I love to write. It drives me mad at times: my dyslexia gets in the way and the letters muddle furiously, words interchange and confuse me. Yesterday I was through Glasgow Central station and read ‘Changing toilets, inaccessible places’
No, it wasn’t mean to be read like that, my brain was running away with words again but it has sparked the start of a poem or story-we will see where it goes. Letting words loose to run free then gathering them back into some form of communication is quite a game for me.
Rosie on National Poetry Day reading poems aloud in Glasgow for Mirrorball
For the last three years I have attended a weekly private creative writing class with Donny O’Rourke, (https://www.rlf.org.uk/fellowships/donny-orourke/) where a friendly group are pushed to create and critique our fellows, writing in formal styles and free. Donny is one who quietly ups the ante so one minute there is a list of 10 term tasks, which seems challenging enough, the next, adding in a random philosopher for each of us to use as a filter to look at our work, then asking us to create a personal collection too. Each week we are inspired by the varied responses of our classmates, and encourage each other to perform, publish and extend our skills.
I had applied for Clyde-built writing scholarships year on year aware I was not ready for that, yet wanting to practice for when my work matured enough to bear that fruit. But it pays off, all this practice. This is the first year I have properly put poetry out for publication. No-one was more surprised than I when one after another an acceptance rather than rejection e-mail arrived. There have been knock-backs of course. Learning to shrug them off and choose better where to submit to is an art. But 22 so far this year feels like I have made an effort to be heard. The material for my own collection grows nicely.
So now I am a published author, in Glasgow Review of Books edited by Sam Tongue https://glasgowreviewofbooks.com/2016/04/15/new-poetry-by-rosie-mapplebeck/
on the windows of Dumfries in https://www.facebook.com/BurnsWindowsProject/ c/o Hugh Bryden
in Love, an anthology as well as in Lonely, an anthology (www.collectionsofpoetryandprose.com) (editor Robin Barratt)
Fairacre Press http://fairacrepress.co.uk/shop/poetry-on-stinging-nettles-pdf/ (Nadia Kingsley)
Word on the Streets magazine from Gerry Cassidy of Raspberry Horse, the summer edition (my contribution, a week in poetry)
Poetry Scotland, http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/index.asp?id=84, Sally Evans’ poetry broadsheet
and on 25th November 2016 Open Mouse from Colin Will.
I have also been shortlisted for the Imprint 2016 Writing Award in the poetry category. http://www.eastayrshireleisure.com/index.php?a=landing&id=6&sid=66&mid=48
25th November is ‘prize’ day. My prize is there already: being able to read in front of other able writers as equal, and chosen to be there by professionals.
Hope it will be a happy St Andrews Day for you too.