You can watch it again here.

Freud’s (1992-2011) work is currently showing at The National Portrait Gallery London in an exhibition with which he collaborated in his final year. I’m hoping to see it on Tuesday. I think the quality of the paint itself is something that can only be hinted at on film and I am hoping to be, in the artist’s words.. astonished, disturbed, seduced, convinced.

Self-Portrait - older

What do I ask of a painting? I ask it to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince.- Lucien Freud

A moment of complete happiness never occurs in the creation of a work of art. The promise of it is felt in the act of creation but disappears towards the completion of the work. For it is then the painter realises that it is only a picture he is painting. Until then he had almost dared to hope the picture might spring to life. Lucien Frued

Something to warm you in this fearsome cold snap

I spent this morning in Wendy’s beautiful study sat by a heart-and-body-warming ( I hate this cold) coal fire in the company of Richard W. Hardwick reading and recording an in-conversation for Wendy Robertson’s Writing Game. Wendy, Richard and I have a lot in common, firstly being writers and secondly having all worked in prison.

Richard is still working as a writing tutor in HMP Frankland. For the March programme he read from his latest work, Andalucia which is a memoir he was prompted to write with some urgency when his partner Anna was diagnosed with breast cancer. The extract he chose describes a creative writing class in the prison where the tutor encourages his writers to conjure sense pictures, smells, sounds; until it starts to rain. They hear the rain on the roof and all migrate to the window where they begin to talk about what’s outside, about walking in the rain, about feeling grass under their feet….I loved it.It was elegant and restrained and honestly and beautifully written, reflecting as it did the interior life of the prisoner: his struggle for normality and his instinct for survival.

If you’d like to listen in to the readings and our conversation about prisons and about self publishing then the programme goes out on the first Sunday in March at midday. The podcast will be available sometime soon after. In the meantime if you want to listen to any of the podcasts the link is as above or the i-tunes link is on my sidebar. I think my favourite to date is the in-conversation with world renowned children’s author David Almond but there are so many fascinating programmes .. Do let me know which is your favourite….

1.Jeanette Winterson’s wonderful memoir – full of rage and love, wit and reflection – Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal – I am reading it just now and will be reviewing it for a new book blog. I already know it’s a must read, sometimes I think she’s climbed inside my head and knows exactly what I thought and felt as a child especially about books and writing!

Here is a taste: Books for me are a home. Books don’t make a home – they are one, in the sense that just as you do with a door, you open a book and you go inside. Inside there is a different kind of time and a different kind of space.  I’ve always felt like this about books and about writing too. That’s why for me, whatever happens, the act of writing is the most important thing.

2.Jacinda Little – Creative Ghostwriter’s post Naked Public Recycling Cures Bone Valley Hauntings – a beautiful piece about the writer’s graveyard which will convince you to unearth that old writing. And if you need any further reason then read Lifetwicetasted’s Wind From the Sierra

I'm fascinated by this piece by Anselm Keifer - it seems to connect with some of the poetry I'm writing..

3. David Hockney at the Royal Academy – Can’t wait to see it. Have it on the best authority that it’s stunning. Likewise if you’re in London Anselm Kiefer and Nicolas Gambaroff: at White Cube Bermondsey – (Thanks Jan)

4. And finally - Write Poetry – Matthew Sweeney and John Hartley Williams – a great ‘teach yourself’ for aspiring poets full of amazing workshop ideas to get you writing.

*Some more Anselm Kiefer images here on minimal exposition blog

Doire Press announces its long lists for its 1st Annual International Fiction & Poetry Chapbook Competition. Click here to see the names. Be sure to check back on; February 13th for short lists of ten and February 20th for the winners

I’m there in the prose longlist with lots of Irish writers – can’t be bad!

So I’m delighted to say I’ve just published  Susie Drew and Other Stories – on Kindle. It’s the second in my series of prison stories – Beyond The Mask (the first being When You Hear The Birds Sing). It’s available for download here  price a mere 77p – $0.99 – for three stories and you can’t buy a coffee for that!

Here’s a taster….

 Susie Drew

Susie comes back to prison again and again…

Susie Drew has the habits of a jackdaw, stealing bright objects, little bits of nothing that shine. She steals food too, coffee from the Nescafe jar in the staffroom. She’s your cleaner, the best cleaner you’ve ever had. Puts the coffee in screws of paper, buries it under the mattress in her prison cell…

Heroin Trees – Roxanne and Me

Roxanne is a working girl. Nita is her friend, both are heroin addicts…

I wasn’t long out of prison after the first time and things weren’t going well. Despite all my promises I was back with Sonny and using again, our money heated up in spoons: liquid money shot into our veins and laid out nodding on the couch. We managed alright for a while because he was dealing, but when Sonny got sick and I started wondering what the hell we were going to do for money that was when Roxy rang…

Pink Passion

Marie’s search for love ends in tragedy…

I met him at the Pineapple, one Thursday night. I used to go there most weeks looking for something. I suppose then I might have called it love, although I barely knew it. You can’t know what you’ve never had, can you?  And I never had much of it when I was growing up…

If you’re tempted to read these stories of invisible lives I hope you find them fascinating- do let me know what you think.

Anyway here’s a taste of my month so far:

1. Frost holds fast to the edge of the field / in the blonde grass the heron stands / a train beneath its feet

Written after a walk along an old railway track

2. Ruched skirt, frilled blouse/ feather earrings/ a girl among pigeons

I was shopping in town when I saw this.

3. Distant cars/ fireflies in the jungle’s sudden dark

From my writing room window.

4. It was evening all afternoon/shadows rippled across the field/a goldfinch sat in the hawthorn

I’d been reading and imitating Wallace Stevens..

5. Honda baseball cap,walrus moustache /two rosaries, a scottie dog under his arm / he fills the kitchen

I met this guy in my friends kitchen!

Another small stone - in my home made book I used pages with text on as well as blanks

This small stone is about re-discovering a novel I had already begun and taking it up again!

I for one spend too much of my time wondering about what I can achieve with my writing, about how it will be received and if it will be successful -is this poem, story, novel good enough to win a competition, publication – a contract?

Maitryabandhu  admits that  We probably need some success in order to carry on with the “stitching and unstitching” of serious writing  but warns of the dangers of success. The more success we experience the less it satisfies, and the more disappointed we feel by lack of success .

Not seeking success does not however mean that we don’t have to work hard, develop our imagination, read deeply, read well, be open to criticism and disappointment, all of which I am striving to do as I enter the world of poetry writing

I am also finding instinctively that life has become quieter more contemplative perhaps I’ve dropped beneath the racket of thought – the repetitive mental chatter, the worry and flurry – into direct, unmediated sensation. Then the richness of life, rather than the hubbub of thought, will find it’s way into your poems. I hope so – maybe that’s why I’ve given up on Twitter!

Read the whole Maitryabandhu piece here

From – Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

By Wallace Stevens

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.

It was snowing

And it was going to snow.

The blackbird sat

In the cedar-limbs.

If you do nothing else this week – as Jan who sent me the link says (and thank you, thank you Jan) – then LISTEN  HERE you won’t be disppointed

From the website – Passionate, funny, revelatory and inspiring, this series is a mission statement about the transformative power of reading; about the way it inspires us, the tangible impact it can have on our well-being and the importance it holds for us now and will continue to hold in the future.

Inside Balliol

Before Christmas, I went to Oxford with my friend, writer Wendy Robertson, for four days of writing. We stayed in rooms in Balliol which fronts onto Broad Street, and sits right in the heart of the city, only minutes from the Sheldonian and the Bodleian.

Being free from everything domestic so close to Christmas felt dangerous and delicious. It worked!  We wrote whenever we pleased, did whatever we pleased. We had four days of glorious blue sky, intense winter light, immaculate lawns and breath- taking architecture. We explored the city’s lanes and cobbled streets, its ancient gates and doorways:  glimpses into hidden worlds. Breathed in the immaculate gardens on our doorstep: tree ferns flourishing in sheltered corners and cyclamen flowering on the lawns under the beech. And at the end of the day we had impromptu readings, as well as on one occasion, a glass of champagne in The Randolph!

The Bodleian

It was all fun. I even did a spot of Christmas shopping in Blackwells. But we came to write and write we did. For what more does a writer need than a room of her own, a desk and chair and of course her best writing buddy with her – someone as obsessed as she is, who wants to talk writing into the night over a bottle (or two) of red and a plate of cheese and biscuits? (There’s a handy Sainsburys only minutes away.) You could say it was heaven and you’d be right.

* If you want to hook up to the internet you can borrow a cable from the porter for a £5.00 deposit – there is a connection in every room. As it turned out I enjoyed being internet free.

Balliol Lawns