Beerstorming

 

 

It's publication day - my debut poetry chapbook is here! 

My grandest thanks go to my brilliant publisher Sara Lefsyk of The Ethel Zine and Micro Press for making this dream of mine come true! Sitting up all night on the settee with a two month old on my breast when I submitted my poems, publication seemed as elusive as sleep. I'm forever grateful to Sara for bringing my chapbook into the world.

Re:collection

I found a stack of sketches, all near identical, each figure having taken mere moments to translate. I like the messiness of the whole thing. All of it. Everything. Life. Don't tidy me; don't edit me into conformity and I can be deliciously succinct.

Give me an old body any day

with breasts comfy as cats, skin

that wants to touch itself.

Young bodies are regular, angular or thin,

each appendage trying to leap,

perpendicular, as far away from its host; each

bump a fleshy beast as obstructive,

as appealing, as short-shelved as a peach.

Not long to go now until Nuala Ní Chonchúir touches down, on the first of September, to talk about her ravishing book of short fiction, Nude. And now I want to congratulate her on her genius for choosing a title that would make headlines this week for being in a tug of war between two celebrities - what great publicity! - And she isn't even married to Henry DeTamble!

I'm still averaging a short story a day, too. Got that collection collected! Now, what to do with it?

Water your thoughts

A piece of short fiction of mine has just been published here. It's the one I wrote especially for the submission, and I feel rather nervous and proud all at the same time. I had to re-read it a few times to check I hadn't let any mistakes slip through or something equally as hideous (do tell me if you see any, I'm a shocker for typing gibberish under stress/excitement/worry!)

Anyhow, I think I'll include it in the collection I've been working on for the past year. I have twenty-one pieces of short fiction included in this, but I've just decided that half of them can go towards a second collection, having changed my overall theme, so I have about as many to write again for each. And I'm really enjoying writing them. I have a lot of other, very random, pieces to do something with at some point, too.

Of all the short fiction I've written, there are only a handful which have been anything I could term hard work. Mostly they just pop into my head and I go with them. Of course I change and edit them afterwards, and some end up nothing like how they began, but some simply appear finished; as this one did. And I like those the best.

Let me know what you think of the story!