Apparently, it takes me three years to come up with a new book. I hadn’t realised this until my publisher pointed it out. My first collection ‘Some Things Matter’ was published by that miracle of Yorkshire-based publishing Valley Press in 2012. Then came ‘Cinema Stories’ in 2015 written with the brilliant Otley Town Poet, Matthew Hedley Stoppard.
So three years to gather the ingredients, chop and cook and bring it all to the boil, and wondering, like we do every January with our marmalade, whether it’s going to set or not. And the last part is the hardest, pulling the collection into shape, finding an order for them all and working with an editor to make the very best of then writing.
And then the opportunity to share some of the poems on a launch evening, when us writers emerge blinking in the light . ‘A Bench for Billie Holiday: 70 sonnets’ will be launched on
the 16th October at The Leeds Library [on Commercial Street, not the Leeds Central Lending Library]. Come for 7pm and you will get three Valley Press poets for the price of one, because I have Di Slaney [‘Reward for Winter’] and Matthew Hedley Stoppard [‘A Family Behind Glass’ and ‘Cinema Stories’] reading with me.
The book can be pre-ordered on Amazon; it has the bonus of a stunning cover by Jacky Fleming, where Otto the Comedy Dachshund has a walk-on part.
