The gauzy illumination of fairy lights reveals the coloured spines stacked along every shelf and bedside drawer. There, a poetry book preordered the minute the writer announced it. Here, an anthology produced from a previous commission. And just there, a thoughtfully-selected collection gifted from a friend, with the tiny cursive note forever inked onto the […]
poetry
4 Common Writing Tips It’s Okay To Ignore
We love hearing about other people’s writing processes. And we adore hearing advice from big-name authors, holding onto their every word in the hope that if we just do things the same way they do – down to the number of coffees per day and their designated hours of writing – we’ll somehow follow that […]
Collaboration: Your Free, Powerful Writing Tool
We’re naturally drawn to gossip. Writing rivals? Intriguing. Feuds with publishers? Tell me more. Drama over book awards? Let me pull up my seat. But working together with other writers to create truly unexpected pieces of creative work? Yawn. No one wants any of that. Yet in times where social media trolling is rife, tensions […]
Author Interview: Rachel Carney
In the first of the author interview series, poet and PhD candidate Rachel Carney tells all about her writing journey, a virtual writing residency and her well-known book blog Created to Read. Tell me a little bit about your work – when did you get started and what are you working on currently? I’ve been […]
You’re Never Too Old (Or Too Young) to Start Writing
Can we talk about the word “emerging” when describing writers at the beginning of their writing careers? When you hear “emerging writer”, what age are you imagining the writer to be? For too many of us, we’ve been led to believe that to be an emerging writer is to be young and usually fresh out […]
Going Out With A Bang: My Top 10 Final Lines in Poetry
We talk a lot about our favourite opening lines in literature, but for me there’s something quite laudable about the delivery of a killer final line when it comes to poetry. As poets, we must seek to ensure that every word is necessary. Every word and punctuation mark must have earned its place. Unlike fiction, […]
How to Perform Your Poetry Despite Nerves
When I first decided poetry was my chosen path with writing, I’d gone into it assuming poets were the reclusive ones. As far as I was concerned, it was the novelists who did the big readings and were thrust into the spotlight; poets were quiet creatures, letting the lines in their verse do the talking. […]
Top Tips to Overcome Writer’s Block
In my last post, I talked about the importance of stepping back and being kind to yourself if you’re finding it hard to write during these difficult times. Staring at the same four walls, not interacting with new people, and not embracing new experiences as you normally would will doubtless take a hit on your […]
The Top 10 Books That Inspired Me as a Writer
As I highlighted in my previous post, writing is difficult right now for a lot of us. I want to thank everyone who responded with their own stories of how they’re struggling to write too; there’s a sense that we should just keep quiet and pretend we’ve got projects all simmering away when in fact, […]
Creativity in Crisis: Why It’s Okay Not To Make Art Right Now
The dry rustle of hands shoved into coat pockets is an act of protection, hugs are replaced by nervous nods, and to step out into the crisp sunshine more than once is to break the law. Social media is a flickering buzz of news articles, virus-related memes, and screenshots of Zoom meetings, a glass of […]
Natalie Ann Holborow 