Weekend of Writing

I know it may be hard to believe - but the sun actually made a very rare appearance yesterday. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, as I was down at Coney with the writing gang when it happened. 

Our catch up over coffee and chocanana muffins with a bit of writing thrown in was a welcome distraction from this incessant rain. And it's been a weekend of good writing news - with acceptances for a poem and a short story, as well as news of an anthology on the way.

It's turned out to be a busy writing weekend, with some preparation/ homework for the 'Writing Historical Fiction for Young People' course I've been doing through the Irish Writers Centre to be completed, along with catching some sessions at the SCBWI virtual winter conference.

Thankfully I'll be able to catch the recordings of some other sessions. In this horrible winter weather it's been great to be able to attend both a course and conference from the comfort of home, without having to venture outside. But the sun came out for a while again today, and it was great to get out and see signs of spring on the way.

Making an Exhibition of Ourselves

It's so un-Ulster-Scots to draw attention to or make an exhibiton of oneself, but I have to confess I was fair pleased with myself this week to see some of my writing has been referenced in the current Robert Burns exhibition at the Linenhall library in Belfast.

This exhibition opened before Burns Night celebrations had taken place and is on until the end of February.

Tracing the influence of Burns from when his 'Fragments of Scotch Poetry' first appeared in Belfast's 'Newsletter' in 1786 to the present day, the exhibition includes some of the poetry books held in the Gibson Collection dating from the late eighteenth century along with a range of Burnsanalia.

The exhibition also references the recent Ulster Scots poetry jukebox curation in which I (along with nine other poets (including two Scots makars!)) have a poem - 'Ballooning' written in response to 'To a Louse'.

It was an honour to be selected to be part of this curation with this group of contempoary Ulster Scots writers and for our work now to be included in the Linenhall library's collection.

The exhibition also includes the Linenhall's publications of the winning entries in their annual Ulster Scots writing competition. I'm honoured to have my stories included in two of these publications.

The exhibition continues until the end of February - a perfect excuse to celebrate Burns Night for a little bit longer.

Snow Day

We woke up to another light covering of snow this morning. Thankfully it didn't result in our writing group plans being cancelled. And there was even a flurry of snow when we were down at Coney this morning. 

There's nothing worse than having writing plans cancelled by winter weather, especially when you're getting back into a routine again after the holidays, so I was glad it was only a light snowfall. Having struggled to find my notebook and a pen amidst a pile of recently taken down Christmas decorations, I was glad to get back to Coney to catch up with writing pals and exercise some writing muscles after a lovely break and get back into a routine.

Over cranberry and chocolate muffins we chatted and made some plans for the year ahead as we eased ourselves into a new year of writing.