My Year in Writing, Editing and Publishing, 2021

Since I self-published Day of the Flying Leaves (Selected Poems) in March, I have posted the following new poems online. I will eventually move them into a new collection, working title “A Hot Sup From the Teapot”.

• May 11: Every Day I Go Out Down
• May 24: High-Flying Birds Know
• June 6: Rearranging Curios in the Museum of Religion: The Rooms (RC Wing)
• July 1: Grieving for a Bee
• July 6: Every Morning is a One-Armed Bandit
• July 12: Now We Are Trees
• July 26: If You Stop Thinking
• August 14: Outpatient
• August 19: Country Sayings
• August 24: Snowdonia from the Boat Train
• September 18: Outtakes from Knots (excerpt)
• September 21: Santo Niño of Sudbury Hill
• November 15: To the Get Hawking and Spitting in the Next Stall
• October 17: Look Both Ways
• October 22: Why the Leaves are not Leaving
• November 28: Tim Berners-Lee Cried (a parody on “Dem Bones” for Willesden Herald)
• November 29: Some Lines of Late (six poems)
• December 21: Honey, I Shrunk Myself
• December 25: Maid of Light

I updated this on December 26, 2021 and as yet Day of the Flying Leaves has had no reviews. To be fair, I only sent out one copy for review, to someone a friend recommended as a potential reviewer. Zip! Sales were two or three in the first month, and none since. My poems have only been recognised online by one or two kind friends and a few far-flung WordPress bloggers I don’t know at all.

This year as editor, I published brilliant new short stories by Jack R Johnson, Jessica Fogal and James Roderick Burns in Stories of the Month. I continue to work on some unpublished short stories and two or three projects that have the potential to blossom into novels or novellas. There are also more poems in the works. Ever onwards!

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Picture: One of the cover concepts for Day of the Flying Leaves

Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 11

Yes, I put together this collection of short stories. If you like it tell your friends. If you don't like it, tell your enemies.

Unboxing

If you read the book, a review on Amazon or elsewhere would be very welcome, no matter whether positive, negative or mixed.

Available from: Waterstones, Powells, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Book Depository & other online booksellers.

Book Depository, which is also owned by Amazon, offers this with “free delivery worldwide.” Sounds a bit too good to be true, no? If you successfully order from a research station in the Antarctic or the heart of Amazonia, I’d love to hear about it.

To order from a local bookshop, quote publisher Willesden Herald, ISBN 9780999527764, which they can find in their Ingram catalogue and order for you.

If you want to avoid buying from Amazon, and don’t want to buy from Powells or Waterstones or order from your local bookshop, I have a small stash of copies, which you’re welcome to have at cost. If that appeals, contact me to by email to arrange.

Willesden Herald Story of the Month

I have a new gig, editing the Willesden Herald New Short Stories “Story of the Month”. The series kicked off with Con Chapman’s engrossing account of a relationship in trouble, “The Woman Who Listened to Britten”. Link: Story of the Month, June 2018.

Co-edited with Lane Ashfeldt

As announced on www.newshortstories.com

I have just sent a newsletter to our 1762 subscribers, with the cover reveal, biographies, publication details etc for Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 10 and other news. Link to view online: Newsletter.

Many thanks to Stratos Fountoulis for the cover design and once again to Lane Ashfeldt, to Liars’ League for continuing support over the years, and to the much-missed Willesden Green Writers’ Group, who helped keep this competition going through hell & high water. And all writers everywhere, here’s to you!

Available from:

• Amazon.co.uk (UK, Ireland & Europe)
• Amazon.com (US, Canada, rest of the world)

Co-edited with Katy Darby

See you at The Performance Space, Willesden Library Centre, 7:30 pm December 8th for the launch. Katy Darby will announce who will walk away with the priceless mug for 2016. Authors are flying in from far and wide. Actors will read a few short excerpts. Fun will be had.

Update: First prize went to Love and Hair by Olga Zilberbourg, a Russian writer based in San Francisco. Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 9 is now available from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com & other online booksellers. For report, videos and more, please visit New Short Stories.

New Short Stories 4 launched

Willesden Herald short story prize results 2010

Several people have reported that I was seen at this.

Nuala Ní Chonchúir’s report

Vanessa Gebbie’s report

Reading for this

Black History Month

I’ll be there supporting this with Willesden Green Writers’ Group, on Friday at 8 pm, reading a bit of one of my stories that touches on immigration. It’s a self-contained part of “The End”, which is the first story in All Those Endearing Young Charms. (And yes – before you ask – the last story is called “The Beginning”).