After 'A Winter Night' by Thomas Transtromer (trans Robin Roberston)
Since I found mother collapsed on the kitchen
floor, we siblings have become blindfolded mules
harnessed to carts filled with strain, lumbering
through a relentless storm, wanting to make
our mother walk on her own again, wanting to rest
our palms on her left leg and arm like Jesus, but
by Barsa Ray
For years we searched together for birds.
While we were looking, the forge started inside you.
Out flew the first, a Firecrest, flick of your white-hot tongue
painting the stripe on its head.
I thought it a wish fulfilled.
Others fluttered in our garden, long in their absence,
now thronging. Did you know where they were coming from?
Yellowhammer, Willow Tit, Coal Tit, Robin and Wren.
Photo by Eye for Ebony
The Writing Squad are looking for the next cohort of 30 talented writers in the north of England aged between 16 and 21 to join the Squad. If that is you, or you know anyone who fits the bill then you can apply at the Writing Squad website.
They are offering the usual two year programme, which consists of:
Upcoming Speculative Fiction Workshops
Sign up to the Inscribe Newsletter for fuller details when published.
Places will be limited at these low-cost workshops to sharpen your submissions to our NEXT! anthology of speculative short fiction.
Date: Saturday 28 Sept
Facilitator: Ronnie McGrath
Venue: Brighton - The Writers' Place
Time: 11-5 (tbc)
Attend Inscribe's residential weekend at Debden House, on the edge of Epping Forest! This is a wonderful opportunity to gather with other writers from around the country, who are your creative peers, to spend an intensive two and a half days on your craft. Be prepared to write out of your comfort zone and share!
This year, the annual APWG Summer Reception at the House of Commons centred on the launch of Supporting the Writers of Tomorrow.
The Royal Society of Literature has just published its report, A Room of My Own: What writers need to work today (PDF). It makes for depressing reading.
Only 5% of writers earned over £30,000 from their writing in 2018 (equivalent to the £500 per year Virginia Woolf recommended for writers).
13% of all respondents identified as being from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, but we represent only 9% of the highest earners from writing.
Mahsuda Snaith, who received a package of Inscribe support as part of the prize for winning the SI Leeds Literary Prize in 2012, has launched her second book.
