We are delighted to announce the appointment of a new Artistic Director.
Clare Pollard
@poetclare
poet, editor & writer joins us as we start to work towards our fifth festival in October 2023.
If the announcement about my novel surprised you yesterday, that's because I didn't talk about writing it - even to friends and family. I've been disappointed so many times that to talk of writing fiction publicly had become excruciating to me. 1/
Another amazing revelation from The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol II - Sylvia and Ted went to a fancy dress party as Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. ‘One day it will stick, and his nails will grow’ 🐺
I’ve just come across Elizabeth Bishop’s definition of confessional poetry: ‘The idea is that we live in a horrible and terrifying world, and the worst moments of horrible and terrifying lives are an allegory of the world’.
The Homage of the People will take place after King Charles III is crowned.
Everyone in the Abbey and watching can join in the words ''I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God.''
We are thrilled to introduce this year’s new Fellows and Honorary Fellows! 🎉
Please join us in congratulating and celebrating them as they were officially inducted at our
#RSLSummerParty
today 👏
The new Olga Tokarczuk is absolute genius. I think it confirms her as my favourite living writer. It doesn’t just equal Mann’s The Magic Mountain, I much preferred it, and Antonia-Lloyd-Jones’s translation is perfection
@FitzcarraldoEds
Very exciting news!! I am judging the National Poetry Competition this year with Will Harris and Jane Draycott! I’ve always wanted to judge this, it’s the big one!! Can’t wait to read your poems 💫🖊️💫
Will Harris, Clare Pollard and Jane Draycott are the judges of the National Poetry Competition 2023, now open for entries until October 31st 2023.
The National Poetry Competition is open to everyone over 18 worldwide.
Find out more and enter:
Shame on everyone involved in books like this btw. The children’s book industry trying to make out like Charles is the Lorax or Greta Thunberg and not some billionaire landowner ffs
We are proud to announce the
#ForwardPrizes
2022 shortlist for Best Single Poem!
🌟Nick Laird🌟
🌟Clare Pollard🌟
🌟Carl Phillips🌟
🌟Cecelia Knapp🌟
🌟Louisa Campbell🌟
Find out more:
Some exciting news!! My children’s book debut, The Untameables, is coming out with
@TheEmmaPress
next year! It’s a subversive take on Arthurian legend in which the knights of the round table are the bad guys. Can’t wait for you to meet my heroes, Rowan and Elva 🦄🧚🏾🏰🍄
@AviTheNaftali
Hi all only just catching up with this - I thought the interview was lighthearted and playful but genuinely Carle, and had seen it cited in various other places. I cleared this quote with the Paris Review and entered detailed correspondence with them on how I would use it 1/2
I am so so excited to share the UK cover of DELPHI - look 👀 at this beauty! Many thanks to
@FigTree43271680
and the designer Jack Smyth. I am thrilled!
#coverreveal
I think that the trouble is ‘being a published writer’ is sold as the dream - people spend years doing MAs, attending courses, paying for mentoring, entering competitions, working on their craft etc etc, just hoping to one day get that deal 1/3
"More than half of authors (54%) responding to a survey by The Bookseller on their experiences of publishing their debut book have said the process negatively affected their mental health"
@thebookseller
Reporting by
@Alice_Khabib
and I
After 5 years I am moving on from the dream job after the summer issue of
@MPTmagazine
- if you fancy taking over one of the world’s best poetry magazines, do apply! It’s a lovely team…
I’d forgotten that the worst thing about having a book out is I can’t pop into bookshops for a casual browse again this year in case my book isn’t there and I feel sad and angry.
People trying to spin this story as a positive (‘keep believing’) but for me it’s a deeply depressing indictment of our literary gatekeepers. Think how many equal masterpieces have just never been published; how many brilliant writers have given up
Shuggie Bain was rejected 30 times before it was picked up & then won the Booker. 🎉👏🏽 We don’t often hear of failures, only 6-figure deals & multiple publisher auctions. It is so difficult to believe in our vision & hold on to it. But we have to believe that our stories matter.
NEW PROJECT! From tomorrow, I will be posting up a free, short poetry workshop and exercise every Monday at 11am on my YouTube channel - you can post up your poems at
#clarespoetrycircle
📣OUT NOW!📣
MPT The Previous Song: Focus on
#Somali
Poetry includes new poems by Asmaa Jama and Hibaq Osman, translations of Amran Maxamed Axmed and Xasan Daahir Ismaaciil ‘Weedhsame’, an introduction to the lyrics of Qaraami – the popular music [...]
I’m extremely pleased to be shortlisted by
@TheEmmaPress
for their recent round of submissions. I really think this is one of the best things I’ve written but have found it hard to place 1/2
COVER REVEAL!!! So thrilled to share this sumptuous cover for THE MODERN FAIRIES
@FigTreePenguin
designed by the incredible Josie Staveley-Taylor
@jstillustrates
🥀🏰🧚♀️
The absolute GENIUS
@poetclare
is back with a stunning novel about scandal, secrets, repulsively fascinating monarchs, and the delights/dangers of storytelling in dark times. Deeply honored to be representing her on behalf of
@LandRAgency
with BIG thanks to
@AvidReaderPress
!
Are you an emerging reviewer interested in translation? Get in touch if you’d be interested in writing an online review for
@MPTmagazine
- especially if you’re from an under-represented background. About to commission a new batch…
Honoured to have been on the same Front Row as Bon Jovi(!), & in conversation with the icon that is Marina Warner, queen of fairytales, who was so unbelievably generous about
#themodernfairies
- a great start to launch week ❄️🌹🍏🥂🩸🐺🪞🧚🏾🐸🦢🏰
The
@PoetrySociety
commissioned me to write the poem for the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree this year, along with local primary schools. It's about Hope. The lighting up ceremony is on December 5th 🌲🎄
I’m running a reader’s day for
@FaberBooks
on Sylvia Plath’s Ariel on July 8th. Maybe the greatest poetry collection of all time? Still a few places left
But I do think with every novel I got better, and I suppose with every novel I bought a lottery ticket. The chance that something amazing might happen. You might never win, but you might.
COVER REVEAL
@ReenaMakwana
has done such beautiful work on my 1st children’s book THE UNTAMEABLES and this gives just a taster of the beautiful pictures inside (I love the Green Knight) 🌿 💚 Thanks so much Reena and
@TheEmmaPress
So sorry to hear the gorgeous, talented, generous-spirited poet
@BevisKathryn
has died. Her reading at
@WinPoetryFest
last year was an absolute highlight. She will be missed by so many 🦋
Well done to the wonderful
#nationalpoetrycompetition
longlist. Judging always involves difficult compromises and having to let favourites go, but know that if you’re on this list at least one of us read over 12,000 poems and kept coming back to yours! 🥂
So I was reading all the
#soagrants
tweets yesterday thinking I'd missed out, and I just looked in my junk emails and I actually got one!!!! It's to complete my new project, about clairvoyance and the future, currently working title: Delphi. Am extremely grateful!
It’s publication day! So happy to see my first children’s book
#theUntameables
finally make its way into the world. I love Roan and Elva and hope you will too. Thanks so much to
@ReenaMakwana
and
@TheEmmaPress
legends all
Big news friends! So excited to announce my next adult novel THE MODERN FAIRIES will be coming out with the incredible
@AvidReaderPress
next spring in the US -
@LucyACarson
Jenny Hewson, Lauren Wein and
@amyguay_
you my fairy godmothers 🧚♀️🧚🏾🧚🏿♂️
The absolute GENIUS
@poetclare
is back with a stunning novel about scandal, secrets, repulsively fascinating monarchs, and the delights/dangers of storytelling in dark times. Deeply honored to be representing her on behalf of
@LandRAgency
with BIG thanks to
@AvidReaderPress
!
So five billion pounds is only a ‘seemingly’ large amount of money, but if Hay doesn’t get £130,000 the whole live literature scene has been destroyed. What is this, Centrist Maths?
And I'm not saying never give up. The truth is, lots of very good novelists never get published. Lots of very good novels end up in drawers. Brilliance gets overlooked, for reasons of fashion or marketing or the wrong editors at the wrong time 6/
So this image has *actually* been online for a bit, but I'm supposed to be a professional and do a
#CoverReveal
so here is my gorgeous cover for
#fiercebadrabbits
designed by Emily Sutton. 🐇Coming out August!
It’s DELPHI paperback day!!! Admire my yellow cover (and nails) 💛🌝⚠️so many thanks to
@FigTreePenguin
- please buy a copy from your local indie bookshop! 🏛🔮🥠🏺💀🥀🌷🥂
Writers, DO NOT collaborate with AI. It will only be able to write meaningful novels by stealing our words, ideas and plots. AI story engines are plagiarism machines, the end.
Today's a big day for Sudowrite. We're launching Story Engine, an AI tool for writing long-form stories.
Our awesome team worked with hundreds of novelists for months to build the ideal interface for writers and machines to collaborate on a narrative.
Agree, but also feel at this stage it’s not really a job at all. The problem is a lot of people think it’s a job, and that being published means you’ve got the job. But there is no job. It’s more like winning a prize: a few thousand pounds, a proud moment, but maybe that’s it.
What makes this difficult is that writing is a hugely romanticised job that a lot of people want, so they understandably don't want to hear that when you do get there, it's not all sunshine and roses. It's often hard, isolating, demanding and doesn't really pay
You shall go to the ball, dear readers!
Thrilled to announce my next adult novel will come out spring ‘24 in the US with
@avidreader
. THE MODERN FAIRIES is loosely inspired by the real adventures of the salonnières of the 17th C who shaped fairy-tales as we know them. 1/4
Finally got a date for the radio programme I worked on with the brilliant
@sarah_shebbeare
about Anne Lock, who wrote the first sonnet sequence in English. Can’t wait for you to discover her too she is 🔥🔥🔥
Know i shouldn’t look at goodreads but quite happy with ‘probably the horniest book I have ever read’ and figured it might persuade you to preorder
#TheModernFairies
Oh my goodness! Publication day and so pleased to find out The Modern Fairies is
#BookoftheMonth
for
@hivestores
who support local bookshops! Buy your copy here!
@FigTreePenguin
🩸🍏🐺🌹❄️🥂🪞🧚🏾🐸🦢🏰
It's official. The 2024/25 - and tenth! (we can't quite believe it) - GBP Short Story Prize is OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS.
With three amazing judges, and a stunning array of finalists to its name:
(Please RT! Enter! And tell your writing friends!)
This is very interesting for those concerned about AI novels. There seems to be something going on whereby bots read books by bots to game the charts. It’s breaking the whole Amazon self-publishing model…
We are delighted that the brilliant Clare Pollard (
@poetclare
), daughter of Bolton and poet, critic, novelist and more besides, has received her honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) from
@BoltonUni
. Deserved recognition. Congratulations, Clare! 👩🎓📚🤩🥂
@InsistentCamel
@AviTheNaftali
I doubt there will be any subsequent editions
@InsistentCamel
! It is not a big selling or important book. I will of course alert my publishers, but I think Paris Review need to take down the page and apologise as it that is where most people are getting the quote from, not me
But being published doesn’t mean writing can now be your career. It may well only mean a few thousand pound advance. And then you don’t get reviewed, or don’t get nominated for prizes or booked for readings. And there’s absolutely no guarantee your next book will be published 2/3
Due to homeschooling a 4yo and 8yo whilst editing the spring issue of
@MPTmagazine
this lockdown, I'm sadly unable to start a new term of
#clarespoetrycircle
right now, but if you have a new year's resolution to start writing poetry my free, ten-part beginners course is online
I am a member of the RSPB and can’t believe how chilling this thread is, and how truly dangerous they believe this government are. Please pay attention people. Not the ‘woke’ left, the actual RSPB.
⚠️😡Make no mistake, we are angry. This Government has today launched an attack on nature. We don’t use the words that follow lightly. We are entering uncharted territory. Please read this thread. 1/13
The
@WinPoetryFest
is hybrid and we have some online events so everyone can attend. Do put the word out! I hear anecdotally that online poetry attendance is dwindling but I think often poetry audiences just don’t know what’s out there. 🧵
!!!!!! She is a *terrible* writer. Can’t read because it’s paywall but if anyone wants to post up quotes and make me angry please do. Can’t even imagine how anyone could construct an argument for this! Imagine close-reading a passage, Jesus.
Some things I managed to do this year, 1. Edit 3 issues of
@MPTmagazine
(the Pandemic issue, pulled together whilst homeschooling during a lockdown, felt a particular achievement)
Live from
@LibraryCongress
: U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón reveals her Poem for Europa, an original work that will fly aboard the
@EuropaClipper
spacecraft to Jupiter's icy moon.
So pleased about the new
@BevisKathryn
prize, she is a total poetry legend 🦋 not to mention bloody
@ShareClaw
is judging! come on guys, enter, we’re open!
I'm so thrilled DELPHI will finally make me a published novelist. I can't believe my luck. When I realised the project I was working on was actually a novel I almost felt sick! I so nearly gave up. 5/
We're thrilled to announce Khairani Barokka (
@mailbykite
) as the new Editor of Modern Poetry in Translation!
Okka will join us as Editor from Autumn 2022 onwards, succeeding Clare Pollard (
@poetclare
)
Find out more:
Happy
#NationalPoetryDay
everyone! I love the
@PoetrySociety
‘Poetry Mixtapes’ so was pleased to be asked to make my own. This one’s inspired by Greek Gods and prophecy ⚡️🗻🔮
Writing a novel is such an enormous undertaking, and then if no one publishes it, it gets no readers at all. Poems can find ways to circulate outside of books. But a novel just stays in your drawer; this whole wasted period of your life you'd rather not think about. 4/