latest news and views - 2nd march 2013

Hi all;

Hope you are good and enjoying the what I hope is the beginning of Spring as

Certainly after the constant little bits of snow and frozen I have had enough of winter totally for this time.

Creative wise, it has been quite a active month in several ways.

First of all, probably in March viva bandcamp a series of old recordings (I think around the 2010 mark) with one brand new recording will be released as a free download of me with a ambient band called Poortosh. Hopefully over Easter – I will start work on some other tracks with it as I have a better studio set up now.

Also, my work with Amanda Silbernagel although currently quiet (Amanda is

Busy with her studies). When she finishes for half time probably next month, am hopeful we will be able to crack on further with this and get a EP on the way fairly soon (ish).

My main band ‘A Means to an End’ finally made it back to the stage at the beginning of the month when we did a 15 minute set at Guitar and Verse in Manchester which can be seen here.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4z7d28xTXQ

(Next stop for the band will be doing a set in April for a night called Words V Music)

I haven’t done anything performance wise by myself this year now (solo poetry).

Didn’t end up going to Write out Loud, Stockport last month but I will be back there on 11/03/2013 with at least three new poems with me (one of which I am currently still working on).

After that, I will be performing in Tyldesley at a night called ‘Performance’ on Friday 22 March 2013 where I’ll be doing probably 15 minutes or so of poetry and I am hoping my band will also be there to sneak in a few songs. (Not decided on the setlist yet).

Writing wise, I have managed to write a few poems this year including ‘tracing planes’ which will be debuted shortly with A Means to an End and a major rewrite of a old Words and Music (my first band) called ‘The one that got away’ is with the guys and I am hoping will be finished with the guys over the next month / three whenever. Hopefully both of these will be in A Means to an End book two (Out next year I think).

I am still progressing work slowly on my next poetry book ‘the end of summer’. I did a test print of the book at the end of last year which had 28 poems listed for it and since then, I’ve now added another two, maybe three for it and have a few ideas for a few others in my head besides wanting to do a bit of re-editing to it (in particular one called ‘Open Door Closed’ which looks almost completely different and has been submitted to Best of Bolton 2013).

I’ve also just had a pretty successful writing workshop for the workshop I co run with Manda Lee, Writers of the third kind last week which produced drafts of 4 poems, 3 of which are likely to appear in either Love Songs for Cathy V or maybe The End of Summer with a nice comical one which I will hold back for a comedy book maybe in the future. Next workshop is 27/03/2013 @ the Sweet Green tavern near Bolton train station from 7pm.

All welcome as normal and as normal there will be no admission!

Publishing wise, two poems have been accepted for publication. One in a publication called ‘County of last things’ who at the end of March will be publishing ‘The End of Summer IV’ and in April I think, Puppywolf Press will also be publishing a new poem called ‘Bodies in open tombs’ for their annual Best of Manchester Poets Volume 3 (Will hopefully be at their launch).

As soon as I get more news with confirmed dates etc, I will of course be attending but don’t forgot in the meantime, Guitar and Verse a week tomorrow (7^th March 2013) headlined by the excellent Shaun Hunter's Quiet Rebellion with a poetry slot from Indigo at Gulliver’s, Manchester.