Skeleton Architecture

  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...

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 . 

 I must admit that I've been trying to get into Under the Radar, an excellent poetry magazine, beautifully produced by Nine Arches Press, for years, and so I am particularly delighted to have my poem, God was here , a no-loaves and fishes tale of social distancing in issue 30: The Food Issue. You can get Under the Radar from Nine Arches Press in their shop . While you're there if you fancy buying some poetry, I would highly recommend these three: Be Feared by Jane Burn All my Mad Mothers by Jacqueline Saphra, and  There is (Still) Love Here by Dean Atta

I only discovered Clare Shaw this year, and while I wish I'd discovered their work earlier, I am freaking delighted that I get to discover a poet who is busy doing lots of events and has a sumptuous back catalogue. Clare has immediately joined the ranks of poets I'm obsessed with (like Jacqueline Saphra and Terrance Hayes). Clare has four poetry collections published with Bloodaxe, the latest of which is Towards a General Theory of Love which came out this year (2022). They have been nominated for and won various prizes and do lots of training around poetry and around mental health, and they stay in Yorkshire and have a lovely Burnley accent with a touch of Yorkshire to it. I highly recommend you look them up on YouTube to hear them reading their own poetry, or search for them on Spotify to find an interview. Towards a General Theory of Love is a good looking book with the cover using part of Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Early Delights. In it Clare explores love, with t...

A card showing the outside of the shop, with a rather large and lovely octopus on top, reading a book.  A new bookshop opened near us a YEAR ago, and we finally managed a visit!  Seahorse Bookstore is in a great location in Ardrossan, on the way to the Arran ferry terminal, Asda and Cecchini's restaurant, just around the corner from the gorgeous new veggie cafe, Moka, and with plenty of parking nearby.  It's also close to the Ardrossan Town and Ardrossan Harbour train stations, and there are plenty of bus stands nearby. The book shop is clean, bright and friendly, set out over three rooms - non-fiction, fiction, and kids, with a fantastic selection of modern books and classics, and with hot drinks and biscuits, and places to sit and enjoy them. It was quite busy on the day I went so I didn't take pictures in the shop, but there are pictures online here . Things I loved included the white shelving, gorgeous little book display stands (which I think were bamboo, and which I...

I've been struggling to find words I feel are worth writing of late.  Of course the first conclusion I jumped to was that I was done - nothing more of use would come of my writing. But then I thought of other women around my age, in particular the amazing poet who I once met leaving early as I was arriving late for a writing event. Why was she leaving? She said it was because there was nothing she could say. I tried to convince her otherwise, but I failed, and I was horrified that we missed out on her voice because of what I could only think was a crisis of confidence. Lately that same thing has been happening to me. I've attended events, feeling like I ought to go, like I'll enjoy it when I'm there, and then I've not enjoyed it. I've found myself unable to write anything I'd want anyone else to hear, ashamed of my awfulness. I found myself looking at my writing and thinking, who would care anyway? A lot of this I'm putting down to perimenopause - I'...

All the best to you and yours for the festive season and let's hope 2022 brings an easier year for us all. Having spent the beginning of the covid period writing daily poems, getting involved with endless online events, launching a book in lockdown (get in touch at caralmckee at gmail dot com to get your copy), and with a flurry of poetry publications in journals and the like, I found this year's quietness a surprise.  Family members took ill and died (not covid, but certainly not helped), my children struggled with the endless days of schoolwork and not much else, we all struggled. On the day my daughter's guinea pig died she said "everything is dying and nothing is good." I couldn't argue with her. I also couldn't write. I did try sometimes. I attended some events, I tried to style myself through it, but I felt like everything I wrote was terrible. Instead of enjoying events and poetry podcasts I would think them irrelevant or pointless, or decide that i...