The latest edition of the literary magazine Graffiti is out and it features winning stories from Graham Bruce Fletcher and Clare Finnimore. The theme for this edition is ‘Travelling in Heaven and Hell’.

Graham’s story ‘Begging for it’ is about a boy travelling across fenland in the 1970s and was highly commended by the judge Jan Turk Petrie. Clare’s story ‘Strawberry Road,’ based on travels in Australia and New Zealand, was named one of six runners up.

The magazine is available by subscription. For further details email editor Rona Laycock on rona_laycock@yahoo.co.uk. ​

Do check out our story of the month for August. It’s a gentle, nostalgic piece by Jim Moeller.

More success for Iris Anne Lewis, whose poem, ‘I shall have to be punished for writing this’ has been published in the weekly online journal Fresh Air Poetry.

The journal, which is inspired by the Kenneth Koch poem ‘Fresh Air,’ aims to publish astonishing, surprising and provocative poetry. It is edited by Stephen Daniels – a poet from Swindon. Stephen previously edited Amaryllis Poetry and has two published poetry pamphlets (‘Tell Mistakes I Love Them’, V.Press, 2017 & ‘£5 for this love’, Paper Swans Press, 2018). His third pamphlet ‘Birth, Love, Work, Love, Death & Other B-sides’ is due to be published later this year by Picaroon Poetry. 

Iris’s poem can be read here.

Three poems by Frank McMahon are published this month. “Flint’ and ‘Passajes’ appear in the June edition of ‘The Cannon’s Mouth’, the quarterly journal of the Birmingham-based Cannon Poets.

The third poem ‘It is the Sound’ has been published by ‘I am not a silent poet’, the
online magazine for poetry and artwork protesting against abuse in any of its forms. It begins:

IT IS THE SOUND
of a child abandoned on a hillside
of a man’s tears falling across a rock
of a seabird caught in a trough of oil
of a whale lost amongst the throb of engines
of a mother pleading for the life of her child.

Frank said: “Sometimes the news about the suffering and injustice in the world
becomes overwhelming and the voices of pain and despair break through,
compelling me to respond with poetry.”
The full poem can be read here:

Stephen Connolly’s short play ‘Paper Human’ has been longlisted for the British Theatre Challenge 2019. There were over 200 entries for this year’s competition (which has been running since 2011) from 14 countries, 25% of which were selected for the longlist.  Up to 30 plays will be shortlisted by the 14th July and 5 winners are due to be announced by the end of July.

Paper Human is based on real events from WWII, when Dutch civil servant Jacob Lentz and his French counterpart René Carmille were charged by the invading Germans with identifying the Jews of their respective countries according to the Nuremberg Race Laws, using the technology of IBM.

Somewhere Else writer Iris Anne Lewis is one of the guest readers at the launch of ‘Ten Poems about Horses’ at Alison’s Bookshop in Tewkesbury on 19th June.

Part of the ‘Instead of a Card’ series from Candlestick Press, ‘Ten Poems about Horses’ is a modestly priced pamphlet which would make an excellent small gift  for someone  who likes horses and would welcome a poetry pamphlet instead of a greetings card.

The launch event will feature the well known poet Alison Brackenbury, the editor of the pamphlet. As well as reading her own poem ‘Last Horse’, she will introduce guest readers Iris Anne Lewis, Sharon Larkin, Neil Richards and Tony Curtis, Emeritus Professor of Poetry at the University of South Wales.

If you are in the Tewkesbury area on 19th June, then why not join Candlestick Press, Alison Brackenbury and guest readers for the launch of ‘Ten poems about Horses’. Enjoy a canter through some beautiful poems celebrating horses, ponies and our relationship with them.

Free entry. All welcome. 19th June. 6.30pm at Alison’s Bookshop, 139 High Street, Tewkesbury.

Somewhere Else Writers’ latest broadcast ‘Birds in Books’ is a spring-themed programme celebrating the many ways writers have portrayed birds. The programme features work by Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and Lewis Carroll as well as local authors Selwyn Morgan, Graham Bruce Fletcher and Frank McMahon.

The broadcast ran from 4.30pm to 5pm on Sunday 19th May and will be repeated at the same time for the following three Sundays. You can also hear it on Corinium Radio’s ‘Listen Again’ page or on the Somewhere Else ‘Broadcasts’ page.

Delighted that my poem ‘A Song for the Yazidi Women’ is included in the anthology ‘A Scream of Many Colours’ published by Poetry Space. All profits from the anthology will be donated to Médecins Sans Frontières.

The poem was originally published on the website ‘I am not a Silent Poet’ and may be read here.