2010 The Literary Highlights

Well - what did I get up to writing wise over the past year, anything worth reporting? here goes ...

1. Poem a day project - I got all the way to October with this before a certain poetic fatigue set in, knocking me well off the wagon - but not before I had over 400 bits of things and even some little gems written and a few sent and accepted for publication.

2. Poems Published - 3 in print, Yippee! on real paper! Yippee! A twig of a branch of a tree had to die for my poems! Yip.. - well you get the gist. Got a poem into Revival, the Moth and the Fantabulous Poetry Bus Magazine. Then got another 6 on the Raft poetry journal website in Americay, complete with sound files of me reading em out, and there were a couple of other acceptances that haven't quite reached actual publication actually yet, but actually might some day.

3. The Sunday Scrapbook - another 50 odd shows with 50 odd writers on the radio - (some odder than others) - each one teaching me something new and valuable. It's been a priviledge to meet and get to question all these talented folks.

4. IPYPIASM - International put your poem in a shop month - has this year been bigger and better than ever before - despite the adverse weather - we've had poems in America, Canada and France for the first time, and Scotland put in another very strong showing - with the Irish placements growing in number and impressiveness as well.

5. Readings - I've had the pleasure and the buzz of reading at lots of lovely places with lots of lovely people (including the glorious Poetry Divas!) over the year, even sometimes in front of people who were listening to what I was saying - kicking off at Nighthawks, I got to read also in the Irish Writers Centre, a couple of quantum sofas, the Brown Bread Mixtape, The Glór Sessions, Wexford's Cáca Milis Caberet, Dun Laoighaire tea rooms, The Winding Stair book shop, a little garage known as Seomra Spraoi, Electric Picnic, Uisneach Fire Festival, Red Rua Arts Centre, Sweny's Chemist, a bus in the middle of the night in County Clare, Dun Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures, Douglas Newman Good in Lucan village and Lucan Library to name but... them all.

6. Volunteering - my generous spiritedness got me going to lots of great events for free in the Dublin Writer's Festival and the Poetry Now Festival in Dun Laoghaire. The Gallery Press 40 year celebration in the Abbey was a great intro to Ireland's established poets, and Paul Muldoon's Poetry Now keynote address was a mind melting head wrecking tour of words that was a joy to be be at. So glad I could help out :-) and we got cool t-shirts.

7. Honey Fungus - the teen writers group in Lucan have been growing and going from strength to strength - Celebrating their third year going this Feb they are a great crew who often left me inspired and energised after facilitating them.

8. Poems to Dissuade - all thanks to someone who did in fact bring a horse to Tesco in Ballyfermot - and making that shop famous long before Mary Byrne came on the scene - this collection has been great fun to play with and will no doubt make my fortune and allow me to comfortably retire some time in the coming year.

9. Story in a book - thanks to the lovely Eileen Casey for concieving the idea of a book of new South Dublin Myths I have another book to add to the shelf this year - in "South of the County - New Myths and Tales" I reveal the true beginnings of golf, alongside alot of South Dublin's top talent exhibiting their great imaginations.

10. Story in a mag, not just any mag, a big shiny beautiful mag, bursting with beautiful things. I had a story in Winter's edition of "The Stinging Fly" - this is the equivalent of the best looking guy on the bus who you've had a crush on for years sitting down beside you all the way to town on your first day at college and offering to show you around. Pretty giddy inducing.

So it seems I was busy, but a lot of the busy-ness went into being out and about - reading aloud or talking to others about their work, rather than getting down to the work myself. Need to try and shift the balance back the other way this year, with more actual writing.... tune in here next year to see how that pans out.