Wildlife

Fflur Dafydd and Rachel Trezise win the inaugural Max Boyce Prize (photo by John Fry) Hello you pretty things. Did you miss me? I feel years have gone by since the last Literary It Girl blog, but it has been merely weeks. It appears that I have been rather busy, what with organising a  24 hour poetry marathon  as a fundraiser for the  Hay Poetry Jamboree , preparing new sets of my own for said event, and a scheduled performance at  Blast House  in Carmarthen next month, and moving palaces sans Prince Charming Dandylicious who is on some incredibly important quest in the black mountains or somesuch place.  How does one pack chandeliers?  So, this blog may appear more of a whirlwind than usual and will be dotted with a little less partying and more news than you’ve come to expect, but hang on in there, it’ll be worth it, and this Cinderella shall soon return to the glittery literary ball. Into Suez First up, before the moving madness, I did manage to...

BY  SUSIE WILD   ⋅  MARCH 24, 2010  ⋅   POST A COMMENT FILED UNDER    ANN JORDAN ,  KNIT ,  PURL ,  SWANSEA ,  YARNACHISTS ,  YARNACHY The Valentine's Day yarn bomb in Uplands, Swansea Knitters have been getting a bad rap in the letters pages of local newspapers across South Wales lately. Not just any knitters mind you, but knitters who yarn bomb in the name of humour, joy and community spirit such as Swansea’s Yarnachists. Another victim of ‘Knit War’ is Swansea artist Ann Jordan (a director of  Elysium Gallery ) whose giant blanket project – Cwtch – has been receiving hate mail for daring to create art and not spend her time better by knitting for charity. Perhaps the people writing such letters should have spent the time they took to write their letters of wrath more charitably, and used their hands to knit some blankets for good themselves, instead of spreading such disdainful malaise. Needles at dawn, anyone? The S...

I have recently been reunited with boxes of my possessions that had been shut away in storage for a year or two. Unpacking and sorting my stuff within my new and roomy home has uncovered forgotten notebooks and diaries, and loose pages of my old stories and poems. Some surprise me, and are collated into my current live performances, treasured. Others bring on the cringe yet still I can’t bring myself to discard them completely. Instead I place them into files alongside other disappointments on the off chance they may jar just the right thought or memory when stumbled upon in the future for a good story or a better poem. It hadn’t really occurred to me that others may read them at some indeterminable time in the future. It  hadn’t –  until I went to the opening night of  The Devil Inside Him  at the  New Theatre in Cardiff  on tuesday, and the delightful after-party at Cardiff Ats Institute for a dose of schmoozing afterwards. This month’s production from...

I hate trains. Or rather I hate trains on Sundays that turn out not to be trains but buses or trains that get halfway to their destination, then sit still in the middle of nowhere for two hours before returning you to the start of your journey to wait for a bus instead. This was my Sunday. It took me three and a half hours longer than it should have to get to  Balloon  in Cardiff where I had been booked in to read a short story, alongside  Richard Milward  and Matthew David Scott . A literary lunch event. Richard Milward (photo by Matt Jarrett) When I eventually made it to the Balloon event at  Cardiff Arts Institute lunch was sold out, Matt had read and Richard was into his first set of the day. I was in a foul mood but Rich, wearing a mask of the cover of  Apples still managed to make me laugh with his tall tales of awkward teenage sex. He gave me prop envy too. After I read a new story about butterflies and mental hospitals from  my forthcoming co...