This was something I wrote on a recent trip to Switzerland, it may be appropriate for the recent weather:

The persistence of snow.
As inconsequential as crematorium ash,
it falls, subdues, transforms.

Writers, readers and lovers of words in Scarborough are gearing up for this year's literature festival (www.scarboroughliteraturefestival.co.uk). As well as nationally known authors with a book to promote, there is a vibrant fringe - see the website - with performances and workshops of every hue.

My own contribution is a collaborative short story. I will be asking participants in the festival to write letters, tweets and emails to and from a collection of fiction characters. These will then form the basis of a story I will create provisionally called 'Scarborough Consequences' to be published on the festival's website.

Come along and get involved!

National Book Day. And my book is here!


https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/other-books/pathways-through-writing-blocks-in-the-academic-environment/

According to the Writer's Almanac, poet Robert Lowell (1917-1977) said something which also rings true for me: 'Sometimes nothing is so solid to me as writing - I suppose that's what a vocation means - at times a torment, a bad conscience, but all in all purpose and direction.' Lowell was mentor to both Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.