Small Kindnesses Blogsplash

A new blogsplash event organised by Fiona Robyn and Writing Our Way Home...

On Tuesday the 27th of November I'm joining the Small Kindnesses Blogsplash and writing about a special small kindness someone paid me in the past. Would you like to join me?

The Blogsplash is organised by Fiona Robyn to celebrate the release of her novel 'Small Kindnesses' which will be free on Kindle on the day. All you have to do is write something about being kind - a memory of someone who was kind to you, a list of kindnesses over the past week, or something kind you did for someone else. It'll be a celebration of kindness in all its forms, especially those little kind acts that make all the difference.

To find out more visit Fiona's blog, or join the Facebook event. Do ask your friends to join you, and feel free to copy this blog onto your own to help us spread the word.

See you on the 27th! :)

A Blackbird Sings

I'm very pleased to let readers know that the 2012 anthology of small stones is now available on Kindle, and for pre-order on Amazon. A Blackbird Sings: a book of short poems is edited by Fiona Robyn and Kaspalita and will have a special launch on November 1st, the first ever Mindful Writing Day. Once again, people from all around the world with gather to pay attention and write it down. These small stones will be gathered by Fiona and Kaspa and published on their Writing Our Way Home blog, where they'll be giving away five free paperbacks of A Blackbird Sings to their favourites. And also on this day the Kindle version of the anthology will be FREE! Find all the Mindful Writing Day info here. I hope you'll join us. :)

Here are my two poems in the anthology, which are in good company, including many of my haiku poet friends:

Cover by Ken Hurd

gold moon

my nose pressed against

cold glass

                         empty glass
                         the sound
                         of his sobs

Two Great NaPoWriMo Giveaways!

The wonderfully supportive and energetic Kathy Nguyen is running two competitions to celebrate National Poetry Month.

The first is a haiku/senryu/tanka contest on her blog - Origami Lotus Poetry
Take a look at all the details here, and you'll be able to see my entry already in the comments section.
She is giving away a copy of Peter Newton's What We Find to the winner, and you can read her review of the book here.

The second is for WOWH members and the giveaway is one of Fiona's or Kaspa's e-courses!
You can find the prompt and all the info here, and if you're not already part of the Writing Our Way Home community then why not consider joining. You can find out more about WOWH here.

There's still lots of fun to be had this April!

A Beautiful Blogsplash

What is your most beautiful thing?

Is it your one year old niece's golden smile? The pale pink peony buds in your garden? A silver ring given to you by your grandmother? Your shiny red Vespa scooter? Is your most beautiful thing a place or a moment? Is it a philosophy or a value?

On Tuesday the 24th of April, we're organising a Blogsplash to celebrate beautiful things, inspired by Fiona Robyn's new novel, 'The Most Beautiful Thing'.

We're inviting people from all over the world to blog, tweet & write about their own most beautiful thing.

You could post a photo or write a prose piece about your most beautiful thing. You could write a small stone or show us a piece of artwork you've made in honour of your most beautiful thing. It's completely up to you. You could be extravagant and post a whole series of your most beautiful things.
 
We'll make a directory of everyone who's taking part here, sending new visitors to your blog, and we'll also re-post our favourite entries on this blog over the following month.

If you're interested in taking part, email Fiona with 'blogsplash' as the title and she'll send you more details. You can get thinking and set up your blog post as soon as you like.

I have no idea what I'm going to do (may have be more than one post!) but I hope you'll join me next week :)

Splish splash!

Half-Way Through My 2011 Challenge

In the first week of January, buoyed by the excitement of writing a small stone a day during A River of Stones, I decided to set myself the challenge of submitting to a poetry publication or competition every week in 2011.

It was my way of getting back out into the world through poetry, after a year of writing taking a backseat to four cycles of chemotherapy and over four months of hospital stays. While I did resume writing regularly in the later part of 2010 (when I could finally say I was home! and felt the need to process the whirlwind of events that began with my diagnosis of leukaemia on March 2nd) I wasn't submitting my work, instead using it purely to process my journey.

It's now week 26 of 2011 and I've faithfully kept to my goal; sometimes submitting to more than one outlet a week. I've never before been waiting on so many editors' verdicts and competition results: currently awaiting replies from seven publications (on-line and in print), two anthologies and five competitions. Phew!

It's opened me up to submitting to several publications/competitions I had never submitted/entered before, and a few places that I'd been meaning to send haiku too for a couple of years, but had chickened out! So, lots of firsts coming out, including:

• my first time submitting tanka to and appearing in Eucalypt
• my first time submitting to, and first ever haiga submission, appearing in Notes from the Gean
• my first time submitting senryu to and appearing in Prune Juice

Hopefully many more to come!

I've also really enjoyed sharing my poetry on Swimming in Lines of Haiku and through Facebook by participating in A River of Stones, NaHaiWriMo and NaPoWriMo. These month-long poetry challenges have lead to me connecting up with several writers/poets/haijins on Facebook, blogs and the Writing Our Way Home community. It's great to be introduced to new publications, be exposed to new ideas, and be encouraged by this thriving and supportive online community. I'm reading, writing and sharing more poetry than ever before and it feels good! Thanks for being part of it :)