Posts

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Poems of a Teenage Girl

Last year, I spied a book in the window of my local bookshop, How to Grown your own Poem by Kate Clanchy. I loved the cover and the title and often use poetry to help my students with creative literacy, so decided to treat myself to…

📚Top Ten Books of 2020📚

I read quite a lot of books, so it wasn't at all easy to narrow this list down to ten. I have also discovered the joys of audiobooks this year which has significantly bumped up my book intake. I spent some time writing out my long list, crossing…

Creative Writing in Prison

Tilda Bowden is a friend from my Nairobi days who was in my writing group over there, The Turaco Tree Writers. In recent years, Tilda has been going into a women's prison to run creative writing and poetry workshops. I invited her onto the…
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'Turning': Publication of my Poetry ebook

Each and every person have strategies to help them cope with challenging times. For me, you won't be surprised to hear that it's always been writing, for as long as I can remember: journalling, short stories, poems, haiku, fragments of words,…
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Human Writes: A Guest Blog with disabled writer Ann Young

I am really delighted to welcome on to my blog Poet & Disability Arts Advocate Ann Young. I heard her read one of her poems at the Dead (Women) Poet's Society in Norwich. A couple of working poets shared with the audience two forgotten…

Top Reads of 2019

As the end of 2019 is fast approaching, I thought I'd write a list of my top ten books of this year. If you like the sound of any of them, you've still time to pop down to your local bookshop before Christmas. The following books are not in…
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The Truth about my Mother on her 75th Birthday

My mother recently celebrated her 75th Birthday and, as one of the gifts I gave her, I decided to write a poem for her. The theme of this year's National Poetry Day was TRUTH, so I used that single word as a starting point for what became my…
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Celebrating National Poetry Day

Please click here to read an article I have written about National Poetry Day, celebrated this year (2019) on 3rd October. This year's theme is TRUTH. So, why not join in and #tellyourtruth
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An Advent Calendar Poe-Tree

I had been meaning to create an advent calendar 'poe-tree' for my children for years, ever since seeing one on a children's book blog I follow. There's never going to be an easy time to do this, so I just decided to go for it this year, pulling…
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Why engaging in poetry is a way into writing for kids

Ask a child to write a poem or ask a child to write a story. Which is less daunting? A story, on the whole, needs a beginning, middle and end. But a poem? It can be pages long. Or it can just be a few words. That's the beauty of poetry, the…