Avril Joy's Blog, page 3

Wintering

Hi Everyone

We meet again in lockdown mark 2, as winter draws in. It’s tough I know – so I hope you have some writing plans for the coming month that will give you pleasure, or if writing just isn’t possible for you right now, then some good books or podcasts lined up and a few box sets – recommendations welcome, I love nothing better than a good box set.

Before I talk writing, I really want to thank everyone who bought a Linen Press book bag. I gather from your messages that they were a r...

Paper Bag Writer & Women’s Aid – We Need Your Support

Hi Everyone

Many thanks for all your messages about Skomm and the Forward Prize. I’m still feeling very chuffed about it all, but today I want to talk about something else, a new exciting venture with my publisher Linen Press in support of Women’s Aid – the national charity working to end domestic abuse against women and children.

Women’s Aid are a federation of over 180 organisations  providing around 300 local lifesaving services to women and children across the country. Survivors of a...

Skomm

Below is the image, from photographer Christina Mittermeier, that inspired my poem Skomm from my collection Going in With Flowers, from Linen Press which to my surprise and delight has been highly commended in the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem.

I was already drafting a poem about women in prison and their shame, when I came across the photo. I’d been thinking about a particular day when I got to the classroom and found the women fretful and unhappy. They wanted to talk about the past, a...

Time

Hi Everyone,

firstly sincere apologies for not replying sooner to those of you who commented recently – comments are so special to me and I hate to miss them. I can only blame it on the long haul of Covid. Like many, and many worse than me, I’m finding it very tough to get over this virus and I keep having major setbacks. It really is no fun. It means that work and writing and enjoying myself! have had to take a back seat and time is measured mostly by the weather at the window and the wind...

‘Me, the Work, in a Room’ – Anthony Gormley

This morning a writer friend sent me link to writing routines.com -‘an arts and culture podcast for writers… where we chat to some of the world’s most successful authors, and find out how they work.’

I get this, there is definitely a fascination for knowing how a writer works, what their day and space may look like. It’s a question I’m often asked. It comes in various forms – Do you write every day? Where and when? How many words? etc. ‘How do you find time to do the housework?’ Yes this que...

In the Downtime

Hi Everyone

So, a bit of a pause from me but I’ve been struggling to get back to where I was before being ill. (My GP now thinks it very likely I’ve had Covid, though of course there’s no telling for sure)

I know I’m not on my own in finding it hard to get over the relentless fatigue and of course there are many who have had much worse to contend with. And I have a garden, and new garden furniture! (for my birthday ) which has made June a happy month, despite it all.

As for the writin...

Notes on a Novella

Hi Everyone – call me fickle but I’ve had enough of the rain now! It’s time for the sun to reappear so that we can sit outside in our gardens – if we have them, or park or open space – with family and friends. I did manage to take my flask and join a friend in her garden for a short while yesterday. Winter coats and boots were the order of the day but I came back with a small bouquet of old fashioned sweet peas which sing summer every time they catch my eye or nose.

Meanwhile indoors I’ve be...

Winging it…

So today, I confess, I had a glass of white wine at lunchtime, my favourite time to drink wine, wrote an off the cuff poem to a friend recalling our time together writing in France – just how free and special that felt being women with rooms of our own, unencumbered, writing every day – then marvelled when, as if on cue, the sun came out, flooding my study. I contributed to Murmuration a collective poem championed by New Writing North – such a beautiful idea – send in your lines people! Wrote a...

A Week of Thieves

For you, and to remind myself – below, the renga diary continues – and will do for the foreseeable future – I fear we are not out of this yet, not by a long way.

I’m calling this my week of thieves: first the wind, then the progression of glaucoma and the threat to the vision in my right eye, and then to top it all the farce of Dim and Dom…which stole so much from all of us.

This sun is lovely though, isn’t it – hope you’re getting out there, but always staying safe

13th May onwards

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Forgotten Quarry, Stolen Weekend

Hi everyone –

I wish you well on this extraordinary Bank Holiday Monday. Without wanting to dwell on the events of the past few days (I’ve been trying to escape them this morning by getting out into the garden) I find I’m still, like so many in the country, angry to the point of despair and tears. My weekend stolen and spoiled.

Just as the wind has laid waste our gardens so Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson have laid waste the honour and sacrifice of ordinary people. They have treated us ...