liked Ruth Stone’s story of how she would capture poems… I’m not sure my experience is as intense, but I definitely relate to the experience!
Taken from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Stone) :
As [Stone] was growing up in rural Virginia, she would be out, working in the fields and she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape. It was like a thunderous train of air and it would come barrelling down at her over the landscape. And when she felt it coming . . . ’cause it would shake the earth under her feet, she knew she had only one thing to do at that point. That was to, in her words, “run like hell” to the house as she would be chased by this poem.
The whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page. Other times she wouldn’t be fast enough, so she would be running and running, and she wouldn’t get to the house, and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it, and it would “continue on across the landscape looking for another poet.”
And then there were these times, there were moments where she would almost miss it. She is running to the house and is looking for the paper and the poem passes through her. She grabs a pencil just as it’s going through her and she would reach out with her other hand and she would catch it. She would catch the poem by its tail and she would pull it backwards into her body as she was transcribing on the page. In those instances, the poem would come up on the page perfect and intact, but backwards, from the last word to the first.
8) Who are you reading right now?
Books I am enjoying right now include Sinead Morrissey’s collection ‘On Balance’, Pascale Petit’s ‘Mama Amzonica’ and ‘The Nagasaki Elder’ by Antony Owen – a stunning collection of poems published by V. Press earlier this year.
1) Why was Amaryllis Poetry started? What was the idea behind the magazine?
Amaryllis was started over 4 years ago by my Poetry Swindon friend Hilda Sheehan. Hilda wanted to help publish Swindon poets and friends and it started as a relatively informal invite only project. After a year, the project slowed and was paused for around a year. Two years ago I offered to take Amaryllis over and invite submissions. I was hoping to find exciting poets within our network, but it soon exploded and I was receiving submissions from all over the world. Amaryllis has now published over 200 poets and is widely read around the world.
2) Any advice to writers submitting to Amaryllis?
Make sure you include a small note with your submission – nothing frustrates me more than when people send their poems with no note. It shows a lack of pride in your work.
A final piece of advice is something I publish on the website when submissions are open: Take a risk – Early on during Amaryllis I received very ‘safe’ poems and I am really looking for poems that are different, poems that reach the parts other poems struggle to reach!
3) What makes Amaryllis different to other mags on the market?
First there is the editor – me! I think my taste in poetry is quite eclectic. I enjoy more formal poetry, but I don’t think there are many online magazines that are embracing experimental poetry in the same way that Amaryllis does.
Secondly I am always eager to find new poets and new voices. I tend to forgive the exuberance and imperfections of a less experienced poet and I think this has built a reputation for publishing poets for the first time – who then go on to be published in many other places.
4) What is your mission at Amaryllis?
To share great poetry with as many people as possible. I don’t think it is any more complicated than that.
5) Describe a day as an editor.
It is fairly unremarkable – as I have a full-time job and two relatively young children, so I tend to edit in the time in between things. Finding 30 minutes here or there to sit down and be invited into someone else’s world – it is a real privilege.
6) Anything that has surprised you about editing a magazine?
I think the thing that surprised me most, was that a powerful poem is not enough. When I started writing, I wrote some seriously dark poetry… sometimes that is all it would have – darkness and more darkness and I thought that was fine – if it is written well, it will be good enough. What I have come to realise through editing is that this is rarely enough.
A well written poem is good, but it needs different dimensions. It needs to be have moving parts and complexities that surprise the editor – this has affected my own writing and it is often the most disappointing rejections, where the poem is well written, but hasn’t got that extra element that lifts it above poems.
One other thing that surprised me, is that most poems are good. This may sound ridiculous, but what I have found from people submitting is that they perceive a rejection as the poem not being good. In my experience that is rarely the case – it is more often the case that the poem lacks something I am looking for, or that it wasn’t right at that time. It is likely that the poem will be picked up by a different editor. Don’t take the rejection process too seriously – it is just one person’s opinion.
7) Any upcoming projects we should know about?
No – other than submissions are re-opening in November!
Our second Guest Writer and Editor is Stephen Daniels.
Stephen Daniels is the editor of Amaryllis Poetry and the Secretary for Poetry Swindon. His poetry has been published in various magazines and websites, including: The Interpreter’s House, Obsessed With Pipework, Ink Sweat & Tears, And Other Poems, The Lake, Clear Poetry, Picaroon Poetry, The Fat Damsel, Three Drops from a Cauldron, Eunoia Review, Algebra of Owls, The Open Mouse, I am not a silent poet and Nutshells and Nuggets, Good Dadhood, The Poetry Shed, Obsessed With Pipework, The Curly Mind and Down in the Dirt.
Stephen’s poetry appeared in several anthologies including Richard Jefferies Writers – ’78 Anthology, Domestic Cherry, Ink Sweat & Tears ’12 Days of Christmas’ 2016 and my poem ‘Light’ was runner-up in the Candlestick Press micropoem competition 2015.
His debut pamphlet ‘Tell Mistakes I Love Them‘ was published by V. Press this year.
You can find out more at www.stephenkirkdaniels.com and @stephendaniels
It doesn’t seem right having this weekend retreat so close to Halloween and not include an opportunity for some Horror writing.
Writing Exercise #4 – Mysterious/Scary
A murder has taken place in a cabin in the middle of a snowy field. Your character finds three sets of footsteps entering the cabin, but none leaving. Apart from the victim, no one else seems to be there. What is going on?
An interview with Lee Child on writing later on in life.
awritersfountain 