So, here we are again, with me not having blogged in six months, so I best do something about that, eh?
Well, it’s been a delightfully busy six months. Since we last spoke I’ve had 13 poems published – including a poem placed in Banshee (!!) and one haiku, with another six or so scheduled to come out over the next while. Special mentions to two forthcoming anthology appearances, in which I have two poems each: the first, Burly Tales: Fairy Tales for the Hirsuit and Hefty Gay Man, includes my very first commissioned work and will be out in February from Lethe Press; secondly, coming in summer 2021 is Hit Points : An Anthology of Video Game Poetry from Broken Sleep Books. You can view the full list of publications here.
Rather exciting in the past few months was that I was officially (I say officially because we knew a few days before Lockdown 1 and then everything ground to a halt) announced as a Poetry Ireland 2020 Introductions poet, which is a massive honour and I was thrilled to bits over it. As well as doing workshops with Vona Groarke, Annemarie Ni Churreain and Jessica Traynor, we did a reading as part of ILF Dublin and had poems published in an anthology of our own. Oh, and they named the anthology after one of my poems! How exciting (You can buy it for 99p here).
Oh, I did my first ever writing retreat at County Down’s wonderful The River Mill, ran by poet extraordinaire (and chef and host extraordinaire) Paul Maddern. I highly recommend a few days there – and it’s very reasonably priced to! I’ll be going back as soon as I can!
Also, I have been doing readings left, right and centre.
– In June, I read as part of the Trim Poetry Festival, in Cultivating Voices’ Poetry Pride Parade, and I was interviewed on Liffey Sound FM’s Umbrella, where I also read two poems.
– In July, I took part in Cultivating Voices’ New Books Showcase where I performed Blue Boy from Carcass, and I read my poem ‘Withdrawn’ for RTÉ Lyric FM.
– After a brief illness in August, I was back in September with two readings: firstly, I read a new poem, ‘Creation Myth’ on Lyric FM and I took part in the Bray Literary Festival’s round robin event, Four Poets Walk Into a Bar.
– Last month was somehow even busier, taking part in Cultivating Voices’ National Coming Out Day Reading and reading for the Wild and Precious Life Reading Series, as well as reading poems for Poetry Ireland, taking part in the Poetry Ireland Introductions readings in ILF Dublin and finally, reading my spooky poem ‘Sleep Over’ on the Words Lightly Spoken podcast just in time for Halloween.
– As for now, I was thrilled to be on Arena yesterday (17th November) reading my poem ‘A History of Empathy’ and talking with Sean Rocks about my upcoming event for Dublin Book Festival, forthcoming on 3rd Dec (The Queer Body with Seán Hewitt, Liz Quirke and Mark Ward, hosted by Sasha de Buyl) – the event is online and tickets are free. I’ll also be their #AskAnAuthor feature soon, so get your questions for me ready!
Finally, I’ve also recorded poems for The RTÉ Poetry Programme, which will be coming up in a forthcoming episode (in which I’m also interviewed) and I will be taking part in their Christmas episode also! LOTS going on! I shall try and post again before six months has passed (and I will fail, we all know I will)