MIDSUMMER’S DAY NEWS 25th June 2024

It has been a busy writing spring: cold and wet but summer has at last arrived in my courtyard pictured above.

Circle Route (the fourth Sooke Writer’s Collective collaborative chapbook) is successfully launched (April 2024) and on book shelves, as is Elevenses, the fifth SWC anthology (May 2024) in which I have been fortunate enough to have work published. I thoroughly enjoyed reading excerpts from my work at both launch celebrations.

For Circle Route I submitted three pieces on the title theme. One of them, Royal Blue, was inspired by the coronation service and celebrations which took place during my visit to the UK in 2023. It alludes to the vulnerable human beneath the crown which seems apt in view of the health challenges King Charles has faced this year.

For Elevenses I chose to write a piece which celebrates the Shipping Forecast broadcast every morning on BBC Radio 4. Vivid childhood memories were evoked when I read that it celebrated its one hundredth birthday this August and these inspired me to write the poem Dogger Fisher Bight which takes the reader on a sea journey circumnavigating the British Isles. Both publications are available through the website sookewriters.com as well as local retail outlets in Sooke.

Over the past few months, I have been busy painting (watercolours) as well. Here is some finished artwork for the new poetry anthology (title not yet announced) which I plan to have ready on bookshelves in early autumn. More news to follow soon!

**The Cuillin Mountains from Tarskavaig, Isle of Skye**

The Scottish novel first draft took me from mid-October 2023 until mid-March 2024 to complete. I disrupted my writing sprint in late January by travelling for the first time to Spain to explore four of its Andalusian cities: Malaga, Seville, Grenada and Cordoba. The weather was unseasonably cold and wet but the museums, monuments, the uncrowded streets, the extraordinary rich cultural history and the welcoming inhabitants more than made up for this disappointment.

**Clan MacDonald Centre, Armadale Castle, Skye**

I have not yet completed any new poems inspired by these adventures but one of my main characters now takes a similar short break with her boyfriend to Spain and finds her dream trip is challenged by having to wear polythene bags over dry socks in soaking wet trainers as they explore the narrow city streets. Wonder where I got that idea from!

The second draft is now going part-by-part to two beta readers for their reactions which have so far been most positive and encouraging.

Meanwhile I am of course continuing to look for publication interest for my first completed contemporary novel for which I have to date received a total of three pleasant rejections. Far from being dispirited, I am more determined than ever!

I shall blog again as soon as I have more news to share! Thank you for taking the time to read this today.

Here is a sample of Andalusian splendour for you to enjoy.