Update, November 2023

It’s happening! The next collection was finalised, and at the moment, it is back with the publisher and the typesetters being made ready for the printer. But I had a mountain of alterations first, largely because the pages I sent in did not fit the intended book size, and several poems with longer-than-usual lines had to be retyped. This isn’t as simple as it sounds, because each line now ended on a different word, and where I had aligned these longer run-over lines to the right hand margin, the auto formatting at the ‘production end’ had re-set everything back to a standardised left hand margin. This affected how fast/slow a line could be read, images and transitions now appeared in places where they were not supposed to be, and the ‘music’ of the line was ruined. So I had to get everything to fit again; the way a line was seen plus the music of the words and how fast a poem would proceed down the page. Thankfully I found good compromises, and I hope that the future readers can’t tell that some of the poems were originally a different shape.

I’m one of the many people scaling down their Twitter (X) presence and switching to the user-friendly Bluesky site, which has some of the familiarity of ‘old’ Twitter without the intrusive presence from corporate persons with their irrelevant ads and dubious politics. I was given a Bluesky entry code from an editor who has my work on his site, otherwise I would be waiting in the general queue for an invite. Already, I have followed (and been followed by) a number of people I’ve ‘met’ on Twitter, and the amusement continues – hopefully without any stupid ads and other unwanted impedimenta. These free social media platforms are essential for poets and small presses, because even when old-skool publishers like Shoestring don’t bother with an online presence, their poets are circulating event details and commenting on each others’ books. These word-of-mouth recommendations are invaluable, and it means the presses can spend more time doing what they enjoy, which is producing books and participating in real-life communication. The online world is a great help while I’m back to fulltime dayjobs, because I don’t feel out of the loop when it comes to artistic news; but I recall the pre-pandemic times when I attended lots of readings and got behind the booktables, and I know which world I prefer.

As I’m waiting for my author copies to arrive, I admit that nothing literary will be going on for a few weeks. I will however, be sailing into the National Space Centre steampunk weekend in late November (at Leicester) wearing another home-made creation. It will be my third ‘proper’ steampunk outing, and this time ladies and gentlemen, I am wearing the Amazing Dirigible Hat – seen here residing in its hangar, a conveniently-sized Primark bag. I can’t tell you how many Sunday afternoons went into producing this thing; the design changed a little, to stay in place on my head and prove less hazardous in a venue with open display areas and fragile items worn by other people. I’ve ‘registered’ it to an airfield in South Lincs, so it’s the SK 001 model, named Hildegard (after Hildegard of Bingen). I’ll let you know how I get on.