Hello Friends! To be honest I’m all worded out right now. These past few months working with a copy-editor and proofreader have been wonderful and exhausting. Then these last few weeks were all about getting the book ready for e-readers, as well as sorting out the shop. Much to do when you’re doing it all by yourself. This is a bit of an anti-launch really – early Saturday morning on a bank holiday weekend, but I wanted a slow, quiet…
When we were at Worm’s Head, South Wales, recently we witnessed a huge sand dredger hauling its cumbersome body forwards and backwards through the water, dragging up sand for all the new buildings. This level of extraction causes endless untold stresses on the local ecosystem, and yet we just see this as a natural element of human progress. Why is this? By sending my book out into the world as copyleft/ under the Creative Commons I wanted to put myself…
Sending new words out into the world can feel like jumping off a cliff. You don’t know how it’s going to land, or if people will connect. There’s that lurch in the stomach as your feet recognise thin air, the last-second terror that maybe you should just forget all about it and go hide in bed. And yet we do it don’t we? We scramble up, stride forward; step off. Over and over: crafting the narrative, reshaping the vision, reconfiguring…
This poem was gifted to me by the land at San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, northern Spain, over a magical hunters full moon weekend back in October 2019. We parked on the cliff tops then walked and dreamed. A truly magical place in time. This is also the opening poem to the new novel The Madness of Sara Mansfield as I felt directed by the land to stitch as much of her into the book as posible. The Madness of Sara…
My new novel, The Madness of Sara Mansfield, is out on 1st May 2021. It’s a strange feeling sending this book out into the world. Especially as I’ve never spent so long on a single piece of writing in the past. Over six years I’ve agonised over endless lines as if it were an 88,000 word poem. One of the elements I‘ve struggle with is worrying how people might perceive some of the political themes. Perhaps because in the past…
I am so in love with my body right now I want to swim in every glorious moment, feel it visceral and wild against skin. Yesterday I blasted uphill fireroads on the bike, lungs sucking in mouthfuls of spring, forest air. Then long swooping singletrack descents had me stood on pedals until the fronts of thighs burned like crazy, eyes focussed on the trail ahead. Slowly I’m remembering how to ride, the movement of body with bike, muscle memory calling…
Since we began travelling across Europe we’ve become much more aware of how hard British communities work to keep travellers out. Height restriction barriers, No Overnight Parking signs, even Flintshire’s recycling centres now demand proof that you have an address in Flintshire before they’ll let you take your rubbish and recycling there – what on Earth do they think people will do with it if refused entry? They can’t eat it. So you’ll end up with roadside dumps and another…
I’m so happy to share the cover art of the new novel, The Madness of Sara Mansfield. My partner in life, Andy Garside, always designs my work, always manages to convey the essence of each book with a beautiful clarity and vision. I wanted the making of this book to be an act of trust, whose creation speaks to an anarchic ideal that everything under this blue sky belongs with a collective stewardship, in the Creative Commons. Which is why…
We’ve been incredibly lucky during this past lockdown year. The first half locked into Portugal then Switzerland, and even this winter in Cymru we’ve managed to park with family. There’s a certain amount of life that is shaped by our attitude, and positive thinking makes such a difference when, for example, getting through winter in a tiny home set up to travel but aren’t able to do so. Still, there’s a huge privilege in even being able to think positively.…