One Night Stanzas

At the end of 2012, I wrote, “it’s been a great year. I feel I am a million miles away from the place I was in this time last year — phew! I am also extremely excited about 2013 and all that it holds for me. I plan to finish my PhD, put together my first full-length poetry collection (at last!), get more tattoos (yeah!), and start work on a ton of exciting new projects. Wish me luck!” Did I manage all those things? I freaking well did! Check it out!

In 2013, I…

* saw in the New Year with loads of lovely friends around me, shimmying on down at the Summerhall New Year bash. Amazing night! (If you can go to this year’s one, I highly recommend it!)

* re-joined the Making It Home Project for our ambitious film-making phase, thanks to funding from the wondrous Creative Scotland! Keep reading to find out how it went…

* began a year of mentoring sessions with Sarah Ream, poetry ed at Polygon and total and utter superhero, funded by the Scottish Book Trust. With help from Sarah, I began taking nervous little baby steps towards creating a first collection MS.

* spent a very cold few days in and around gorgeous Oslo in the new year: negotiating several feet of snow, discovering the incredible TV show Borgen (and becoming totally hooked!), and writing plenty of poems.

* baked a lot of stuff.

* celebrated my 27th birthday: there was snow! In March!

* celebrated my first veganniversary by pledging to continue to eat as much delicious cruelty-free dessert as I can find. Win!

* repeatedly apologised to everyone for not doing more poetry gigs… when actually, when I look back, I did quite a lot.

* spent Easter in beautiful, deliciously warm Barcelona: revisiting all my favourite vegan restaurants, sunbathing in parks and on rooftops, and again, writing lots of poems. Hooray!

* became suddenly able to afford to buy a house with Lovely Boyfriend. Began immediately and excitedly house-hunting!

* successfully co-edited (alongside the gorgeous Jane McKie) the Making It Home Book, with thanks to all of YOU for your generous crowdfunding!

* spent over nine hours under the needle to have my Oliver No. 9 typewriter half-sleeve tattooed. It is so lush! (Scroll down!)

* escaped one heck of an evil manager, and immediately boosted my self-esteem, by negotiating a transfer to teach at a different campus. (He’s since been demoted and is no longer anyone’s manager. Thanks, karma!)

* went out filming with the brilliant media co-op and our gorgeous groups of Making It Home women. I learned all about how hard film-making is (needless to say, the women were all flippin’ geniuses at it), held lots of things, and ran around with coats keeping our actresses warm!

* I went to lovely London for a few days and discovered Foyles. HOW HAD I NEVER BEEN TO THIS MAGICAL PLACE BEFORE?! (I bought so many books. So many.)

* successfully negotiated the purchase of our new house, a sweet two-bed semi off Inverleith Row (no less)…

* …and immediately began the process of completely re-vamping this never-modernised house. The phrase “no idea what we were getting into” doesn’t even start to cover it!

* learned how to work a belt-sander, learned how to plaster, and wielded a sledgehammer (oh hell yeah!) for the first time ever, thanks to the above!

* went on tour around Edinburgh and Glasgow, showcasing Making It Home. Thank you so much to the many magical people who supported us on our whistle-stop tour!

* finally drew a line under three-and-a-half years of study, and submitted my PhD.

* started the serious work of putting together my manuscript.

* was selected for the Contemporary Women’s Writing Skills Development programme, and attended the amazing first session at the University of Southampton.

* re-launched Edinburgh Vintage as a jewellery store and saw a fourfold increase in sales!

* successfully interviewed for, and accepted, a brilliant amazing fantastic wonderful new job (basically, my dream job, I’m serious) at Scottish Book Trust. I am now their Young Adult Project Co-Ordinator!

* spent four great days in beautiful Munich: eating vegan food, petting lots of kitties, and being constantly surrounded by pretty autumnal foliage. (We also visited the memorial camp at Dachau, which was exhausting, but I now believe that visiting a concentration camp is something every privileged human ought to do at some point.)

* completed a first draft of my first collection manuscript, and began test-driving poems from it at various events… including at Book Week Scotland!

* organised and judged the inaugural One Night Stanzas Poetry Contest! Have you read the winning poems yet?

* had a wood-burning stove put in as part of our new house renovations. Imagine how good that might be, then double it.

* successfully defended my PhD thesis to examiners Miriam Gamble and Dr Leontia Flynn at my viva. I passed! You may now call me Dr Askew!

* finished building and renovation work on our living room only just in time for Christmas, and spent my first Christmas morning with Lovely Boyfriend — after four years of being together! Blissful.

The year in photos…

Chilling in Oslo…

…but warming up again in Barcelona!

27th birthday cupcakes!

A storyboard from one of the amazing Making It Home films.

The half-sleeve! Six months on and I still swoon when I look at it.

Out filming with the gorgeous Sheena, Elaine and Stacey of Making It Home. Such pros.

Celebrating a successful Making It Home tour, with a triumphant boogie at North Edinburgh Arts!

House flippin’! Sanding, sanding, so much sanding…

Hanging out in autumnal Munich.

My new neighbourhood!

Sparkly stuff goes live at Edinburgh Vintage!

Book Week Scotland 2013!

The thesis-beast: SLAYED!

FINISHED IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS!!! …just.

Wishes for 2014?
You know what? I am so freaking happy right now. In the past year, so many amazing things have happened — passing my PhD, buying my first house with my gorgeous man, landing my dream job. I feel greedy wishing for anything else, really. However, I do like to have goals, so here are one or two hopes for the year ahead…

*Shop my poetry MS around some cool publishers, and hopefully place it somewhere fantastic (I know, I know. Poetry is dismal right now, especially for first collections. But we can but try).
* Gather my strength to continue the great renovation and finish off the kitchen, tackle the bathroom and create a veggie garden!
* Adopt a dog… or two! Probably greyhounds!
That’s basically it. Oh, and write some good poems. That’d be nice, too.

If you want to see what I got up to in 2008, 2009, 2010 2011, or 2012, just click on each year!

I hope 2014 brings you everything you could possibly wish for, and more besides. Happy New Year!

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Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

When my students not only exceed my expectations, they hit them right out of the park

I’m currently teaching this class of students — mostly women — who are studying a unit that is basically Literature 101. Some of them did English in school, but none of them are pursuing a humanities subject now: this unit is a requirement for them, not something they chose. When the term started, a lot of them were bemused about why on earth they were having to do a literature course at all. We did an introductory exercise in which I asked them to list the first ten words that came to mind when they thought about poetry. “Boring”, “pretentious” and “pointless” all came up.

Fast-forward a month: last week we started talking about literary techniques. I decided that, rather than me just producing a Xeroxed A4 handout that they’d probably all just stuff into a folder and forget about, I’d get them to make their own literary techniques resource to refer to. That way, they’d have to go away and research the techniques, and they could put together something to use that would suit their own personal learning style. I told them they had one week, could be as creative as they liked, and that there’d be a small prize for the best resulting handout. I then promptly forgot all about it.

Imagine my utter, utter delight when I walked into the classroom this week and started being handed things like this:

^ This student hand-bound her book from scratch and used 100% reclaimed materials, including old envelopes. Meanwhile, check out the booklet below, which has pop-up pages, pull-out tabs and tons of illustrations:

One of my favourites came from a student who’d decided to focus on the fact that many of the class find poetry “boring.” She decided to come up with a way to make it Definitely Not Boring… um, success! Check it out:

“And just like magic, poetry suddenly bored no one.”

All of the resources the class came up with were thoughtful, creative, colourful and fun.

One student even went to the trouble of making a “poetree”! It’s made from real twigs she found around the place, and each leaf has a different literary technique defined on it. It clearly took a heck of a lot of thought and effort — and when she produced it from a carrier bag under her desk, it got a huge cheer from the rest of the group!

I’ve had something of an epiphany about my job these past couple of months. Only a few weeks ago I was applying for jobs at universities and going to very stuffy and often downright unpleasant interviews for entry-level faculty posts. Then a bunch of things like this happened, kind of like the Universe was slapping me around the head and going, why the hell would you want to work in a university when community education offers you this sort of stuff?! Now I can’t quite believe I was ever thinking of leaving. I’m so happy to be working in this incredible community (Granton and Pilton REPREZENT!) with these amazing young people. No matter what my expectations are, they’re exceeded. No matter how much I think I’ve seen, I can still be not just surprised, but overwhelmed, by the incredible creativity and flair of my students. This sounds mushy, I know… but these past couple of months have been a massive emotional turnaround for me. I’ve taken stock and realised that actually, I freaking love my job. Thank you, lovely students, and thank you, Universe, for waking me up before I made a massive career mistake!

The Folio Society

My unrequited love affair with the Folio Society has been going on for years. It started when I was about 12 and my parents signed up to be members. When they joined up, they got sent some kind of new members reward which basically amounted to a huge stack of the prettiest books I had ever seen. I remember spending a lot of time perusing the catalogue, folding over many a page, trying to decide which of the incredible gilt-edged, beautifully illustrated, cloth-bound, gift-boxed tomes I would like for Christmas. It was basically book porn.

I was pretty psyched this summer, too, when I found out that The Folio Society were sponsoring what was without a doubt my absolute favourite event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival: Marina Warner, talking about her new book on the Arabian Nights. Not only was Marina on top form (I so fangirled all over everywhere), but after the very fabby event I was chuffed to be handed a free Folio Society gift bag full of free goodies! Thank you very much indeed, Folio Society!

But the Folio Society have now outdone themselves by sending me this utterly gob-smackingly gorgeous special edition copy of The Master and Margarita (full disclosure: in exchange for a mention in this post. But I’d've been happy to shout my love for them from the highest rooftops anyway). This book is super-special to me, and my little cheapie paperback copy is pretty battered and worn-out. This shiny new hardback comes in its own cloth-covered box and I mean… look. Just look at these illustrations!

It’s like Christmas come early here at ONS Towers, it really is!
Anyway, I urge you to go and check out the Folio Society website, because it is full of drool-some delights. The Master and Margarita, which you can buy here, is only one of the hundreds of beautiful books on offer. If you’re a bookworm, you might want to add a few (dozen?) to your Christmas list — if you know a bookworm, anything from the Folio Society store is a guaranteed Christmas present winner! Get shopping!

What are you loving this week?

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!