Susie Wild's Blog: Wildlife, page 19

PHOTOS: The Swansea Fringe

 Thanks to Tracey Rhys for these two lovely photos from The Swansea Fringe where I was hosting an event with Emily Cotterill and Mari Ellis Dunning on Sunday at COPR Bar, and I also read a few poems...

Thanks also to all who braved the weather and came along and to Joe and the rest of the festival team and to Lee at COPR Bar for having us! Here are some of my favourites who stayed for a catch up after...

Also, the weather meant my hair was firmly under a hat / in plaits for most of the weekend, but it did start out looking nice... so as I photographed this rare good hair day... here's evidence! I'm a right curlylocks again at the moment... which means it is rare they tame themselves nicely...

LISTEN: Celine’s Salon ~ Celine Hispiche ~ 06.11.22

If you missed Celine's radio show, giving a sneak preview of this Thursday's Tenby launch of the new Celine's Soho Salon anthology, you can listen again here ... my two poems are about 18 mins in.

THE SWANSEA FRINGE: Flying Pearls

ONE WEEK TODAY... I am hosting this poetry event at The Swansea Fringe. Do come! I'll also be kicking it off with a few poems of my own...

Flying Pearls: Mari Ellis Dunning and Emily CotterillSunday 6 November, 5pm, COPR Bar SwanseaEntry free with festival wristband or £5 on the doorMari Ellis Dunning’s first poetry collection Salacia was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year Award, and was followed by The Wrong Side of the Looking Glass, a pamphlet of dramatic monologues written in collaboration with Natalie Ann Holborow and her recently released second collection Pearl and Bone. She won the Terry Hetherington Young Writers Award and placed second in both the Lucent Dreaming Short Story Competition and the Sylvia Plath Poetry Prize. A PhD candidate at Aberystwyth University working on a historical novel exploring accusations of witchcraft and fertility, Dunning also teaches creative writing part time. She lives on the west coast of Wales, in Llanon, with her husband, their two sons and their dog. 
'This is a brave, complex, powerful, angry, and loving book, full of poems that argue, discuss, share, and reject the abuse of power that women and children are constant victims of... It is a model example of issues-based poetry, where argument is not reduced to sloganeering, preaching or demands, a concerned and original voice in the current debate about sexuality and gender.' – Tears in the Fencehttps://mariellisdunning.cymruhttps://www.parthianbooks.com/products/pearl-and-bone

Emily Cotterill is a Cardiff based poet originally from Alfreton, Derbyshire. Her debut pamphlet The Day of the Flying Ants was published by smith|doorstop in 2019 as part of Carol Ann Duffy's Laureate's Choice selection. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Wales, The North, Cheval, The Waxed Lemon and elsewhere. She is working on her first full collection which will feature poems about child actors, fish pedicures, and Welsh celebrities co-opting space in her office car park. ‘an exciting new voice, spiky, neo-punk in her hard-edged reminisces.’ – Rhian Edwardshttps://emilycotterill.com/VENUE: COPR Bar Swansea. Tickets: £5 on the day or as part of your weekend festival wristbands or pop into The Bunkhouse on the festival weekend for more info.

GIG ALERT: Celine's Salon, Tenby (Anthology Launch)

 I’m looking forward to reading poems at the Tenby launch for this wonderful new anthology next month… do come along!

GIG ALERT: Swansea Fringe

I'm happy to be hosting something literary here next month, more details to follow, look at all the good people involved! It must be time to book a ticket or three?

GUEST FEATURE: #TheCodex

It was so lovely to be asked to be the first Broken Spine Arts' #TheCodex guest feature which shares poems from my collections Windfalls and Better Houses. They also wrote some nice things about my writing that made me blush...

'We’re delighted to publish four poems by writer Susie Wild as our first writer on The Codex, a new, special project with Broken Spine Arts Collective to showcase contemporary talent. Susie’s poetry has really distinctive appeal, with its playful, inventive phrasing and unexpected imagery, taking on almost any subject full-pelt as a conjuror of words. With her intense focus, Susie Wild can transform the everyday, the ordinary – a walk in the park, bouncing on a trampoline, a traumatic break-up, into a vibrant, often humorous and surreal poem, taking us into multiple situations, both challenging and provoking us as readers. The poems in ‘Better Houses’ and ‘Windfalls’ have a stripped-back, seamless and finished quality, reflected in her work with Parthian, where she edits Mari Ellis Dunning, Natalie Ann Holborow and Rae Howells, some of our favourite Welsh poets.'

You can read the selection of poems in the #TheCodex full feature, if you like...

PEN PORTRAIT: Company of Words

Thanks to all who came along to listen and share writing last night! What a lovely audience! And especially to @artographyalix and @ShermanTheatre5 for having us and to @mainchrisglynn for this wonderful live action pen portrait!

GIG ALERT: Company of Words, Cardiff

 

Company of Words is teaming up with Sherman 5 for this in person literary Open Mic featuring guest poets Susie Wild and Ben Wildsmith, hosted by artist Alix Edwards. Suitable for over 15s. Share your poems, monologues, short scripts and prose in a warm, welcoming environment in the fabulous setting of the Sherman foyer, catch up with friends over a beer or coffee and get creative inspiration from our guest poets. All welcome! whether you are an experienced performer, new to creative writing or just want to listen! Susie Wild is author of the poetry collections Windfalls and Better Houses, the short story collection The Art of Contraception listed for the Edge Hill Prize, and the novella Arrivals. She has placed in competitions including the Welshpool Poetry Festival Competition, the Prole Laureate Prize and the Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition and performed at festivals including The Laugharne Weekend, Green Man and Glastonbury.'Wild comes across as the poetic equivalent of Jean Rhys: wry, arch, a little world-weary but, unlike Rhys, with a sparkling glint of humour... A very affecting collection of poems indeed.' – Buzz Magazine'This latest collection by Susie Wild is substantial, touching, entertaining and very fresh; [...] love and life fall and decay but also one finds strange, unexpected gifts.' – GwalesSusie on Linktree: https://linktr.ee/SoozeramaBen Wildsmith is a singer/songwriter of 30 years standing who has worked alongside Eric Bibb, The Strawbs, Lindisfarne and Slade in a career that has seen him perform to audiences through Europe and the USA. Blending American and British folk styles with thoughtful, acerbic lyrics he delivers a show full of pathos, humour and wry storytelling. He is a Sunday columnist for Nation Cymru.Ben's YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3TGulnb

GIG ALERT: COMPANY OF WORDS, CARDIFF

 

Company of Words is teaming up with Sherman 5 for this in person literary Open Mic featuring guest poets Susie Wild and Ben Wildsmith, hosted by artist Alix Edwards. Suitable for over 15s. Share your poems, monologues, short scripts and prose in a warm, welcoming environment in the fabulous setting of the Sherman foyer, catch up with friends over a beer or coffee and get creative inspiration from our guest poets. All welcome! whether you are an experienced performer, new to creative writing or just want to listen! Susie Wild is author of the poetry collections Windfalls and Better Houses, the short story collection The Art of Contraception listed for the Edge Hill Prize, and the novella Arrivals. She has placed in competitions including the Welshpool Poetry Festival Competition, the Prole Laureate Prize and the Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition and performed at festivals including The Laugharne Weekend, Green Man and Glastonbury.'Wild comes across as the poetic equivalent of Jean Rhys: wry, arch, a little world-weary but, unlike Rhys, with a sparkling glint of humour... A very affecting collection of poems indeed.' – Buzz Magazine'This latest collection by Susie Wild is substantial, touching, entertaining and very fresh; [...] love and life fall and decay but also one finds strange, unexpected gifts.' – GwalesSusie on Linktree: https://linktr.ee/SoozeramaBen Wildsmith is a singer/songwriter of 30 years standing who has worked alongside Eric Bibb, The Strawbs, Lindisfarne and Slade in a career that has seen him perform to audiences through Europe and the USA. Blending American and British folk styles with thoughtful, acerbic lyrics he delivers a show full of pathos, humour and wry storytelling. He is a Sunday columnist for Nation Cymru.Ben's YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3TGulnb

WISH YOU WERE HERE: Poetry Showcase, Penarth Literary Festival 2022