A little late with this one, but please join me in congratulating Si Griffiths on the launch of Debone & Fold published by The Broken Spine.
AboutDebone & Fold
Within the context of working kitchens and the catering industry, Debone & Fold explores relationships of othering and objectification. From low wage, high stress work environments, to casual sexism; from climate change to the demands we make on the animals we eat, it focuses upon the complex relationships we have with our food and those who produce it.
Interwoven with these poems is a series of a more personal nature, which follow the arc of a romantic relationship through the lens of food and restaurants. The collection was inspired by my working life as a chef and the contradictions of being a sometime vegetarian within such an environment. The title, Debone & Fold, is taken from the process of butchering and rolling a joint of meat.
And as a teaser, here’s one of the poems taken from Debone & Fold.
Find out more and order your copy of Debone & Fold HERE
I’m delighted to share details about Lucy’s brand new collection. Lucy is not only a brilliant poet but one I consider as a friend. Please join me in congratulating Lucy on the publication of Daughter of Fire (Yaffle Press)
Daughter of Fire is Lucy Heuschen’s powerful debut collection, launching on 13th April 2025 with the highly regarded Yaffle Press. The poems in the collection are a vivid retelling of the life and legacy of Margaret of Anjou: medieval queen consort during the Wars of the Roses, Shakespeare’s “She-Wolf of France” and the alleged inspiration for Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones.
(cover design: Nick Steel. Image: agsandrew/Shutterstock.com)
This collection seeks out the woman behind the slander. The female experiences that the chronicles left out. These poems trace Margaret’s path as daughter, bride, mother, queenly icon, political leader and warrior woman. Along the way they ask urgent questions about female agency and power, the weight of expectations and the judgment faced by women who dare to challenge convention.
Alongside Margaret, we meet noblewomen and village girls; jailbirds and saints; writers and thespians; activists and world leaders; women giving birth and women grieving pregnancy loss; women in workplaces, relationships and hospital wards; on the bus and in chatrooms; dancing women and dragon-girls. Their stories echo into today. In Daughter of Fire, the poet calls out the maligning of women over centuries and celebrates their bold, messy, beautiful resilience.
“Daughter of Fire is a stirring poetic biography of Margaret of Anjou, a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, and yet often pushed to the margins. Margaret becomes much more than the she-wolf of Shakespeare’s stereotype — strategist, firebrand, trailblazer. Heuschen’s language is direct, robust, fierce: fitting for the woman she brings to life so vividly.” (Rishi Dastidar)
“Heuschen’s expansive poetry finds connections across historical figures, Shakespeare, feminism, motherhood, queenship, and pop culture. Daughter of Fire is a brilliant accomplishment: an incisive and moving work, full of treasure after treasure; one that promises to reward subsequent re-readings.” (Charlene V. Smith)
“A book of immense heat and power, not “just” in the subject matter, but in the fierce and searing lyrical voice of a gifted and courageous poet. This is extraordinary writing and a must-read book.”(Anna Saunders)
“In this jewel of a collection, Margaret’s story is brought bang up to date as Heuschen urgently shows us how history is relevant to today. A terrific book that demands to be read.”(Edwin Stockdale)
“I have no hesitation in recommending such thought-provoking poetry. Daughter of Fire is evocative, innovative and intriguing. A wonderful collection of poetry recalling the majesty and challenges of Margaret of Anjou, the atmosphere of the 15th century and the Wars of the Roses.” (Sharon Bennett Connolly)
“Poems about coming of age and ageing, about illness, about the mad world and how we can live in it. Heuschen truly claims, this is your story too.” (Karin Molde)
Please join me in congratulating Alan Parry on the launch of coming-of-age story, Peeling Apples (Dark Winter Press)
Peeling Apples – Alan Parry
Martyn is ten years old, navigating a world of routines and quiet mysteries. His days unfold between school, his Nana Mavis’s small, familiar house, and the blurred presence of his overworked parents. But it’s the house next door that draws his attention, the one with the overgrown garden, the untidy porch, and Mrs. Joyce, a woman who seems set apart from everything and everyone.
At first, she is an oddity, a distant neighbour glimpsed through gaps in the fence. But when an accident leads to an unexpected encounter, Martyn is pulled into her world of cacti in teacups, peeling apples in perfect spirals, and slow, thoughtful conversations that stretch beyond what he understands. In her quiet company, he finds a space unlike any other, a friendship that grows in the silences between them.
Yet, the things adults don’t say begin to press in: unspoken worries, absences that lengthen, a door that one day remains closed. In the face of change he cannot control, Martyn must learn what it means to hold onto something even as it slips away.
Peeling Apples is a meditation on childhood, loss, and the quiet imprints people leave on each other’s lives. Lyrical and intimate, it captures the bittersweet moment when a boy begins to understand the weight and inevitability of love.
Please join me in congratulating Susan Richardson on the launch of Smatterings of Cerulean published by Dark Winter Press. Susan is not only a poet but also known for the beautiful narrator’s voice in the fabulous podcast A Thousand Shades of Green.
Smatterings of Cerulean is a collection of short poems by Susan Richardson, accompanied by the photographs of Ken Whytock. It is a collection, essentially, about love. In these poems, Richardson explores the trajectory of the human experience, and how in all its shapes, textures and colours, love is at the root of the myriads of internal landscapes people travel. There is darkness and loss in these pages, yes, but there is also strength, fierce feeling, and ultimately, hope. These poems are the fullness of life crafted into small spaces, a blending of intense emotion and compelling images that tell a story of what it means to love.
In the Veins
Courage lives in the veins
Blood nourished earth clad raven
I envy your wings
Susan Richardson
What readers say
‘Susan’s poignant new collection is a journey through grief and the tangle of memory: the loss of loved ones, through to the reality and experience of sight loss, and then to a celebration of love and its power to balance, and to recharge. Short form poetry presents the challenge of distilling complex emotions and memories, often through short moments of observation of surroundings or complex emotional states, and it is a challenge that Susan meets with skill, power, and vulnerable bravery throughout this work. For those who follow her poetry podcast, A Thousand Shades of Green, I found myself reading her words in her voice, her steady, quiet strength underpinning this work from start to finish. Bravo, Susan!’
Mo Schoenfeld – poet, winner of Judges Mention – The Best Haiku Anthology 2022 (Haiku Crush)
‘Oh the delicacy of sight; that seeing what happens in the absence of light, in the memories of love, in the touch of loss that holds the world so much more beautifully than it did before the black and white ink stains and photographic images made their way to the white spaces in Susan Richardson’s latest collection, Smatterings of Cerulean (DarkWinterPress).
She brilliantly binds together visual and verbal forces to imprint us with an unspoken knowing that some words should be left unsaid, some shadows remain forever dark. In this we witness “memory slips from the corner of my eye”, and we find, with certainty, we can hold fast to the promise she makes in this body of work: “One day I will strike colour with a vengeance”. And she does. Oh yes, she does.’
-Karen Pierce Gonzalez, Coyote in the Basket of My Ribs, Down River with Li Po
I’m delighted to announce the publication of Mountains that See in the Dark by talented poet, Regine Ebner, published by the awesome poetry press Black Bough Poetry.
A collection of 52 blindingly bright, desert poems from Arizona poet, Regine Ebner
Advanced Praise for Mountains that See in the Dark
The opening poem turns us loose upon the slopes of the ‘whiskey-savage mountain’, where civilization and wilderness jostle against each other in a shadowed, ‘bone-raked’ terrain that yet glows with elemental colour. In a series of sharp-edged images illumined by a cowboy moon, the poet repeatedly captures ‘turnaround day[s]’, guiding us through subtle shifts between darkness and light, frost and flame, movement and stillness, human and beyond human, death and life. There is a prevailing sense of coiled energy, poems crouching like coyotes ready to spring. Ebner is not tempted to add a gloss to her images but simply allows them to serenade us with ‘shades of hallelujah’, a phrase which captures their brooding but reverent intensity. Indeed, the experience of reading this collection felt to me like watching and weathering with the poet in ever-changing desert light, awaiting that precious moment of revelation.
Alice Stainer, author of Headlands (Live Canon, 2024).
One of my favorite poets in the Black Bough constellation, Regine Ebner writes with a mastery and finesse that elevates the mundane into the sublime. Through her keen imagistic lens, the reader is invited to see everyday objects in novel dimensions, transforming the familiar into the extraordinary. A master wordsmith, Ebner’s use of language is precise yet expansive, creating whole worlds within stanzas that readers can fully experience and inhabit. Her work seamlessly combines intellectual rigor with emotional authenticity, crafting poetry that both challenges and nurtures the soul.
When I was a child, one of my favorite pastimes was waking up early on weekends when I knew my parents would be sleeping for a while to dig through the back-room cabinets where my folks kept their keepsakes. I loved digging through all the cubbies where my mom stowed the things she’d collected over the years. My favorite box to pull down and sift through was a box of river glass she’d picked up on family trips to high ground over the years. That box was so full of textures and colors, like nothing else in our house. Each piece had its own exquisite shade of green or blue or amber, and smooth edges of all angles. I can still feel the heft of that glass in my palm if I let memory take me back to that cabinet. The closest I’ve ever gotten to that experience reading a book of poems is Regine Ebner’s new collection, Mountains That See in the Dark. Page by page, Ebner’s lines hold on to memories as if they were the most beautiful of mementos. Cowboys, lizards, wild geese, the last red of day—all of it pristine and fascinating.
Jack B. Bedell, author of Ghost Forest (Mercer University Press, 2024), Poet Laureate of Louisiana (2017-2019).
My thanks goes out to my followers for your constant support. Next month I shall be celebrating a special birthday. Without going into any detail, this last year has been tough, and time hasn’t allowed me to write much material. Therefore, eight months ago, I made a decision to publish the already written Woodhaerst trilogy to mark my 70th birthday. The Woodhaerst Women completes the final instalment of this 1970s love story .
The trilogy journeys through the 1970s with two strong women, rebellious teenager, Rachel, and loyal wife, Peggy, each with their own narrative and lots of twists and turns on the way.
I love how the writing world is supportive to each other. For instance, a fellow author and friend, Lynette Creswell, created this wonderful video for me. Find out more about Lynette on her website, HERE
Congratulations to fellow Hedgehog poet, Nigel Kent, on this gorgeous pamphlet Sent published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press.
Sent
(The Hedgehog Poetry Press 2025)
Nigel Kent’s pamphlet of epistolary poems, begins with a work that ironically marks the end of the letter form. Yet as the remainder of the collection makes clear, with the advent of alternative means of messaging, opportunities today for using the written word to communicate to others have proliferated. Pieces such as his text from a jilted lover, his DM to a headliner poet from a disillusioned fan, and his naming card to Lyra redefine the nature of epistolary poems into something vibrant and contemporary, making the reader laugh and cry. Sometimes at the same time!
“The final poem in this collection begins with a quote from Adrian Mitchell: ‘Most people ignore poetry because most poetry ignores people.’ Nigel Kent’s collection of epistolary poems is the opposite of this – it gives voice and a spotlight to the kind of people we all identify with – the secretary who can’t tell her boss what she really thinks of his behaviour, the lover with ‘grief clinging to her chest’, and the ‘bedsit boys’ for whom a better life seems out of reach. The huge themes of our time are also here: the loss of Truth, the abuse of our planet, refugees whose lives are ‘traded for votes’. And running through all of these poems is a deep appreciation of language, its wayward propensity to develop whether we like it or not, a wry and humorous mourning of what has been lost. This is Kent’s love letter to the written word, and any reader who shares that love will find much to enjoy here.”Karen Macfarlane, poet and author of ‘All about the Surface’
Patricia Osborne’s “Nature’s Bookends” is a pamphlet of meditative poems rooted in the natural world and the healing power of re-connecting with nature. While the opening poems are optimistic, don’t be fooled into thinking these poems don’t delve below the surface. There’s no toxic positivity here…
Patricia M Osborne’s Nature’s Bookends is a collection that rises far beyond its exquisite poems. Written during a year when the poet faced deeply personal encounters with cancer, the collection resonates with an urgency and poignancy that gives it profound emotional weight. With all proceeds from limited edition sales going to Cancer Research UK, this is a collection that blends artistic beauty with a mission for change...
Please join me in congratulating author, Ivy Logan, on the launch of And Then You Were Gone
Nina, a popular fantasy author, maintains a reclusive existence. Aside from Nina’s work, her primary focus is her daughter, Sophie.
Incessant bullying at school and a public, mortifying falling out with another girl sparks a downward spiral in Sophie’s emotional state.
Nina watches helplessly as her daughter appears to be unable to move past this unfortunate event. Nina grows so consumed with Sophie’s suffering that she loses her desire to write. How does one help a teenage daughter in torment?
But then Nina has an idea—an unorthodox method to help her daughter. She is going to write a story—bringing in a special character into Sophie’s life. As the author, Nina can control the outcome of the story.
Or can she?
As fiction and reality blur, Nina realizes that things have gotten out of hand. Is her story the blessing she hoped for or a curse she never expected?
Read this riveting and hauntingly poignant tale to find out more.
What Readers Say
I was immediately drawn into the story and didn’t put it down until the last words. It moves quickly and took me on an emotional rollercoaster, with an ending I didn’t see coming. I highly recommend this emotionally charged story that brings to light a universal struggle that never seems to find an end.
I highly recommend this book to everyone who appreciates an emotion-evoking story that tugs on your heartstrings and makes you look at seemingly usual things from a new perspective.
I found Ivy Logan’s latest artistic work full of intrigue and drama. This novella is suitable for either adult or young adult readers. The story begins like a great mystery should, giving pause for the reader to ponder and question exactly what doors are being unlocked in this journey …
Heart pounding at times, tear producing at others, Ms. Logan brings a soul touching story that will cause the reader to stay up late into the night, flipping pages to discover the unbelievable twist in the end. Easy 5 stars, I wish I could give it 10/10…
The Woodhaerst Reunion, Book 2,continues to follow the lives of Rachel Webster and Peggy Davies.
Returning as a journalist, is Rachel about to feature in her own story?
March 1977 – after four years away, Rachel Webster returns to Woodhaerst as a qualified journalist. Crushed following her former fiancé’s marriage, she accepts an offer from an ex to visit him in Paris.
Is romance on the cards for Rachel? Will the spiral continue to turn?
Has Peggy the strength for another round with Fate?
Birth mother, Peggy Davies, has restored her family to the happy unity they enjoyed before Rachel breezed into their lives.
Will this stability continue? Is Peggy’s household about to be thrown into chaos once again?
The coil continues to wind with surprise twists in store for both Peggy and Rachel.
A 1970s family drama centring around strong women, love, and friendship.
Patricia M Osborne 