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…
I’ve avoided using the word ‘dystopia’ when talking about the new book because I don’t believe it’s a dystopian novel. It is darkly realist at times and I don’t shy away from shining a bright light of truth on characters and events so that the shadows are revealed.But in addition to this, there’s many beautiful moments of connection, with the land, with other people, and with technology. You just have to be prepared to look. It’s also the first book…
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…
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…
One of the elements of the new novel, The Madness of Sara Mansfield, that’s important to me is the nature writing. Although this sci-fi trilogy nods towards dystopia, there’s also hope, and for me, the potential for new dreams always flows from nature.After wars, or in derelict places, wild plants grow, reclaiming the space, rejoicing in their fecundity. Nature knows how to heal the scars of our making. I think this is why I find books like McCarthy’s The Road…
Yesterday we hiked to the source of the Severn River. We stood at the small swampy bog that is the origins of this vast and tumbling body of water that becomes so large the Severn Bridge was constructed so that we might cross. A reminder that the humblest beginnings can grow into the most unexpected forces of nature. Later I spoke with the trees there, who do not think of humans as friends, and I apologised for the mess we’ve…
Yesterday I felt the spring equinox in my body. This doesn’t always happen, but more so as these days in the van roll through me. I’m trying to shape without shaping, push-then-release, open my heart to my Self.I’ve spent this past time telling my body that I love her, that she is special to me, that I’m sorry for all the times I treated her like an emotional dumping ground.Yesterday that disconnect ended – there was no ‘me’ talking to…
It’s the last day of Spanish hunting season, which means that around 100,000 galgos hounds will be shot, abandoned, or sometimes quite brutally murdered because they’re now considered worthless. I’m trying really hard not to turn this into a rant, but fuck, I’ve seen a few things today that have pissed me off so badly. Even though I look to the social structures that cause people to behave cruelly: capitalism reduces every action, every product and every life to €…