Tanka Project #20: Grey day

Sometimes I use the photo prompts from Fat Mum Slim's photo a day challenge to inspire a tanka (and a photo!). Recently the prompt was 'one of a kind', so I went out into the dreary looking for something that was one of a kind. I must admit that I thought of a selfie, but I wasn't feeling photogenic, and looking around at the grey and the dreary and the still-f**ing-raining, I wasn't feeling that anything was particularly different, or one of a kind. Then I thought of the saying that you can't step into the same stream twice. It might look the same but the water has moved on and changed. The grey dreary might look the same but there is a different quality to the rainclouds, all that water, above and below is moving on, as are we all. Today someone has died, and their loss is felt. Today someone is born. Today all the other things inbetween have happened to someone somewhere. Today is one of a kind, and the only remarkable thing about that is that you can't tell by looking.

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A wee update

Hello! Thought I'd give you a wee update on how things are going in my world! Little Gods came out with Roswell Press at the end of September 2023 and I was really busy for the first bit of October, reading poems from the new book at various local events. I'm really grateful for all the books people bought, but there's still copies available, either online via Amazon for Kindle or in paperback, or you can get in touch with me at caralmckee (at) gmail (dot) com to get a signed copy of Little Gods and/or First Kiss sent to you in the post! After my reading frenzy at the beginning of October I took a little break for a birthday celebration frenzy (it's still going on, there's a lot to celebrate). I've been meaning to read a couple of poems online too, but I'm having a flare of trigeminal neuralgia which is triggered by talking, so that will come when it comes. I'm hoping to read at the Scottish Writer's Centre launch of their new Mountain & Glen

Interview with Gutter

It was lovely to be invited to do an interview with the marvellous Gutter magazine in the light of my poem, Bending to Nightbreak , being published (in fabulous company) in issue 27. Here's a couple of pics they shared on Instagram from it - a picture of me, and a quote. You can find the whole interview, and one with Simon Wade too, here .

Chapbook number two is coming!

Great news today as I'm working on a new chapbook coming soon with Roswell Publishing. This is all I'm going to show you right now - my beautiful notebook, picked up at the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth, on my last ever day out with my Mum. This notebook is full of mostly glued in, revised, scribbled on and annotated poems, some of which are going in to the new wee collection with Roswell. Why did I want to work with Roswell Publishing for this collection? I was following Rae on Instagram because I'd seen her pop up in some other writerly stuff I was interested in, and she seemed to be working with a load of writers I am currently obsessed with - like Claire Askew, Kate Garrett, and Alice Tarbuck for example, so when I saw she was calling for submissions, I went for it. She's been such a joy to work with so far, and I look forward to being able to tell you more about my second chapbook! Find out more about Roswell Publishing on their website , or head over to the

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