Category Archives: Uncategorized

How to catch a Griffin

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Sculptural papiermache Griffin by Susan Lee Kerr

Newspaper, wire, cardboard, flour, water, acrylic — and inspiration. That’s how I made the Griffin. He’s on show this weekend at the Harpenden Arts Club Exhibition. Along with Lady Cat, Wading Bird and Big Howl. I’m settling in to my new hometown, and found this wonderful art club that meets weekly to learn and do art — watercolour, acrylic, life drawing, collage, more. I’m tickled to introduce this style of sculptural papiermache to Harpenden and the county of Hertfordshire. Secret smile — the inspiration for the griffin was the Fullers Brewery branding at the Hogarth roundabout in my old hometown, Chiswick.

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Imagine…

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Imagine the thrill of having an outstanding USA writer-blogger choose to feature your book. So there’s me, living that for real. Thank you Charlotte Digregorio, been following your Daily Haiku for years, a daily gift of creme de la creme. And for your comments: ‘beautiful striking imagery… fresh expression… simplicity, yet elegance.’ See more here, along with double-filtered haiku.

At Shropshire BHS spring haiku gathering.

Thanks, too for her credit to my cover artist and creative sister Meg Kaczyk currently having a painting – poetry ekphrasis exhibition at the Northwind Art Grover Gallery in Port Townsend, Washington, USA.

Purrfect

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Hello! Long time away from my desk. But isn’t moving house a perfect excuse? Six months later, still settling into my new environment. At this point I’m calling it a Burmese Writer’s Block. Meanwhile Great grandfather Ephraim Epstein is still smiling down on me (I hope!). And Intersaga, the literary agency, has chosen to Instagram a haiku per month from my collection The Walk Home. Thank you Intersaga!!

So it grows

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Staveley Road BlossomDayW4

In December, I planted this tree. Well, really, I was honoured to witness its planting. Along with a couple of hefty Hounslow workers who did the work, in the presence of the Mayor of Hounslow, Councilor Sam Hearn and a Covid-safe group of Staveley Road BlossomdayW4 residents.  It was a wet, cold, windy day and a scrawny bare sapling… and now here it is, 26th April, abundant with blossom. It is the 99th Prunus Kanzan on this extraordinary road. Worth a journey, click here for next spring! (PS Don’t wait to discover the location, it’s a brilliant crimson sight in November.)

I was there as BlossomdayW4 local haiku poet. (For a different spring favourite see haiku update here).

Speaking of growing and cycles, I am soon to put down new roots, moving away from this place that has been my home for forty years. An adventure, thus far, in sorting, clearing, feeling good-byes at every turn, glad to be having this last spring here, yet also feeling impatient to start the new life in the new place. Before I was ten years old my family moved house six times… the impatience feels familiar. Will I plant a cherry tree at the new house? Or, like the one we planted here 37 years ago, a magnolia?

Writing and shoplifting

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Been reading round a whole bunch of independent publishers, and having fun! What’s more, vicariously shoplifting. Must be something in the water, but two good 2019 reads feature shoplifting protagonists. Finer Things, by David Wharton, Sandstone Press — love that cover, takes me right back to the 1960s. That’s Delia, a real success at her career as a professional shoplifter, surviving the seedy underworld of London. We hope. Then there’s a cover with a green dress, Run, Alice, Run, by Lynn Michell, Linen Press. It’s our present times but ranges back to Alice’s first ever shoplift and the decades (and lovers) in between then and the mess of revived shoplifting she’s landed herself in.

So what is it about shoplifting? A tip I used when writing my novel now **agented**!! by InterSaga was: think of something your protagonist would NEVER do, totally out of character. Then have her do it. It wasn’t shoplifting. But… that tingle, that thumping heart, that daring to do something illicit.

It’s about doing it when events or emotions push you over the edge into what-the-hell.  Like writing.

Writing in the dark

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Do it, just do it. After the not-knowing, but vowing my trust that it would come, ideas for Next Book are pouring out. But all higgledy-piggledy (Happy Year of the Pig, by the way). How to tame, how to order. I don’t know, but keep on writing. It doesn’t matter. Get the words on paper, fix them later.

I now have three different starts for this novel. Have already diverted a fourth to be used further on. One challenge is to know the back story, but provide it later. Get into the story, the voice, the action. Get the characters talking to each other: Lo! They become people! And anyway it will all get moved around when I am much further in — so interesting to find out what is going to happen next!

Meanwhile heartening news, agent A has read all of A Body of Knowledge, and we meet this week! She misses the characters, we are plotting our path together, and I’ll be able to tell her of characters to come…

 

Hemingway’s House and Rewriting

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Writing and where you do it
Jaq Hazell’s been there done that, and created My Life as a Bench as well!

JAQ HAZELL

Writing and particularly finishing a novel is never easy (not for me, anyway) and I’m always interested in any clues from the greats about how they did it, and that’s one of the reasons I love a literary pilgrimage.

In the UK, I’ve visited many houses with literary connections, such as: Jane Austen’s house near Alton, Dickens’ Portsmouth birthplace, Kipling’s mansion, the Brontes’ parsonage in Haworth, Wordsworth’s Dove Cottage, Thomas Hardy’s Max Gate, Agatha Christie’s Devonshire hideaway and Dylan Thomas’ Boathouse.

IMG_6049Last summer I ventured further afield, and after the full-on, money-draining, sensory overload that is Disney, Orlando, headed south on a road trip to Ernest Hemingway’s house in Key West. This was the home he shared with his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer. It’s a beautiful French Colonial style mansion full of six-toed cats (descended from Hemingway’s own polydactyl cat, Snow White). The house was a wedding gift from Pauline’s uncle…

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Born a Writer?

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Excellent advice and tips from Charlotte both on judging a writing competition and on protecting your own writing life. Thank you, Charlotte!

Charlotte Digregorio's Writer's Blog

I often judge writing contests, both non-fiction and poetry. Recently, I judged the North Carolina Poetry Society’s annual contest in the haiku category. Although it was blind judging, and the winners’ names still haven’t been revealed, I’m sure the winners worked hard to perfect their haiku. Passionate writers work hard at producing quality writing.

It always irks me when some authors, many of whom  teach, make the comment that one is a born a writer. When we were of school age, we learned spelling and composition and basic writing skills. In adulthood, we write letters and memos in the course of our day.  But we are not born writers. I’ve never read about a writing gene. And, even if we interpret that statement loosely to mean that we are born with skills such as observation–part of being a writer–then we need to qualify it by stating that our writing skills…

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