It’s been quite a  while since the last post, but that’s fine. That’s the way life goes… Growing up in an increasingly digital age makes you feel like you should be posting about everything, all the time, but it’s so not true. There is a peace in silence, and there is a freshness about a post which contains a few positive notes, not just one!

I’ve had a few poetry acceptances lately, including The Stinging Fly, Neon Magazine for the second time, and two different anthologies with Three Drops Press (one exploring sea lore, the other exploring witchcraft). Each acceptance is different, and my inclusion in the next edition of The Stinging Fly has involved a lot of editing and discussion with the amazing author Mia Gallagher. She’s been wonderful, and I’ve learnt so much from her.

Of course, there have been ‘nos’ too. I’m definitely not someone to only express the ‘yes’ poems! There are always a lot of ‘nos’, and I’m definitely getting better at just accepting it and seeing the positive side – I have a poem free now to try somewhere else!

I’m also seeing patterns. I know a lot of my writing is niche, it’s quite folkloric, dark, and mythic, and it seems that publishers who favour that genre seem to pick-up my poems more than the others. This might seem like a really obvious thing to say, but I like to think that the others will like a bit of fantasy and the uncanny too. I hope, anyway!

I’ve also been moving house, which has put a real stop to most of my creative efforts. I’m currently working on two short stories to submit to an anthology, and I also plan to write a third, so I can join the three together in a collection which would work well as a graphic novel. I get so excited by these ideas – too excited to relax and actually do the work a lot of the time!

Oh well. You live and learn.