Review of August

Can’t believe it is the end of August already! What a CRazY month it has been – especially when I consider last year (in my first year of writing before I had found my poetry feet) I practically took the whole month off! Although I think that had more to do with resigning from my job and enjoying the last summer off on full pay for a while!

August saw; a plethora of birthday celebrations, wedding outfit shopping, allotmenting, garden centre visits, new plants, harvesting vegetables, catching up with friends and family, as well as Arts/Music festivals, one off events, performances and Book Launches!

August is always busy because it is summer and I don’t work (or get paid) < before you get too jealous. This month I may not have gone on holiday but I did extend my birthday celebrations over several weeks and it wasn’t even a significant one! Who needs a holiday when the 6 weeks poeting took me all over the Midlands.

© 2014 Rangzeb Hussain

Blogs and Projects

52 continues – as it will all year – I am now planning a catch up though before I start back to work as I have missed some weeks.

Last month I wrote about Naked Lungs and a project/performance for Birmingham Literature Festival. I presumed they had picked other participants to collaborate as I hadn’t had an email. There was an email. It just didn’t get to me! Momentarily dancing around the lounge… My next exciting venture to work on, the performance is October 11th, a week after my brother’s wedding.

INKSPILL a free online writing retreat I run from this Blog at the end of October 25th/26th is in full swing (organisation), more on this soon – September will be full of tasters and teasers.

ONE YEAR A POET – I am also busy organising a celebration of my first year back in the world of poetry and it was also the point at which the 1st 9 months of a writing life bore fruition – in terms of work and being a writer. There are lots of poets/artists lined up and it should be a cracker!

BLOG The blog now has 781 follower just 3 people joined this month. The most popular post continues to be my articles about Short Story Writing

Title		Views
Writing Short Stories – Tips on Planning and Structure		438
Writing Short Stories – Tips on Narrative Structure & The Writing Process		279

This may have to do with being linked on educational sites, or just they were dang good posts!

Submission

I worked on lots of writing this month, I regret not spending more time on my pamphlet submission, I lost confidence with it and shelved it, only to dust it off again on the deadline day – when by the time the writing was finished I was half an hour late leaving for an event, speed reading is not to  proofreading, needless to say I came home and found 3 mistakes!

I sent poetry to Bombay Gin, Paragram, Barrelhouse and a portion of a pamphlet to VPress.

Publishing

I worked with proof copies of GBWO and Restless Bones Poetry Anthology.

HCE Here Comes Everyone Published my poem ‘Falling into Line’, written especially for the Boy/Girl Issue of the magazine, it is available online and as a print copy.

 

Performing Poetry

Performing Poetry – the links will take you to blogposts about the events.

All over the Midlands this month, I have (as always) missed some events – because I am human mainly, once I find my superhero self I shall fly out to all gigs… Mr G also booked a fortnight off work.

The month started amazingly with A Night with Maya Angelou – organised by Jordan Garvey and Shakti Women. I watched a video of my performance for the 1st time, it was a little uncomfortable.

Maya Angelou

Mouth and Music – War & Peace A great evening hosted by Sarah Tamar, I was expecting the subject matter to weigh heavy – but the evening was as vibrant and uplifting as always.

War and Peace

PFL Poetry For Lunch – The Funny One with Andrea Smith

Birthday Stanza – a normal Stanza meeting where I took CAKE! Great to be back with the Stanza crowd, first meeting in 2 months, due to clashing dates and performances.

Stanza

Bridge the Gap – an intergenerational tea party on a canal boat – the brainchild of Aysha Begum(Beetfreaks). My first time on a moving canal boat and therefore also the first time I have performed on one!

Poetry on a Boat

Restless Bones Poetry Anthology – Book Launch – Restless Bones raises money for Born Free Foundation, protecting animals against the fur trade. The book launch was at Akamba an African Heritage Centre in Solihull, a fitting environment. It was a great night and it is a great book. Details on how to buy your copy, coming soon.

Book Launch

42 Drummonds – An open mic/ off theme night at 42. A small and select crowd, a great night of story, poetry and theatre.

Worcester Music Festival Humdrum Express – Ian Passey organised a menu of bands and supporting poets for a great night at The Swan and Two Nicks.

Worcester Music Festival Word & Sound – Amanda Bonnick and Jenny Hope organise Word & Sound nights and this one was hosted by Amanda as part of the music festival. It was a cracking night with some stellar performances. Crème de la crème!

(Links to follow)

 

Performances and Events

I don’t always perform, sometimes I just enjoy the Arts and support friends and fellow poets.

Benches – Jan Watts Book Launch / Off the Page Event – starting on the canal and finishing in the Library of Birmingham.

Launch

I have since read and reviewed the book. This link is the blogpost and details on how to buy your own copy can be found here.

Review

SpeakEasy – a night of poetry hosted by Maggie Doyle.

SpeakEasy

Naked Lungs -They have booked me to perform next month so I thought I would go along and check it out. Glad I did, great night. Performers included Ian Bowkett and Ben Norris.

 

My writing life/ The Poet Within

August has been a funny month – action packed but also dippy in emotional stakes, belief in my writing, confidence drooping in my ability to perform, inner gremlins getting a look in. I suppose the more seriously I take myself the more this may happen or it could have been some of the subject matter covered by this month’s writing. Or the pressure I placed on myself to complete this month’s submissions and performances. It doesn’t look more than usual but considering I took about 10 days off completely, it is a LOT! August has produced many new poems and some still have slightly rough edges. My writing spirit is high!

 

 

RELATED LINKS:

August

Benches by Jan Watts – Book Review

 I was so excited when I finished reading that the first thing I did online today was leave a book review on Amazon – although you are probably aware of the current battles of Authors against Amazon and if you prefer you can follow the links in this review and buy it directly from the publisher.

 

Review

I really enjoyed reading Benches, it has been a while since I managed to read a book in a day, but I just didn’t want to put this novel down. I wanted to find the answers and was delighted by plot twists. I hate it when a book has an expected ending and this one will keep you going right to the final page. There is humour and laughter, serious issues, great characters and the plot wriggles and winds – quite in opposition to the straight canal setting.

Great stories have it all and Benches will appeal to a wide range of readers, you will not be disappointed. It has meat as well as sizzle – it is brilliant.

 

The Blurb

Nancy Byrde tells us her version of the canalside goings on that spice up her retirement. Together with her dog, Steven, she gets close to her family, the good and the evil. She dices, with drugs, violence, a teenage runaway and being over exposed at a wedding she wasn’t invited to. Will she find a new happiness? Benches is set in and around Birmingham in the UK. The names of places has been changed to protect the innocent. It grew out of an encounter with a bench that had been graffitied with a rude word. This is a debut novel.

 

BUY YOUR COPY

Here

My Amazon Review

5 Star

Benches is a great novel, humour, real life, family, plot twists, surprise events and an anagram puzzle of Birmingham’s suburbs… what’s not to enjoy! I believe that everyone who reads this will smile and laugh and yet it is a novel that covers some pretty serious issues too, there is meat as well as sizzle.
It is a quick read (you won’t want it to be), unlike a narrowboat – it moves at pace. It has been ages since I had time to read a book in a day, but I did… I didn’t want to put it down. You will want to find answers too. Treat yourself and treat others too (get some EARLY Christmas shopping in).
From cover to cover, a true delight.

 

 

Benches by Jan Watts – The Book Launch

Book Launch Benches

Tuesday 5th August was the official launch of Jan’s book ‘Benches’, her first novel, although she has written playscripts and short stories and is of course a former Birmingham POET LAUREATE – it goes without saying that she writes poetry. The photo above was taken at ‘Poetry For Lunch'(PFL), a spin off from her ‘Phenomenal Women’ events, one of which I was lucky enough to catch at Birmingham University last Autumn as my poetry odyssey began. PFL provides a half hour platform for local poets to perform in a tag-team, it is fast, fun and furious. Every Thursday 1-1.30pm the amphitheatre at the Library of Birmingham. Free poetry with your sandwiches city folk, what could be better?

I was looking forward to a catch up in the city with a poet friend, I had not seen socially for a long time, a good time was had in the Bacchaus Bar, where we sat on thrones and drank tea. Then we headed to the Mailbox to find Jan on the canal in her boat ‘Telga’.

 

The Beginning on Telga

It was a lovely way to start the afternoon – with fizz and lemon drizzle cake and some of Jan’s homemade (prize winning or should be) pastry. Then we headed down to the Library of Birmingham for the launch. Part of the OFF THE PAGE season of events, where the library showcase local writers who have written/set stories in the city.

The Book Box was part of the library I hadn’t discovered when I did a huge floor to floor exploration last October, (it opened in September but I waited for the mass exodus of the media and cityfolk) for a more authentic feel of a library. I was particularly struck by a library shelf section that just said GOD. I hadn’t ventured into this far corner downstairs though, it is a great space, boxed in at the sides and open at the top, below street level so you can watch the people of the city pass by and opposite are some of the older, grander buildings in Birmingham.

Jan is always entertaining, she is one of these women whose spirit and energy just exudes from them all the time. She is brilliant and her book readings have been thoroughly enjoyable. There is something special about hearing an author reading their own words.

Here is where you can buy a copy of Benches.

Price: £7.99

Ships in 3-5 business days.

Nancy Byrde tells us her version of the canalside goings on that spice up her retirement. Together with her dog, Steven, she gets close to her family, the good and the evil. She dices, with drugs, violence, a teenage runaway and being over exposed at a wedding she wasn’t invited to. Will she find a new happiness? Benches is set in and around Birmingham in the UK. The names of places has been changed to protect the innocent. It grew out of an encounter with a bench that had been graffitied with a rude word. This is a debut novel.

***** 5 star rated reviews.

 

It is also available as an e-book for a fraction of the price:

Benches By Jan Watts eBook:

£2.99

Go on! Treat yourselves!

Leave Time for Admin and Research

Hopefully one day, you can add ‘marketing’ to the title listed.

The greatest lesson I have learnt since I relaunched into writing is that Admin and research take a lot of time and both are necessary. I have spent the past few days researching markets and scheduling writing through the diary around life and performing.

It has taken days… I tried an old trick I used to push myself with back in the days of a pile of office work. I worked out that in an hour I had (on average) covered about 5 websites, I basically tried to cover what I needed to find out in less than 20 mins a site, then less than 15, I couldn’t shave any time off this as I was also copying information into files on my computer.

I am only part way through my list and have, as yet, not actually worked on any new writing, which I am champing at the bit to do (eager).

I can now post a review of ‘A Night With Maya Angelou’ with links to Jordan’s review (organiser). I am also dropping in a post about ‘Off the Page’, Jan Watt’s official book launch, attended on Tuesday.

Go read, enjoy!