Patricia M Osborne

Please join me in congratulating my close friend and writing buddy on her debut short story collection, Havoc Shore. This book is particularly close to my heart as I was fortunate to witness each story evolve. Maureen Cullen is not only a novelist and poet, but a short story queen with numerous wins and publications in various magazines and anthologies. I’m honoured to have a poetry conversation with Maureen in Sherry and Sparkly (The Hedgehog Poetry Press).

Havoc Shore is where it all began for Kathleen Gallagher from Maureen’s debut novel Kitten Heels. Another highly recommended read.

About Havoc Shore

Spanning generations, Havoc Shore captures the voices of a shipbuilding town through its years of industry, struggle, and change. From 1954 to the present day, these 21 interwoven stories follow families bound by place, hardship, and resilience – navigating the tides of economic uncertainty, social upheaval, and personal triumph. 

The McLean siblings each carry their own version of a life-altering event, revealing the fractures and fierce loyalties within a working-class family. 

Isa McMenamin, mother of seven, stands her ground against bureaucracy, proving that sheer determination can shift the course of a community. 

Dolly Deighan, daughter of an Italian immigrant once branded an outsider, stakes her claim to a future she never thought possible. 

Throughout, neighbours, friends, and rivals cross paths in moments of humour, heartbreak, and quiet defiance. 

Told in the Scots dialect of its people, Havoc Shore is a richly textured portrait of a community shaped by poverty, emigration, and survival. Against the backdrop of shifting politics and changing times, these are stories of love and loss, resilience and resistance — from voices that demand to be heard. 

Keeps the reader turning the page. 

Havoc Shore is the perfect choice for any short story reader. From the first paragraph of every story, Maureen Cullen captures her audience by going straight in with the action. Each narrative has the perfect sentence structure, and powerful imagery.
The author portrays female protagonists as strong, independent women, and she isn’t afraid to touch on sensitive topics such as domestic abuse, alcoholism and juvenile delinquency. If I had to choose a favourite tale, and that is difficult because each one is a winner, it would be the chilling ghost story, ‘The Boy on the Bridge.’

I highly recommend Havoc Shore short story collection and believe that every bookshelf should possess a copy.

Order your paperback copy from Ringwood Publishing now.

Kindle version will follow shortly.

Please join me in congratulating Briony Collins on the launch of Ambergris (Barnard Publishing Ltd)

Blurb

In a fishing trip gone wrong, Henry finds himself on a beach in a storm. With no memory of how he got there, and no sign of anyone around, he must figure out how to get back to his family.

Madeline worries for her husband’s safety and for her granddaughter’s wellbeing as Lacey’s world crumbles around her.

Elen is a hardworking detective put on Henry’s case, and is determined to answer the question: what exactly happened on that fishing trip?

Almost crime, almost mystery, Ambergris is both unsettling and comfortable. Briony Collins writes simply and beautifully through events that destroy a family in front of your eyes.

Opening of Ambergris

Briony Collins

As hard as he tried, Henry Belvidere couldn’t recall where he was or how he got there. The first thing he remembered at the beach was looking for his oxygen tank. He couldn’t leave home without it, but it wasn’t here. The last thing he remembered before waking up was bringing Madeline coffee in bed. She smelled like the eucalyptus soap in the bathroom. Henry hoped he wasn’t dead.

He sat and scooped up a handful of sand, letting it run through his fingers. Some grains stuck under his nails, and he swore. He watched his hands stretch and barely recognised them. His fingertips were nicked with a hundred, tiny white scars from decades of splinters evidence of the forty-three years he’d spent working at Dixon’s Lumber before he retired. Down the side of his left thumb, between freckles and age spots, was a longer, redder scar. Henry stroked the lines on his palms with hardened fingers. It looked like his flesh was cracking, made up of different pieces instead of one unending wrap of skin.

It felt like only recently his hands belonged to a young boy. They weren’t soft and smooth like other children’s, but instead suffered just as many cuts and scrapes as when he took up lumbering. The scratches he got when he was young were different to these in one important detail: as a man, Henry handled the real world. As a boy, his sole line of work was in shaping the imaginary. With one touch a tree could be transformed into a mighty monster, whose almond shaped leaves became thousands of eyes that blinked in the wind. He ran from it to the garden wall, which was his medieval castle. Moss grew between the slabs and stained his palms green– the same colour as the blood of the monster Henry slew. At ten years old, he was Midas; every golden opportunity lay at his fingertips with all of the glory and none of the consequences.

Henry grabbed another handful of sand and let it flow out of his grasp again, aware that he didn’t have the same hold on the world as he did in childhood. In any other scenario, the beach might have been a magnificent place. The sea’s white horses galloped onto the shore that swooped up into the dunes behind him. The golden hills met an oasis of greenery where birds dipped into the thickets of trees. Clouds smoked in a sky that was the colour of Madeline’s eyes.

Want to read more? Order your copy of Ambergris using the links below.

Buy Paperback

Buy Hardback

Or order direct via the contact form on Briony’s website.

There will be an online event on June 3rd from 7pm to 9pm (UK), which will include a reading, Q&A, and open mic – Buy your tickets Here

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.

About Debone & 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

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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.

Order your signed copy

What readers say

“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)

Order your signed copy now

Find out more about Lucy Heuschen HERE

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.

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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.

Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad, author of ‘Patchwork Fugue’ (Atomic Bohemian Press, 2024)

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).

BUY your copy now!

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’

Order your signed limited edition copy HERE

Poster courtesy of Karen Pierce Gonzalez



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…

Read the full review on Emma Lee’s Blog

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...

Read the full review on The Broken Spine

Like what you’ve read? Fancy ordering a limited edition copy and helping me raise funds for Cancer Research UK? £7 a copy plus p&p

Order via Paypal – links below for relevant posting destination.

(UK postage) £9.50

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Outside of Europe and UK £13.50 – £13.50

Order a pdf version – delivery via Dropbox – £1.50

After payment, please email patricia.m.osbornewriter@gmail.com with delivery details (for pdf version – provide email address)

Please note donations will only be made to Cancer Research for copies purchased directly from me. Copies purchased via Amazon are not included.