Julian Bishop, Maggie Butt, Sarah Doyle and Cheryl Moskowitz are four well-published and prize-winning members of Poets for the Planet, who have come together to perform climate emergency poems and publish a pamphlet ‘Poems for the Planet’ (2020) with all profits to eco-charities.
Author Bio
Julian Bishop
Julian Bishop is a former television journalist living in North London. He was longlisted in this year’s National Poetry Competition and won the 2021 Poets and Players Competition. He’s also a former runner-up in the Ginkgo Prize for Eco Poetry.
Maggie Butt
Maggie Butt’s sixth poetry collection is everlove (The London Magazine Editions 2021) and a novel, The Prisoner’s Wife, under the name Maggie Brookes was published internationally in 2020.
Sarah Doyle
Sarah Doyle is a poet and PhD researcher. She is widely placed and published, with a pamphlet of collage poems inspired by Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals – Something so wild and new in this feeling – published by V. Press in March 2021.
Cheryl Moskowitz
Cheryl Moskowitz is a poet, novelist and creative translator. Together with composer Alastair Gavin she runs the poetry and electronics performance series, All Saints Sessions, http://www.allsaintssessions.uk. Her recent pamphlet, Maternal Impression, is published by Against the Grain Poetry Press.
This was a great reading from a book which got swallowed a bit by the pandemic, like my pamphlet ‘Patience’, this collective of poets also saw the readings they had lined up for the promotion of this publication cancelled. This is an important book – as all books are- but the message here is even more believed from the year we have all just experienced.
Sunday 9th
Write a Book in 10 Easy Steps!
Blank page and no idea how to begin? This practical hour-long workshop is guaranteed to kickstart your inspiration. We will explore the nuts and bolts of what a satisfying story needs. If you want to write commercial fiction that readers will adore this workshop is perfect for you!
Author Bio
Cesca Major is a novelist and screenwriter. She writes books based on mysterious events and The Thin Place is based around the sinister happenings at Overtoun Bridge in Scotland – a place where dogs have been known to leap to their deaths. Cesca has presented shows for ITV West and Sky Channels in the past. She enjoys hosting or speaking on festival panels and films vlogs about the writing process. She runs writing retreats twice a year in the West Country and teaches creative writing courses for the Henley School of Art. She writes uplifting books under other names and currently has a TV series in development. Cesca lives in Berkshire with her husband, son and twin girls.
This was an incredible workshop to finish my festival experience and a true lesson in how much can be packed into a one hour session. Busily scribbled notes throughout and it was a delight to hear a truthful, honest account of a career writer. Lots of insight into the process of simplifying the big obstacles that stop people from completing projects.
Huge gratitude to the SAHLF team for making Spring 2021 slightly less of a weight to bear. This has been pure escapism and I have enjoyed every session I managed to attend.
Pulling off online festivals is no mean feat and you have, once again, been incredible.
Snippet reviews from some of my festival experience. Enjoy your bite of SAHLF 2021.
All the featured books can be purchased in the S@HLF Bookshop here.
Thursday 6th
Layers in Flash Fiction
A writing workshop on imagery and structure, with Anita Goveas and Farhana Khalique.
Author Bio
Farhana Khalique
Farhana Khalique is a writer, voiceover artist and teacher from London. Her stories are forthcoming or have appeared in the National Flash Fiction Day Anthology 2021, Leicester Writes Short Story Prize Anthology 2020, Reflex Fiction and more. Farhana has been shortlisted for The Asian Writer Short Story Prize, and she has won a Word Factory Apprentice Award. She is also the editor of Desi Reads and a submissions editor at SmokeLong Quarterly.
This was an amazing workshop, I signed up with the thought of getting back into Flash Fiction writing and these two certainly spurred me on. This was an excellent workshop, they managed to squeeze so much into the hour. I didn’t really know what to expect. They made me think about writing in a fresh, new way.
Thank You for The Small Things: Poetry Workshop with Nadine Aisha Jassat
A workshop with award-winning writer Nadine Aisha Jassat on using poetry to help give thanks for the small things. This gentle workshop will feature prompts to reflect and write on, suitable for folks writing for the first time or those who write regularly, and will make use of some zoom features including the chat box.
This was another incredible workshop, one which warmed all our hearts and again, so much packed into the hour. I got some writing done and have useful ideas to run with in the future. This hour was a pleasure and a joy and I am SO GLAD I didn’t miss this!
Friday 7th
Friday was exceptionally busy so I didn’t make it to the festival until the evening.
Solace in Sound – Three Bloodaxe Poets Explore the Landscape of Grief
Join a trio of Bloodaxe poets whose recent poetry collections span Scotland, Ireland, England and Estonia. Each shares a powerful sense of their formative landscapes; whether farmland, forest, mountains, estuaries, rivers or beyond. In poems that consider the impact of loss – of friends and friendships, parents, or a communal event of the most traumatic kind – these collections foster sympathy and strength. The poets will read from their own work, and also from each other’s, creating a unique conversation about memory and resonance in the landscape.
Author Bio
Jane Clarke
Jane Clarke is the author of two poetry collections, The River and When the Tree Falls (Bloodaxe Books 2015 & 2019), and an illustrated chapbook, All the Way Home, (Smith|Doorstop 2019). Four of her poems feature in Staying Human (Bloodaxe Books 2020) and one of the poems from When the Tree Falls was selected for The Forward Book of Poetry 2021. She grew up on a farm in Co. Roscommon and her work explores enduring connections to people, place and nature. She lives in Glenmalure, Co. Wicklow where she combines writing with teaching & mentoring creative writing.
Philip Gross
Philip Gross, born in Cornwall, son of an Estonian wartime refugee, has lived in South Wales since 2004. He won the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2009, a Cholmondeley Award in 2017, and is a keen collaborator – with artist Valerie Coffin Price on A Fold In The River (Seren, 2015), with poet Lesley Saunders on A Part of the Main (Mulfran, 2018) and with scientists on Dark Sky Park (Otter-Barry, 2018). His latest collections are Between The Islands (Bloodaxe, 2020) and Troeon/Turnings (Seren, 2021) with Welsh language poet Cyril Jones. A new Bloodaxe collection, The Thirteenth Angel, is due in 2022.
Heidi Williamson
Heidi Williamson grew up in Norfolk and spent many years living in Central Scotland. Her first collection, Electric Shadow, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize. The Print Museum won the 2016 East Anglian Book Award for Poetry. Return by Minor Road, published in 2020, revisits her time living in Dunblane at the time of the Primary School shooting and its aftermath. She is an Advisory Fellow for the Royal Literary Fund and also works for the Poetry Society, Poetry School, National Centre for Writing and The Writing Coach.
I did not want to miss this reading. I saw Heidi last year at the SAHLF and have been fortunate enough to attend several of Philip’s readings. This was an hour filled with incredible poetry. It’s always interesting to hear how themes from different bodies of work can chime together.
Three years after the emergence of the global #MeToo movement, we revisit the poems (and poets) behind the #MeToo Women’s Poetry Anthology. Poets Jill Abram, Deborah Alma, Kim Moore, Wendy Pratt, Victoria Bennett, and Jhilmil Breckenridge discuss breaking the silence, whether there is still hope for change, and what needs to happen next for survivors to be heard. Any donations contributed during this event will be given to Women’s Aid.
The proceeds from this event and all proceeds from the book go to Women’s Aid – a charity supporting women in crisis.
Author Bio
Jill Abram
Jill Abram is Director of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen, a collective encouraging craft, community and development. Publications include The Rialto, Magma, Under the Radar, Ink Sweat & Tears, And Other Poems, and Harana.
Deborah Alma
Deborah Alma is a UK poet and teacher. Deborah is editor of #MeToo: A Women’s Poetry Anthology. Her first full collection, Dirty Laundry, is published by Nine Arches Press and she now runs the Poetry Pharmacy in Shropshire.
Kim Moore
Kim Moore’s first collection The Art of Falling (Seren, 2015) won the 2016 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Her second collection All The Men I Never Married will be published by Seren in October 2021.
Wendy Pratt
Wendy Pratt’s latest collection When I Think of My Body as a Horse won the Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet award. She is a poet, author and workshop facilitator and the creator and editor of Spelt magazine.
Victoria Bennett
Her most recent poetry pamphlet, To Start The Year From Its Quiet Centre, was published by Indigo Dreams in 2020, and is an invitation to witness to the intimate moments of dying, telling the story of a relationship between women that is transformed through grief.
Jhilmil Breckenridge
Jhilmil Breckenridge is a poet, writer and activist. She is the founder of Bhor Foundation, an Indian charity, which is active in mental health advocacy. Her debut poetry collection is Reclamation Song.
#Me Too was first coined in 2006 by New Yorker Toronto Burke. In 2017 following major press coverage (Harvey Weinstein) the # was used over 12 million times in a couple of weeks. Deborah Alma, after following the news, put out a message on Facebook asking who HADN’T experienced… and only 3% hadn’t. And actually in further conversation, this 3% had as well. The book was published in 2018 (Fair Acre Press), in a time when the #me too movement was hitting everyone’s radar.
Sadly, it is still a necessary message to get out to the world. More so since Lockdown.
I went to a few #Me Too readings when the book was launched. My submission didn’t make it between the cover there were hundreds of submissions and the book couldn’t accommodate them all, so Victoria Bennett stepped in and published them on the Wild Women Press website (mine can be found here along with many others). It was also included in a body of work exhibited as part of the ASKING FOR IT exhibition in 2019.
It was hearing Kim Moore read from The Art of Falling, which enabled me to find the strength to write it into existence in the first place.
This, I knew would be a brilliant reading and it was with lots of Q&A too and because of the weight of the subject matter they finished the event off with a touch of self-care. A question to every member of the panel.
Explore the ways fiction writing can be used as a powerful distraction to help manage chronic pain in this one-hour workshop led by Gillian Shirreffs, a writer who lives with multiple sclerosis.
Welcome to the 5th part of Week 1 – these are just snippet reviews from some of my festival experience. Enjoy your bite of SAHLF 2021. Full Author Bios can be read on the SAHLF website.
All the featured books can be purchased in the S@HLF Bookshop here.
Sunday’s programme was fantastic, I only had chance to get to a few events.
Sunday 2nd
Learning Your Inner Witch: a Poem-Spell Writing Workshop
Join author Alice Tarbuck for a relaxed poem-spell writing workshop to learn about your inner witch, and to find words for reconnecting with the world. You don’t need anything more than something to write on and something to write with.
Alice Tarbuck is an award-winning poet and writer. She has taught Creative Writing at the University of Dundee, and was a 2019 Scottish Book Trust New Writer’s Awardee for poetry. Her debut non-fiction book A Spell in the Wild: a year (and six centuries) of Magic is published by Hodder & Stoughton. She works as a Lead Reader for literacy charity Open Book. Additionally, she has taught workshops for the National Library of Scotland, the Scottish Poetry Library, the University of Edinburgh and further afield. She has chaired events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Dundee Literary Festival and at bookshops around Scotland.
Alice also received a special mention the day before in the Witches of Scotland podcast – Claire Mitchell QC and Zoe Venditozzi event.
It was going to happen at some point and unfortunately it happened here… my very old and in need of being replaced tech let me down and it was a 20 minute voyage to get into the workshop, so I missed introductions and the initial exercise – I arrived full of tech-rage and stress…
and within less time than it took to get in to the workshop – I was calm! This workshop was magic!
Not only was Alice Tarbuck an incredible workshop facilitator but the activities were terrific and some of the writing which came and approaches and thoughts that surfaced will definitely be pursued. It got me to consider magic in a different way and I even left pages in the notebook -a good sign because it means I plan to go back and repeat or extend.
I am SO glad my tech didn’t let me down totally and I managed to join in with this amazing group.
Earthed: A Courageous Memoir for Our Uncertain Times
Join Rebecca Schiller as she reads from Earthed: A courageous memoir for our uncertain times. A story of living in both an unfamiliar world and a volatile mind, Earthed explores how a place has the power to transform us and how the land can be both a dream and a nightmare.
BIO:
Rebecca Schiller is a writer, journalist and the author of Your No Guilt Pregnancy Plan (Penguin Life) and Why Human Rights in Childbirth Matter. She is co-founder and trustee of the human rights charity Birthrights and a regular contributor to the Guardian. Rebecca and her family raise a motley crew of goats, geese, ducks and chickens. They work their small plot to grow vegetables, fruit and flowers and restore wildlife to the land.
It was an interesting interview, hearing Rebecca Schiller’s writing process and how the book changed over time, her natural inclination to find patterns and the life of goats and ducklings as well as extracts of the book and a discussion about neurodiversity.
‘ A beautiful memoir of one small plot of land and one complex human mind; a story of our interconnection and an ambitious search for the truth.’ Amy Liptrot
‘A stunner. Full of wisdom about the world we are all looking at with new eyes.’ Emma Freud
The Importance of Uplit
Writers Tim Ewins, Victoria Dowd, Gill Harvey, Matson Taylor, Nicola Gill, and Cat Walker discuss the emergence of Uplit fiction, why lighthearted and heartwarming stories are important, and how anyone can channel their inner comedian.
Cat Walker
Cat Walker was born in the sunny seaside town of Scarborough in North Yorkshire. The Scoop is her debut novel. Cat also writes poetry and co-wrote and directed (probably) the world’s first lesbian field hockey musical which sold out performances in Brighton, Eastbourne and (pretty near) the West End of London. During lockdown Cat unexpectedly became a bestselling poet when she was published in Poems for a Pandemic (HarperCollins) alongside Darren Smith’s powerful ‘You Clap for Me Now’.
Victoria Dowd
Victoria Dowd’s debut novel, The Smart Woman’s Guide to Murder, was In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel’s Book of the Year 2020 and is short listed for The People’s Book Prize and TCK’s Reader’s Choice Awards 2021. The second book in the series, Body on the Island, was released in February 2021. Her books are a modern, darkly comic take on Golden Age crime fiction. Victoria was awarded the Gothic Fiction prize for short fiction in 2019.
Gillian Harvey
Gillian Harvey has written comment pieces and features for Guardian, Telegraph and Independent, and regularly writes features for magazines including People’s Friend, Woman’s Weekly and Reader’s Digest. Her ‘Under the Covers’ column takes a sideways look at life as an author. Gillian’s first novel, Everything is Fine, was published with Orion in May 2020. Her second, Perfect on Paper, is due for publication in May 2021.
Tim Ewins
Tim Ewins has previously written for DNA Mumbai, had two short stories highly commended and published in Michael Terence Short Story Anthologies, and had a very brief acting stint (he’s in the film Bronson, somewhere in the background). We Are Animals is his first novel.
Nicola Gill
Nicola Gill lives in London with her husband and her two sons. At the age of five, when all of the other little girls wanted to be ballet dancers, she decided she wanted to be an author. Her ballet teacher was very relieved.
Matson Taylor
Matson Taylor enrolled on the Faber Academy ‘Writing A Novel’ course. The Miseducation of Evie Epworth is his first novel.
This panel was a fun watch. I had not come across the genre term Uplit – it’s a fairly new literary term and they played Romesh Ranganathan’s game –one of the panelists is not wearing trousers – we were invited to guess who.
It was entertaining and delightful. A great way to finish the first festival weekend!
A wonderful tale of journeys, both geographical and emotional, that will keep you entertained at every turn… Cat Walker is a brilliant storyteller.Zoe Lyons
‘Charming and relatable’ SOPHIE COUSENS Totally relatable, totally uplifting, totally a must-read’ TRACY BLOOM ‘Brilliantly funny and engaging’ NICOLA GILL ‘The perfect escapist read’ EMMA MURRAY
‘Poignant and wry up-lit at its finest – Nicola Gill is a talent to behold!’ LAURA JANE WILLIAMS , bestselling author of Our Stop ‘Warm and witty – I quickly grew to love the characters.’ BETH O’LEARY , Sunday Times
awritersfountain 