Guest Writer Heather Wastie on Editing a Poem.
Our Guest Writer interview with this year’s Featured Writer – Alison May. Find out about her latest novel tomorrow.
https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2015/10/24/inkspill-guest-writer-interview-with-alison-may/
Our Guest Writer Workshop with Roy McFarlane – Writing their presence
Photo by Janko Ferlic on Pexels.com
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
That is the end of INKSPILL for another year. We have thoroughly enjoyed it and hope you have too. In previous years we have added a quick survey counter to use as feedback. It looks like we no longer have that option.
We have through the planning 2016 already taken steps towards INKSPILL 2017, it is always useful to hear what readers want though.
So if you feel brave, please add a comment below letting us know the best bits of 2016 for you and what you dream we can provide next year.
Thanks again to all our Guest Writers and for you for taking part.
Many thanks and happy writing.
Nina Lewis
That was INKSPILL 2016, I can hardly believe it is over already. Missed it? Our posts remain active so come and treat yourself whenever you have the time to write or watch.
our Guest Writer who went beyond the line for effort and input. We are grateful for the fabulous workshops you prepared for INKSPILL this year, we are sure people will be writing from them for some time to come.
It has been a pleasure.
© 2011 Smokestack Books
To Gaia Harper, our Guest Writer who was interviewed exclusively for INKSPILL. We are hugely grateful for your time. We hope you keep on writing.
For your advice and allowing us to share your wonderful video blogs (vlogs) on the craft of writing, we look forward to hearing more from you in the future and appreciate the time you gave us.
© Artfix Daily
And finally to Robert Harper, who unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, was not able to take part this year. Keeping our fingers crossed he will agree to be one of our 2017 Guest Writers.
We would also like to thank you, yes YOU for taking part, remember the links and pages remain active so come back and dip into INKSPILL whenever you have time. Treat yourself before Christmas.
INKSPILL BOOK SHOP 
We encourage a showing of gratitude by offering you news and publications from our Guest Writers, available NOW right here.
Have a browse. We promise not to ask if you need any help!
Gaia-Rose Harper can be found here:https://www.facebook.com/gaiaroseharper/
LIKE her page and keep an eye out for more exciting events featuring this talented young writer.
Robert Harper can be found here:http://www.robert-harper.co.uk/
We urge you to buy Bare Fiction, a magazine packed with poetry, fiction AND theatre. The literary equivalent of a great gig/spa retreat/best day of your life.
http://www.barefictionmagazine.co.uk/issues/
Roy McFarlane can be found here:Buy his book here Nine Arches Press 
She is a keynote speaker and workshop facilitator at this year’s La Jolla Writer’s conference in California.
La Jolla Writers Conference in San Diego, CA.
When we contacted Deeanne she gave us the following advice;
© Artfix Daily
We are sharing some of Deeanne’s tips with you this evening from this wonderful sequence of videos she has produced on the craft of writing.
The introduction to Deeanne’s video blog. Write the book you are excited about.
Deeanne talks about judging contests, editing, writing and advises us on what to leave out and why in this Two Minute Tip video.
In our second video Deeanne explores how to write conflict and drive your book forward. This video includes great advice from this International Best Selling Author.
Our final tip for aspiring writers is about character. This is a really interesting way of working and beats my index card system. Advice on how to give your protagonists depth.
We hope to bring you more from Deeanne Gist next year.
In our very first INKSPILL, back in 2013 we looked at writing historical novels. Deeanne Gist is an International Bestselling Author who writes historical novels with romantic twists. Her background is in education and journalism.
Deeanne Gist has rocketed up the bestseller lists and captured readers everywhere with her very original, very fun historical & contemporary love stories. She has four RITA nominations, two consecutive Christy Awards, rave reviews, and a growing loyal fan base and she still took time to respond to our emails.
You can find information on her books and lots more at her website.
Deeanne has been producing some great videos to help with the craft of writing. It is these videos we will feature this evening.
© Artfix Daily
Deeanne would like me to point you in the direction of a real conference happening in America – so if you are based in the States, you may want to make travel plans to attend La Jolla Writers Conference in San Diego, CA.
Her latest release, Tiffany Girl, was touted as a “Must Year of the Year!” by USA Today and one of the Top 10 Most Anticipated Books of 2015 by Huffington Post.
RELATED LINKS:
This is Roy’s final workshop, we are delighted with the amazing coverage in these workshops. We are sure you will all agree he has worked extremely hard on this programme. As with all our Guest Writers, time is given for free.
It would be great to see some feedback and response in the comments below, maybe you could even thank Roy by buying his book… the gift would be yours, as ‘Beginning with your last breath’ is an amazing debut collection.
© 2014 Najma Hush
This was an event I performed at ‘Diverse Dancers’ Photographic Exhibition by Najma Hush. This was the first time I watched Roy perform. I did not meet him properly until later in the year (2014) at Jacqui Rowe’s Poetry Bites. I knew a lot about his poetry and work as he was Poet Laureate for Birmingham 2010-11.
I had no idea back then that a few years later he would be producing an amazing collection of workshop exercises exclusively for INKSPILL. I am eternally grateful to you Roy and your generous spirit.
– Nina Lewis
In the previous part of this workshop we looked at ‘Missing You’, writing about what is left behind, what we possess after our loved ones have passed away.
We start this next part as a link, so look back over what you wrote earlier and dive in for the final write with Roy.
In this workshop Roy re-visits the poetry of Hannah Lowe and W.H Auden.
We started with objects at the beginning, so let’s finish with the idea of what we possess after our loved ones have passed away, and again explore beyond the normal aspects of gift, but maybe they left you with a burden, left you with a secret, left you with a joke, left with your beautiful memories; the page is yours.
The list poem comes to mind, where we just list what we have before us but you’re a poet, you have to take the naming of this list to another place, let’s look at the third passage from Six Day in March by Hannah Lowe.
*
So this is what I’m left with.
A stained brown cufflink box lined
with stained red silk,
two black elastic loops, one snapped and frayed.
I hold it to my nose, search out
the sweat-and-tobacco smell of his hair, his clothes,
the old yellow cardigan. What’s a life made of?
Fifteen pounds in a post office account,
a notebook scrawled in horses’ form,
one photograph of three Jamaican aunts
in white lace dresses, straight-backed
with clasped hands under a palm tree?
Is there a sense of disappointment with that opening line or is it the sense of weightlessness of life the lack of worth maybe? And so she seeks for something tangible, search out the sweat-and-tobacco smell of his hair… the desperation of loss is felt her, the need to hold on to you every piece of her father’s DNA.
We all know Auden’s stop all the clocks, but how about this lover’s lament
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
‘Love has no ending.
I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the station sing in the street
And then this beautiful gem…
‘the glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
And then after all that declaration of love, the reality of life that life goes on
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL:
In this workshop Roy uses the poetry of Abegail Morley 
and
Sarah James 
information on purchasing copies of their collections can be found in Related Links at the bottom of the post.
Wow, after that incredible and powerful poem that you’ve written (Being There Workshop), let’s write I miss you poems, how do we say I miss you, that sings a litany, a beautiful melody so far removed from tireless clichés, this is the one, this is where we write them into life, we go back to those beautiful moments and make time stop or we create a sliding doors (the movie or alternative universe) moment as in this wonderful poem by Abegail Morley from The Skin Diary
remember how she didn’t take her blunt playschool scissors
to your Tiny Tears doll, didn’t lop off a curl,
how it didn’t make you cry for three nights in a row,
your only consolation, not inviting a mantra to your lips:
You are not my sister, you are not my sister.
Think of that night she wasn’t at the tap-end
of the bath, not blowing bubbles through her fingers,
not sloshing them over your face, how water didn’t slop
over the bath’s rim, how you didn’t slip
when your mother hugged you out in a towel.
Memorise how she didn’t cuddle close for those stories,
clap when they escaped the Gingerbread House. Learn how
she didn’t travel with you on the school bus, wasn’t there
when you rubbed your fingers over the invisible bruise
that couldn’t yellow on your thigh, wasn’t bashed by her bag.
Before you know it, she’s not at your wedding,
taking the posey from your nervous hands, doesn’t smile
when she doesn’t do it. Bear in mind she didn’t
have a look in her eyes when she didn’t hold your son
in her arms in amazement. Learn by heart those miles
she couldn’t take because you couldn’t call her at two a.m.
thinking he might die from colic. Remember how
she doesn’t say she loves you more than ever, and how
desperate that cannot make you feel. And know now
all you can say is, I miss you, I miss you.
Find an arc in your poems from the first stanza that sets up the premise you are not my sister, you are not my sister to the pay back, I miss you, I miss you.
Or this gorgeous (can you hear my Craig Revel Horwood impression) poem from Sarah James Plenty-Fish
I found it this morning: a single pink bootee
gaping white like an empty shell.
When I see flowers,
or bonnets and frilly dresses
next to the boys’ dungarees
I picture you.
You should be grown tall by know.
But I can still hold you: fosilled
fragments from the scan cupped
in my hand: small as a bullet,
or hole in the heart.
I imagine dark curls and shy smile,
though when you speak,
it’s merely an echo of their toddler talk.
I write this to you,
my child that never was,
yet is,
but
I write it for me –
though words won’t bend
to explain that longing for you,
I love the boys no less.
So, as I fold away bibs and bodysuits
And bag up blue for my friends,
The pink of your bootee creases my thoughts.
I ought to throw it, finish this, say goodbye…
Instead, I reach up, hide it high
In a cupboard my sons must never find.
RELATED LINKS:
Buy The Skin Diary by Abegail Morley here
Buy Plenty Fish by Sarah James here
DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES we regret to inform you that there will be no INKSPILL exclusive from Rob Harper today. We have decided to include the introductory post anyway so you can spend some time reading his poetry and checking out his websites and of course, Bare Fiction magazine.
Robert Harper is an actor, poet, producer and director of theatre and television. Since the early 90’s, Robert has performed in hundreds of varied productions on radio, screen and stage throughout the UK, most notably as a member of the BBC Radio Drama company.
He is Founding Editor of Bare Fiction Magazine, which started the same year I did (2013) and Artistic Director of Bare Fiction Theatre Company which is dedicated to the production and presentation of new work.
Robert holds a BA in Theatre Studies from RWCMD, has just completed his MA in Creative Writing and runs Shrewsbury Poetry Stanza.
Robert Harper – Poet
As part of his MA he recently collaborated with composer Zakiya Leeming on a new piece for four voices based on his poem Hush, along with a solo piece developed especially for the Rosamond Prize.
He regularly reads at Poetry Events and read alongside David Morley and Gregory Leadbetter at the Wenlock Poetry Festival 2014, where his poetry also appeared on the Wenlock Festival Poetry Trail.
His work has featured in The Interpreter’s House, Prole, Acumen, Royal Philharmonic Society and for National Children’s Heart Week 2014. He was Highly Commended in the Poetry Book Society Student Poetry Competition 2014 and performed at ‘An Evening with Carol Ann Duffy and Friends’.
Robert’s poetry can be found here http://www.robert-harper.co.uk/poet/
So Roy’s workshops are going deep, for this one you may need tissues (and we should never let that put us off), or as he suggests a shoulder to lean on afterwards. You can always start a conversation in the reply boxes below and if you happen to have the ‘treasure’ of an empty house to write in, you may want to have some connection after this.
We are here LIVE today, so talk to us if you wish to.
In this workshop Roy looks at the poetry of Hannah Lowe.
© 2011 Smokestack Books
Being there is the toughest journey, you’re a journalist on a battlefield, fighting the inevitable, there’s no turning back, you’re right in the middle of it, seeing blood and fluid, hearing the groans and pains, screaming for help and assistance. The following is the middle passage of Six Days in March by Hannah Lowe from Chick.
*
No dignity in this.
We find you on the stairs,
old child in tears. You want to piss
and so I carry you,
the weightless body folded in my arms
The house is smaller, brighter.
I pass the doorway quickly
where my mother holds your face,
a bowl of milky water on her knee, a razor.
The nurses come, their blue efficiency,
their muscled hands. They twist you on the sheets
and lay you naked, powdered clean, clean.
The shocking body in the light,
bone and paper skin,
the ladder on your shins of buckle scars,
thighs so slight and girlish,
your penis dumb and nuzzled
In its bed of hair.
Old child in tears. You want to piss, the old adage of twice a child once a man, so beautifully put, the fragility of old age, the dependence now on his daughter, search for those juxtaposition, poetry loves juxtapositions.
The house is smaller, brighter. So much is said in these few lines, the child returns as a carer, but the house being brighter fascinates me, maybe she sees her father clearer now, do we see our parents who were hard on us different when their older or in Hannah’s case the father who picked her up at ballerina classes, is no longer the taxi driver (the narrative she shared with friends), she now sees things in a brighter light.
The nurses come, their blue efficiency, their muscled hands. They twist you on the sheets, I love this description blue efficiency, muscled hands, they twist you, there’s no time for sensitivity, there’s a job to be done, a repetition of work that nurses are so use to and this is not a damning of insensitivity but an honesty of the work that nurses have to do, industrious, thankless and tireless.
The ladder on your shins of buckle scars; what more do we have to say, poetry loves new way of describing, condemning the cliché to the bottom draw and bringing out something new, something ladened with a story, history, just go for it and say something new in that one line.
awritersfountain 