Join me in congratulating Lisette Brodey on her latest publication, TWICE A BROKEN BREATH. Check out the gorgeous cover!

TWICE A BROKEN BREATH

She stole his world. He’s got twenty-four hours to get it back.

Although Liam Tallamore can’t remember the first fourteen years of his life, he’s built a happy home with his wife, Carly, and their two children in suburban New Jersey … until one Friday afternoon when everything changes.

While cashing his paycheck, he’s told his bank accounts have been emptied. Once at home, he learns Carly has left him for her first love—one he never knew existed. Most devastating of all, she’s taken their eight-year-old daughter, Rayelle, and is preparing to leave the country. As if things couldn’t get worse, he has no idea where their twenty-year-old son is or why he’s been unreachable for the past two months.

With total distrust in law enforcement and no clues to guide him, Liam hops on a train to New York City, Carly’s hometown. Through the next twenty-four hours, Liam goes on a wild, unforgiving, frantic search through rain-soaked Manhattan, experiencing the brightest and the darkest humanity has to offer. This is the story of a man who refuses to quit, determined to find “a needle in a haystack,” and who, in searching for the children he loves, doesn’t yet realize he’s searching for himself as well. 

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About Lisette Brodey

Lisette was born and raised in the Philadelphia area. She spent ten years in New York City, and now resides in Los Angeles.

She’s a multigenre author of thirteen novels, writing character-driven stories about flawed people. Having worked in the entertainment industry off and on throughout her life, she has been member of SAG-AFTRA since 2012 and works occasionally as a background actor.

Find out more about Lisette Brodey and her books on the following links.

Links

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Amazon Author Page

Goodreads

Website

I’m delighted to welcome poet, Zoë Sîobhan Howarth-Lowe, to Patricia’s Pen. Zoë has come along to blog about her writing which includes her competition winner with The Hedgehog Poetry Press What An Amazing Place We’ve Been To. Without further ado, it’s over to Zoë.

My Writing

Zoë Sîobhan Howarth-Lowe

I started writing when I was five. My very first poem (or so I am told by various family members) was:

Roses are red, Violets are blue, and an Apple is covered in Snow.

It was my love of words, how they tasted in my mouth and spun off the page, which led me to become a voracious reader. My earliest influences and favourites include Spike Milligan, C S Lewis, Richard Adams and Enid Blyton. I loved creating my own stories and worlds, especially ones filled with magic and fantasy.

Writing poetry became a daily occurrence for me when I was at high school. It was here that  I fell in love with Emily Dickinson, Benjamin Zephaniah and Shakespeare. At college my French teacher introduced me to Jacques Prevert and I was challenged to translate some of his poetry as part of my coursework. When it was time to choose my degree subject it had to be creative writing.

I was incredibly lucky to have my first pamphlet published after winning a contest at Half Moon Books. I am sad they are no longer around but so thankful they set me on the way to find homes for more of my books with some amazing publishers.

Love is the way bark grows is a book of love poetry, not just romantic love but all kinds of love, familial, broken, friendship and even obsessive, dysfunctional love. My second book is a book of motherhood poetry. Inspired by my own children as well as all the children of my extended family.

Pocket Full of Stones is my full collection. I knew I wanted to become an indigo dreamer poet the first time I discovered their books. I still am in disbelief that my book was accepted by them! Pocket Full of Stones is a collection of poems about being the weird girl, a collection of dreams and of nightmares. It draws inspiration from all of the moments that went into becoming myself, the difficult thoughts and overwhelming feelings, that when gathered together could weigh one down, like a collection of stones in my pocket.  

My newest title, What An Amazing Place We’ve Been To, is a poetry conversation inspired by a poem my son wrote when he was six. I decided to write a response to each of his stanzas and love that The Hedgehog Poetry Press selected our little book as one of the conversation winners. It arrived just in time for my son to gift a copy to his teachers when he left primary school this summer. We’re hoping to do a book launch together very soon.

About Zoë Sîobhan Howarth-Lowe

Zoë Sîobhan Howarth-Lowe is a Poet & Mum from Dukinfield. She has an MA from Bath Spa University.  Zoë has four publications, a full collection: ‘Pocket Full of Stones’ with Indigo Dreams Press and three pamphlets: ‘Love is the way bark grows’ (Half Moon Books), ‘I have grown two hearts’ & a collaboration with her young son – ‘What an amazing place we’ve been too’ (both with Hedgehog Poetry Press).  

Zoë’s work has appeared in many anthologies and journals & She enjoys attending spoken word events as often as Motherhood allows her.

Links
Facebook

Twitter

Website

Zoë’s books can be ordered via her website.

Please join me in congratulating Sídhe Press and its team on the launch of this wonderful anthology, Glisk and Glimmer: Poems About Light.

The idea for this collection was inspired by Larissa Reid’s gorgeous poem Glisk.

You can find out more about Larissa Reid’s writing HERE

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Paperback copies of Glisk and Glimmer can be ordered HERE

Or Email

contact@sidhe-press.eu

to request a pdf version.

Sídhe Press are holding a launch evening via Zoom on Thursday 21st September 2023. To order your FREE ticket go HERE

I’m delighted to welcome poet, Elizabeth Barton, all the way from New Zealand to Patricia’s Pen. This timely feature also corresponds with the launch of her gorgeous poetry pamphlet, Mirrored Time, which was released on September 1st by the awesome Hedgehog Poetry Press.

My Writing

Elizabeth Barton

Writing is a perilous act. As someone who used to do scary things for a living (I was a professional pilot for 12 years), I quickly became comfortable with it. For example, one of my first poems, published by the wonderful Spillwords Press, appeared on Twitter. As a reward for the publisher’s generosity, I was trolled to hell by a woman who obviously enjoyed getting high on marijuana and then sat at her keyboard to spill her own. The temptation to hang her out to dry was almost too great, but I stayed my hand and redirected my energy into writing a poem, like redirecting a raging wier through a sluice. The poem, Trolls, eventually featured in Amphora. Our Own Mythologies. It is now fittingly part of my rebellious pamphlet All Revolutions Begin This Way.

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I never had any formal training in literature – no MA in Creative Writing or any writing course – other than a solid basic education at primary school in New Zealand with emphasis on reading, writing and ‘rithmetic. State schools in New Zealand were reckoned to be the best in the world at that time. Creative writing was emphasised and I still remember all the poems read to us by teachers at school. At college, a teacher encouraged my forays into poetry at the time – I was 15. But I went on to study fine art and threw myself into an arts career. But somewhere writing stirred.

I don’t know how it happened, other than I woke up one morning and knew I was a poet. It was in 2018, not long after my mother had died. She lived to almost 102! Apparently, this occurrence is common, especially among women of letters. It’s as if it’s some Goddess archetype is at work, a rite de passage.

I love poetry performance. I’m an incredibly introverted soul – I scored 67% on the Briggs-Myers scale for introversion! But poetry and a stage to strut upon is like lightning and glycerine to me. On I go and poom! One result of the poom! effect was winning a poetry performance gig on National Poetry Day in 2019. A more recent effect was silencing a rowdy pub full of Waikato farmers at an Open Mic event when I read my poem The Miner’s Triumph.

View the poem on Youtube HERE.

The Miner’s Triumph features in my latest collection Mirrored Time and is one of my personal favourites.

Much of my poetry concerns the love of nature – and time, self and memory, as one reviewer aptly put it.

About Elizabeth Barton

Elizabeth Barton is an artist and poet from New Zealand whose work is featured in numerous Journals, including Spillwords.com, Fevers of the Mind, Pink Plastic House, Hyacinth Review, Vita Brevis Press Nothing Divine Dies: the Poetry of Nature, and Literary Revelations Hidden in Childhood. She was a longlisted poet for the 2022 Dai Fry Mystical Poetry Competition, with work included in the anthology. Joint winner of the 2020 White Label Cinq Poetry Competition, her collection Mirrored Time, is published by Hedgehog Poetry Press. Her art is in private and public collections worldwide, including the Prints Collection in the V & A Museum, London.

Links

Website

Twitter

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