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Film Poem of ‘Hare’

Wanted to share the filmpoem made by Melissa Diem of my poem ‘Hare’, which was placed in the National Poetry Competition top ten winning poems (out of 12,000 entries!) back in March. I was going through a really tough time at the beginning of the year so it was especially nice to get a phone call from Judith Palmer at ...
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Festival Round-Up Part 1

October 24th, 2014 I am a little over halfway through my Writing Motherhood tour so I thought it was high time I get cracking and post something about how it’s all been going. So: a recap. After finishing BOOM! – my poetry collection about motherhood – I found I wasn’t quite done with the whole motherhood discussion. I wanted to ...
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Voicing Shadow, Singing Light: 7

‘Voicing Shadow, Singing Light’ is a blog series designed to tear down barriers of silence that perpetuate suffering from mental illness and deadly last resorts. In August I put a call out on Facebook and Twitter requesting poems that articulate some aspect of mental illness – whether as sufferer, survivor, carer or friend. The response has been overwhelming – hundreds …

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Voicing Shadow, Singing Light: 6

Voicing Shadow, Singing Light’ is a blog series designed to tear down barriers of silence that perpetuate suffering from mental illness and deadly last resorts. In August I put a call out on Facebook and Twitter requesting poems that articulate some aspect of mental illness – whether as sufferer, survivor, carer or friend. The response has been overwhelming – hundreds …

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VOICING SHADOW, SINGING LIGHT: 5

Voicing Shadow, Singing Light is a blog series designed to tear down barriers of silence that perpetuate suffering from mental illness and deadly last resorts. In August I put a call out on Facebook and Twitter requesting poems that articulate some aspect of mental illness – whether as sufferer, survivor, carer or friend. The response has been overwhelming – hundreds …

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VOICING SHADOW, SINGING LIGHT: 3

Voicing Shadow, Singing Light is a blog series designed to tear down barriers of silence that perpetuate suffering from mental illness and deadly last resorts. In August I put a call out on Facebook and Twitter requesting poems that articulate some aspect of mental illness – whether as sufferer, survivor, carer or friend. The response has been overwhelming – hundreds of poems flooded …

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VOICING SHADOW, SINGING LIGHT: 2

‘Voicing Shadow, Singing Light’ is a blog series designed to tear down barriers of silence that perpetuate suffering from mental illness and deadly last resorts. In August I put a call out on Facebook and Twitter requesting poems that articulate some aspect of mental illness – whether as sufferer, survivor, carer or friend. The response has been overwhelming – hundreds …

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VOICING SHADOW, SINGING LIGHT

Mental illness affects all of us. More than a third of the population of Europe is affected by mental illness every year, with depression now recognised as Europe’s leading chronic condition. Mental illness is strongly linked to suicide; according to the World Health Organization, by the time you have finished reading this paragraph at least one person will have committed …

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Film rights…. and a poetry offer!

The film rights for THE BOY WHO COULD SEE DEMONS have been optioned by Sebastian Dungan, a Sundance-winning, Oscar-nominated and all-round lovely producer based in LA. Back in February Sebastian emailed me to say he loved the book, and via Skype told me he’d actually come across it in a public library (usually film rights are optioned on the heel …

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Film poems, Festivals, and What-to-do-while-waiting-for-feedback

Hello there! Gosh, it is really JULY? Really?? I don’t know about you, but this year has just flown. Anyhoo, that means I have lots of news for you. Hooray! (or ‘Hurrah!’, depending on which part of the world you’re from. Perhaps I should just say ‘Wheeeee!’) Hmmm, where to start. I’ll show you my film poem, shall I? What’s ...