The Walk Home

A greenfly, a city train, gulls, rain, a misbehaving moon, the click of a gate…  The Walk Home is my first collection of haiku writing, a retrospective of thirty years in the world of haiku. Winnowed to 90 haiku, senryu and tanka, the poems are arranged in the order of writing, most of them published in haiku journals and anthologies. The Walk Home reflects nature, urban life and family in captured moments of lived and sensed experience. The collection is also one poet’s witness to the evolution of the English language Japanese form from 17-syllables-3-lines to freer variations still true to haiku.

In her introduction, Susan refers to what’s needed to have haiku happen: a ‘free-floating defocused attention, a mode of not seeking but allowing’. All her haiku seem, quite rightly, to come from that kind of place, through the Awareness Gate that offers the accepting spirit an entry into a world of ecstatic openness. — Colin Blundell (President of The British Haiku Society)

Featuring beautifully crystallised moments expressed in haiku form, Susan Lee Kerr’s work displays a gentle compassion for and an appreciation of all aspects of life. Step through the Awareness Gate and join her on The Walk Home.  — Andrew Shimield 

Only available from me: via this web blog comment or DM me on Twitter (not Facebook, please). UK£12/US$15 Postage included in UK price. Alba Publishing ISBN 978-1-912773-34-3. Paperback, 15mmx21mm, 60 pages. For a free sampling of haiku, click here to jump to the haiku page of this blogsite.

The Extraordinary Dr Epstein

 The true-life story of a remarkable 19th c immigrant, told as a novel so that I   could get into his heart and mind. Ephraim M Epstein is my great grandfather, his story the book I always had to write. The writing and researching was a grand adventure in itself. Please do visit him at his site where I’m chronicling his life, times, people and places. Available on Amazon in paperback, and ebooks everywhere. Also see Paxton Publishing

‘geographic, spiritual and psychological… compelling, surprising and carefully researched’ — Glenn Frankel, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend.

 

Creative Writing: the Quick Matrix, Selected Exercises & Ideas for Teachers

A handbook of 104 exercises and mini-lectures, plus advice and support for teachers or leaders of creative writing. Gathered over 29,000 student hours of teaching, I wanted to share what I’d learned, especially thinking of writers who do a bit of teaching; writers’ circles, too. My blog offers support too. See here for both versions in UK (original paperback and kindle). Or for ebook in USA see Amazon.com and all other ebook sources everywhere.

Selected exercises and ideas, all ebooks everywhere. Happy teaching!

‘Kerr’s ideas are inventive, sparkling, and inspiring and she comes up with many useful solutions to commonly encountered problems… The activities suggested are designed to awaken and stimulate a creative writing spirit among students and are suitable for both beginners and more advanced writers… ‘ — Zuzanna Bartoszewska reviewing the print version in Writing in Education, the journal of National Association of Writers in Education