Bumper News Bulletin

BUILDING
It's all go over here. First of all, we've set a new word for Fuselit submissions - Contraption. This issue will have, we dare to dream, a steampunk sort of thing going on. K's been wanting to do a steampunky issue for some while now.

We're also beginning work on Fuselit: Jack. This issue is going to have an entirely inappropriate hallowe'en/nightmare aesthetic. We're also pondering what to do for a supplementary booklet. At the moment, the idea is that it's going to be something to do with hijacking.

SUCCEEDING
In other news, a poem of mine was highly commended in the National Poetry Competition. Here's a page which gathers all the commended poems together. There's pictures too. The poem in question was 'Jake Root', and it's included in Scarecrows.

READING
I have a few readings coming up. Somewhere towards the end of this month I'll be doing a little launch for Scarecrows at Days of Roses, alongside readings from Sam Riviere and others. This will probably be at The Camden Head, but it's to be confirmed. I'll also be reading at The Hold, likely at Oliver's Bar in Greenwich. Then, of course, on Tuesday 20th, there's Dress Rehearsal Rag, our Leonard Cohen night, at which Kirsty and I will both be reading (only two poems each - one of Cohen's and one of our own) and playing cover versions of LC's songs.

Finally, on May 31st I'll be reading at The Wheatsheaf with Earnest Hilbert, Katy Evans-Bush and Richard Price.

We'll both be doing a reading or two in June in Edinburgh as well, but more details of that later.

WRITING
This month is NaPoWriMo. A lot of people must be sick of this - and hearing about this - but the idea is to write a poem a day, every day, through April. I find it a useful shelf-clearing exercise. At any one time I have a notebook full of notions and ideas for what may or may not make good poems some day, and writing for me is such a bitty, often-interrupted, long-winded process that I usually never get round to most of them. April is a chance to try everything. If something doesn't work, do what you can with it, post the feeble effort for others to mock and try something else the next day. Ignore the pain and the every-growing feeling that you're about as far from a hardcore poetry-writing machine as it's possible to be, and at the end of the month you have at least a dozen or so that are worth buffing up and filing away for later.

The other important thing is to make completion of the poem a day an unreasonably high priority. Once you start letting three square meals, gainful employment, friend's birthdays and your own psychological health get in the way you might as well give up!