Saturday, October 06, 2007

Fiddle dee dee!

I've so much to catch up on, this post will be in danger of sounding a little breathless... so here goes!

Firstly, the Shameless lions writing project has moved on apace - when I last checked in it was up to five writers already: Shameless, CB, Scarlett, Minx & Vanilla, with the next nominated writer being Verilion.

Grace the protagonist seems to be getting around a lot, and secondary characters are being developed. The initial potential of 'Grace' has widened out a great deal, and each writer has brought their own unique flavour and style to the proceedings.

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Another thing I forgot to blog is that skint writer's Blagsite has gone live, with lots of interesting articles about writing, by writers and you should really check it out, if you've not already done so. I did a wee piece myself, on - well, it had to be poetry, really, didn't it? I've read all the other articles and can't wait to see how this one grows - fair play skint!

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In case you were wondering, the Saturday Creative Writing class that I'm facilitating is going from strength to strength. Today was Week 3, (having had to do two readings last weekend) and we were critting the final pieces produced from the group - I was utterly astounded by the variety of writing and talent in the group! Each mini-story showed great potential and with some gentle suggestions made by the group could be made even better. We are hoping to produce some kind of publication next year, so these stories could be the seedbed from which we can grow a small anthology in the form of a chapbook.

Next week we move on to poetry and (rubs hands) that's where the fun will really start! I have some great ideas for workshops lined up and hope the group enjoys them as much as I have putting them together.

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The MA is starting to feel settled for me, although I still have to pinch myself that I am going up to Belfast to Queen's every week for classes - the campus has some terrific old buildings, and in the quad there are some beautiful trees with a blaze of red leaves - sadly the day I that I see this, did I have my camera there to capture this..? Did I heck! Anyway, I think I have enough on my plate producing one new poem a week for twelve weeks for the workshop - which includes some mighty fine writers... keeping up is going to be challenging; but as August's Guardian Workshop as reinvented by Rob showed, I think I thrive on challenges ;)

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Kairos is selling at a very steady pace. My publisher is absolutely delighted with the ongoing interest, as I was very much an untried and unknown quantity for his publishing outfit... and, it looks like there may be a Belfast launch in the offing, as well as perhaps a venture forth to the UK - more about this later on!

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So there you have it - life after the madhouse is live!

11 comments:

Shameless Words said...

Cailleach,
I'm not surprised Kairos is flying! It deserves to be widely read. Superb. I read one on the phone to a friend last night ... a pause and then, "Oh, wow!"

Unknown said...

Reading them on the phone - that's a 'wow! from me too - thanks S, you've made my Sunday :D

John said...

Congrats on Kairos, Cailleach. Still waiting for mine, but the water is wide. Especially happy to hear sales are brisk--maybe there's hope for this world yet...

Jan said...

Life sounds wonderful Cilleach and glad.
Going to look at Kairos now. Congratulations on all your successes.

Unknown said...

Congrats on the sales of Kairos, Cailleach - well-deserved - may it and you go from strength to strength!

Unknown said...

Hi John - I did leave a reply last night, obviously blogger ate it - it's on its way over to you.

Jan - thanks - life is pretty good recently - kets hope it stays that way.

AV - thanks pet... fingers crossed for it anyway ;)

Jon M said...

Sounds pretty busy across the water there! And all that heady academia, phew!

Debi said...

A Belfast launch? What about us lot on the mainland then???

apprentice said...

Yes well done. I enjoyed the piece on Rob.

Look forward to the book arriving.

Unknown said...

Whoo, there really is a buzz going around lately. There must be something in the air/water/cheese/gin - take your pick. It's all GOOD!

Unknown said...

Nice one jon m!
Debi - funny you should mention that...
Apprentice - thanks :)
Minx- everything tastes great lately and my appetite is back, if you know what I mean ;)