One Night Stanzas

Dreaming my new garden
So, along with our new, slowly-emerging-from-a-wreck house, Lovely Boyfriend and I have also obtained two small patches of garden. Right now, they’re basically scruffy little lawns with some weedy borders around them. But I plan to turn these two little spaces into a garden of edible delights (plus a few pretty flowers here and there). I’ve never understood why anyone would have a lawn when they could have a veggie patch. Anyway, I’m pawing through books and beginning to learn a bit about plants… and in the process, I’ve suddenly become excited about garden centres.

…but not all garden centres are the same.
Larch Cottage, at Melkinthorpe (WHAT A NAME) in Cumbria, is no ordinary garden centre. It’s basically like a magical secret garden inhabited by thousands of weird and wonderful statues, all of which come to life at night and grow huge and amazing plants. If that sounds a tad creepy then yeah, I guess it’s a tad creepy. But it’s also amazing. I mean… grumpy gargoyles everywhere, a life-size bronze lion, and a fountain covered in cheeky toucans? If ever you’re in Cumbria, seek it out (it’s hidden down a series of narrow, high-hedged roads) and see what I mean. (There’s also a cool restaurant, an art gallery and a shop full of jewellery, furniture and strange nick-nacks. Woo!)

Spotting my dream car(s) EVERYWHERE
I’ve had this silly daydream for years: one day I will own a vintage Land Rover Defender. It’ll have a crappy tape-deck and bench seats in the back and rattle like a bean can. On the other hand, I also dream (well, who doesn’t?) of cruising around in a beautiful vintage Ford Mustang, preferably wearing a very, very long scarf that billows in the wind…
(But until I win the lottery, and/or get a massive concussion that causes me to forget how much I care about carbon footprints, I guess I’ll stick with the bus!)

Cute books
I’ve been lucky enough to become the proud owner of a series of late 1960s and early 1970s Penguin paperback editions of the Moomin books. I loved the Moomins as a child and have had so many flashbacks, flicking through these super cute books and being jolted about 15 years back in time by so many of the illustrations! As I’m moving house, I’ll be parting with the series (with a tiny tear in my eye) over at Edinburgh Vintage very soon.
Meanwhile, already for sale at EV is the beautiful, minature, leather-bound collection of Burns’ Songs pictured above. My favourite part about it is the gorgeous cover with its tooled image of Calton Hill. Amazing!

The Vogrie Park Greyhound Meet!
Basically about 50 greyhounds all together in one place being SUPER CUTE. Lovely Boyfriend and I each got to befriend and walk one of them — his was Sam, mine was Neville. (Neville’s at the front left of the pic, wearing a blue cape!)

Edinburgh…
Edinburgh on a warm sunny day is basically THE BEST PLACE IN THE WORLD BAR NONE. This past week I have seen so many of its millions of moods, as evidenced by the photos above! Found poetry, flickering neon, juvenile graffiti (but with a social conscience!), crumbling elegance, amazing long evenings full of swifts. THANK YOU, MAGIC CITY.

…and Edinburgh window displays. Giving me ALL THE FEELS.
I love the grumpy, sassy-looking dogs at Pink on Castle Street. I really, really want one. Just, yaknow, to sit in my living room. They make me super happy whenever I walk by.
But oh… then there’s this INCREDIBLY SAD window display in a Morningside toy shop. The tall snooty giraffe being sniffy about his friend! And the small, fat giraffe looking so ashamed of himself! Call me infantile if you like, guys, but it’s enough to make me want to run in there, buy both of them, take them home with me and talk them into being friends again.

What are YOU loving this week?

*

Budding writer? Creative person in need of a fun job? Check out the various resources and services at Bookworm Tutors. 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!

I’m loving lots of stuff this week as always, but just lately, one thing has been occupying my mind rather a lot.
About two weeks ago, Lovely Boyfriend and I took delivery of the keys to our first house!

We’ve been in there pretty much every available moment of every single day since.

When we got it, the house was a bit of a wreck. It needed new wiring, all the carpets had to be ripped out, and every room was covered in what can only be described as the most hideous textured wallpaper the world has ever seen. The colour pink abounded. Check out these pics for a peek at the hideousness:

Believe it or not, people fought for these wall lights when I put them on Freegle.

Day of key handover: get keys, run to house, immediately begin tearing off awful wallpaper like rabid beasts.

Such tasteful carpeting.

I’m told everyone in Scotland had these bathroom tiles at one point. Can you see the budgie in the pattern?

This was the least offensive of the various wallpapers.

Lovely sunset light… cast by the terrible tulip glass in the back door.

No touchie.

Happily, we’re now two weeks in, and almost all the wallpaper is gone. The carpets are gone. Those floor tiles in the penultimate photo? They’ve been clawed up, leaving a gross sticky residue behind, as they were apparently laid using wallpaper paste, or ogre splittle, or something. We’re almost ready to start sanding floors, to start painting (!), and to get techie drawings for the building work we want to do.

I know these photos make it look pretty gross… but you guys, I love it so much. Partly because it’s a mega project and you all know I love a mega project. Also because it’s ours. And of course because it means I can start growing vegetables and herbs in our wee garden, we can get a puppy, and I’ll finally have space for all my typewriters (well, almost all of them).

Prepare yourselves for lots of excitable progress updates, posts about DIY projects (I’m planning to make my own sofa) and pictures of meals I’ve made using food from my own garden (!). You’ve been warned.

What are YOU loving this week?

*

Budding writer? Creative person in need of a fun job? Check out the various resources and services at Bookworm Tutors. 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!

ONS was gone for a while, you may have noticed. It was the end of term, my camera broke, I went to London for a while, I’m about to move house and am packing box after box after box. It’s also Refugee Week, which means I have been on the road with the Making It Home posse, attending screenings of our films, speaking on panels and reading poems. All extremely exciting! I’ve also been blogging elsewhere — I’m the F Word’s guest blogger for June, so I’ve been kinda cheating on ONS a little. But I have finally had chance to sit down for two seconds and share with you some of the sweet sights from the past couple of weeks.

The Making It Home gang visited our partners media co-op in their lovely offices at Templeton in Glasgow — yep, they’re based in that building up there (fanciest former carpet factory I’ve ever seen)! Our lovely filmmaking co-ordinators Vilte and Catherine handed out flowers for everyone after we watched the rough cuts of our films.

On a visit home I helped (well OK, watched) my sister, the craftiest of craftmistresses, make a rainbow-tastic button-covered waistcoat for a fancy dress day at Hobbycraft, where she works her magic. She also made me a fancy bonnet out of yellow cellophane.

As always, Edinburgh was being totally fabulous, and being away in London only made me appreciate it more. Moody skies, cherry trees like candyfloss, punctuation marks on the sides of buildings.

The Making It Home tour did a gig in Glasgow, though it was too dark in the venue for me to take any decent photos. However, I did see pink flamingos, hang out under fairylights, and take a silly public bathroom self portrait.

And yeah, of course, I ate some tasty food. Vegan sweet potato pancakes, made by Lovely Boyfriend of course; and courgette and mint soup with a tofu wurst sandwich, courtesy of Saramago. (That bright orange typewriter, by the way? It’s a resoration/upcycle project I’m working on. When it’s done, there’ll be a post.)

What are YOU loving this week?

*

Budding writer? Creative person in need of a fun job? Check out the various resources and services at Bookworm Tutors. 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!

This week, I have loved:

Re-reading my old copies of The International Times. This one’s from their special issue about Edinburgh counter-culture.

Greenery taking over. I’m on TEAM SPRING!

Vegan brunch. Always.

Being cosy.

Hanging out with the Lovely Boyfriend.

Getting FREE STUFF from the Forest Free Shop.

This brilliant collaborative poem the women of the Making It Home project wrote! (See it better in our forthcoming book!)

This freakin’ massive bouquet of flowers. (It wasn’t for me… it was for my neighbour, but they were out. So I got to look at them for a whole afternoon, and my living room smelled lovely!)

Subtle — but mighty — messages from the Universe.

Secret gardens. (There is A GATE BEHIND THERE! Mysterious…)

Hilarious student graffiti. (Seriously: you’ve got a bare wall, a pen, and a quiet corridor… and you write THAT.)

Cars who have their own personal mascots.

& finally, sunshine over Granton. (This amazing sight greeted me last night as I came out of work, exhausted, after my evening class. Thanks, Edinburgh.)

What are YOU loving this week?

*

Budding writer? Creative person in need of a fun job? Check out the various resources and services at Bookworm Tutors. 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!

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: I might be buying a house (I KNOW). One that will need heckof renovating. So I need you guys to send me amazing DIY/home decor p0rn like this and this to inspire me. Check out what I’ve gathered so far!

“We recognize that, in our world, a woman on the road is marked. She has been cut from the social fabric, excised at such an elemental level that when she steps onto the road, she steps into an abyss. And whatever leads up to that choice inspires in us a primal fear. A man on the road is solitary. A woman on the road is alone. This is not cute wordplay, but a radically different social experience.”

If you click on nothing else in this post, click on this article, on why there aren’t more female road narratives. Disturbing, fascinating, beautifully written.

These are super fabby book covers!

Have you guys seen Least Helpful? Really rubbish — and totally hilarious — reviews.

Totally NSFW (not really) hardcore bookshelf p0rn. (And, related: notebook geek p0rn!)

I loved Watsky’s touching post on playing the Fillmore, ambition and keeping on going (NB: links to Facebook).

I know, writers have been complaining for eons about the weight of their burden, and it’s not attractive. But I’ve been around it long enough to know that writing anything good that’s longer than a paragraph isn’t easy for anybody, except for maybe J. J. Abrams. You can’t explain how people do it. Some of the most successful screenwriters, novelists, television producers and rock-opera librettists I know are about a hundred times lazier than I am. They take long afternoon naps, play lots of pickup basketball and appear to accomplish little or nothing for months at a time. And let me tell you, their ideas do not all crackle with scintillating originality.

This is wonderful, and such sensible advice. Now I just need to listen!

The Literary Cat: a Tumblr devoted to cats posing with books. Yep.

Have you seen these wonderful self-portraits of famous authors?

Paper & Salt is super cool: they re-create meals described in great literature!

More stupid things graphic design clients say!

There’s some amazing stuff at the Bitch blog at the moment! I loved reading Five Black Female Musicians You Should Love (I’d only heard of Skin), I Want To Like Hit-Girl, But…, Patriarchy & Game of Thrones (spoilers! But the comments on this one’re interesting, too), and a really interesting take on the new Dove campaign (the video’s at the bottom of this very post! Also read the comments on this one).

Why tea is so magical.

This body language guide from Gala is really rather interesting!

And via Gala, I really liked 22 things happy people do differently and Girl Code Rules. POSITIVITY.

Seeing these portraits of adult entertainment stars with and without makeup was really interesting for me. Totally SFW!

Parents texting. SO FUNNY.

Game of Thrones fan? You must watch these! (Also, Gwendoline Christie ROCKS!)

Glowsticks + waterfalls = beautiful.
A small snippet of Neil Gaiman being fabulous.
Sue Austin is totally inspiring.
That Pulitzer? SO DESERVED.

Have a great weekend!

*

Budding writer? Creative person in need of a fun job? Check out the various resources and services at Bookworm Tutors. 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!

(Photo credit)

It’s been a busy week… so busy that last night I finally ran out of spoons and nearly burst into tears in a carpark, just because I was so, so tired. (Fortunately, Lovely Boyfriend was on hand to give me hugs, ply me with chips and pay for a taxi home.) However, it’s also been a totally amazing week. Here are just a few of the things I’ve been loving…

Spring finally arriving (properly) in Edinburgh
I love Tollcross in the Spring… loads of daffodils everywhere, the Meadows two minutes away (so as soon as it feels even vaguely warm I can sprint outside to lounge), the Pine Tree Bakery smelling delicious… wonderful.

Baking, of course
I recently discovered that the magical wonderland that is Real Foods stock frozen sour cherries, which basically made my LIFE. This week I baked the perfect (if I do say so myself) cherry pie, and Lovely Boyfriend and I got into Twin Peaks mode with pie and coffee.

Hanging out in my sweet flat
Lovely Boyfriend and I are probably moving house soon… I don’t want to jinx it, because we haven’t signed on the dotted line yet, but we’re kinda sorta buying our own house. Oh my goodness. But as excited as I am to have my own place — do a ton of decorating and have a veggie garden (!) and get a dog (!!) — I am also a little sad to leave my crows-nest of a top floor flat in wonderful Tollcross. So I’ve been trying to appreciate it and enjoy it while I still have it. Thanks so much to Kate for making my living room look extra pretty this week!

Ooh! New tattoo?
My half-sleeve is finally totally 100% healed, which means it’s finally photogenic! This is obviously only a section of it, as it wraps most of the way round my arm, but you get the gist! It’s a psychedelically-coloured Oliver No.9 typewriter with the words O beautiful Garbo of my karma spiralling up from it on an On-The-Road-style scroll. The words are from Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, which is a contender for my all-time favourite poem ever.

Hanging out in the Forest Cafe
Forest, I shall miss you too when I move away! (Don’t worry, I’ll still visit for sure.) Pretty much the absolute best place for people watching in the whole of Edinburgh. Also, cool murals with dragons in them.

Packed poetry readings
The first photo here is of the lovely Louise Peterkin, reading at the Shore Poets Open Night. She was absolutely brilliant, in spite of major technical difficulties, and as you can see, the audience is rapt! The second photo is my all-time favourite, Scotland’s most underrated poet (seriously), the great McGuire, bringing the awesome at the last ever Ten Red.

My students
Often puzzling, occasionally aggravating, generally excellent. Some of them (I don’t know which) stole this sign, which reads IN HERE FOR HIGHER ENGLISH EVENING CLASS, and placed it on the janitor’s cupboard door. Those pesky kids…

Filming for Making It Home
But the very, very best thing about my week was this: going out on set with some of the amazing participants from my poetry/film group at Women Supporting Women, to help them on their first ever filming session for Making It Home. We spent roughly five hours together, mostly on the beach under the most incredible volcanic sky, and I’ve never been so proud in my life. They were so confident and able, and such a great team — hard to believe that only a handful of months ago these women were intimidated by an Edwin Morgan poem! I felt like a bumbling idiot as I shuffled along in their extremely professional wake, mostly holding stuff! But so inspired and so, so proud.
There’s still a tiny bit of time left in our fundraising campaign, too: if you want to help these women to translate their experiences into a book that we can give out to the public for free and share their incredible journey, then please click here. Watch our video (bonus! derp-y shots of me), read about what we do, spread the word and, if you can, donate. I’ll love you forever!

What have YOU been loving this week?

*

Budding writer? Creative person in need of a fun job? Check out the various resources and services at Bookworm Tutors. 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!

What have I been up to…? More baking.

These are triple orange vegan cupcakes. Zesty orange sponge, orange fondant filling (and some on the top), not-butter-not-cream icing, made uber-yellow by Lovely Boyfriend’s fancy-ass confectioner’s food colouring. And chocolate ganache. And fresh orange. And sugar stars. I basically decided that when it came to topping these babies, more was more. They were certainly appreciated by the gaggle of hungry board-gamers who sampled them!

Lovely Boyfriend requested these instead of a birthday cake. They’re vegan peanut butter cupcakes with not-butter-not-cream icing, chocolate ganache and a smidge of added peanut butter. We snuck them into the pub and enjoyed them over birthday pints with friends. The best way to spend an evening!

These were another request: my lovely sister wanted DINO CAKES for her birthday. These are classic double chocolate with chocolate ganache filling, not-butter-not-cream icing, and the required dinos. They look like they’re frolicking on tiny, daisy-spotted hills.

And these are espresso cupcakes with espresso icing and dark chocolate flowers. For when you’re really, really tired and you need a caffeine hit AND a sugar high! These were produced, again, for a bunch of ravenous board gamers, and saw them through a particularly epic session of Eclipse!

Aaaand as well as cupcakes, I’ve also got well into baking pies. Yet again, this is thanks to my personal GODDESS, Isa. They’re weirdly difficult to photograph, so my previous efforts (all-American cherry, and blueberry-and-maple) have gone sadly undocumented. This baby is a classic, like-your-gran-used-to-make apple pie, and I think was my best effort yet (BRAG BRAG BRAG). So good with soy whipped cream, which I have just discovered exists… and it’s so good!

Want to see what else I’m eating? I started a Flickr set for all the things that are making my belly happy. PROOF THAT BEING VEGAN IS TASTY.

*

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!

I am officially obsessed with the Life In Authoring tumblr. If you click nothing else in this post, click it!

I thought my words were spare and evocative and true
Little ominous blasts bursting from staccato notes.

I was really excited to see that one of my former creative writing students, the lovely Daniel Dowe, had a poem published recently by Bolts of Silk (whose praises I have sung here before)! Such a great poem, love the ending…

…and ONS’s good friend Kevin Cadwallender has a cool poem at Bolts of Silk, too!

I am LOVING Stephen Nelson’s new food-related concrete poems, especially the meat and toast ones!

On the whole poetry/fiction thing: if Olds is fibbing, and this is all a big scam, then she is capable of almost pathological imaginative empathy, and worth spending a lot of time over. Whether this is of the I-feel-your-pain species or the look-at-how-sad-I-might-be-maybe is trivial.

I always love Dave’s reviews, and he reviewed Sharon Olds’ recently-Eliot-Prize-winning collection, which I seriously wanted to read, and now seriously want to read even more. Great review.

My hand reached down her floss and then felt a soft touch of her labia majora while creeping through her pubic symphysis.

You think the Bad Sex Award nominees are bad? Check out this guy!

Ms Magazine have compiled a great list of 2012’s Best Poetry Books By Women. I’m basically making it an instant to-read list.

I tagged Helen McClory in my Next Big Thing post t’other day. Here’s her very intriguing response!

HELLO I WOULD LIKE TO LIVE IN ALL THESE HOUSES.

I hadn’t seen all of the latest lot of mystery Edinburgh book sculptures til now. The Treasure Island one is amazing!

Fuck Yeah Book Arts! has a great DIY section full of book-making tutorials!

Do you — like me — hate it when people misuse the word “literally”? If so, here are some hilarious examples from sports commentators. SO FUNNY/TERRIBLE. (Thanks, Billie!)

Maggi Gibson picked out her top 10 books for young feminists!

So, two things have been boiling my blood recently. The first is the whole Christian Ward plagiarism thing. I now can’t quite believe I gave Christian a platform here at ONS, and have since removed an interview he gave here, which was being quoted by a lot of news outlets covering the story. But there has been some interesting commentary on the issue. Paisley Rekdal’s open letter was furious, moving and wonderful, and I liked The Snarkist’s initially-flippant-but-actually-quite-incisive take.

The other thing that’s been boiling my blood? Suzanne Moore claiming that sane people rightly telling her she’s a transphobe = bullying mob, OMG!, and then just the entire the hot lemon-sucking mess that is Julie Burchill. I’m sure you’ve heard all about it and I sure as hell won’t link to La Burchill’s disgusting display of hate speech (still online in spite of the Observer’s retraction, btw). However, there’ve been some smashing responses. The best, for me, came from the freaking wonderful Laurie Penny, and the awe-inspiring Paris Lees. These are women who deserve your clicks, folks. Not a woman, but no less deserving, is Harry Giles, who also wrote a stellar response.

This slide-show of tattooed women through the ages is bloody excellent.

Did you guys see the Shetland ponies wearing cardigans? YOU MUST CLICK THIS.

Christopher Lee: better than you since 1922.

They’re a bit soap-box-y, and more than a little steely, but I kind of like these Rules To Live By.

Need cheering up? Tons of dog gifs. You’re welcome.

Also from Buzzfeed, the Funniest Autocorrects of 2012 made me howl with laughter.

Some brave folks respond to the Moore/Burchill BS.

Jane McGonigal is a freaking LEGEND.

The utterly wonderful Amanda Oaks made this spectacular video about hooping and healing. I love it.

I am also so loving this song lately.

Have a great weekend!

*

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!

(Photo credit)

Isa Chandra Moskowitz

So, I’ve waxed lyrical about this lady a good few times already, but I am going to do it again, because she so totally rocks my world. For Christmas, Lovely Boyfriend bought me her Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World (co-authored with Terry Hope Romero), along with a bunch of cupcake-baking equipment, and I have been cupcaking like a mad person ever since. Those starry babies in the photo above were my first effort: they’re the most basic chocolate cupcake in the book, but they came out beautifully, so I thought I’d get more ambitious. Next, I made the maple and candied walnut variety you see below, as a ‘birthday cake’ for Lovely Boyfriend’s brother. They were so good that he requested a second batch! So, for a family gathering (pressure!) I moved onto pistachio and rosewater (second photo down). These are super cool, because the cake is green and the icing is pink (excuse the weird orangey photo — it’s my kitchen light, not an Instagram filter)! I was kinda flu-filled on the day, so I couldn’t really taste my creations, sadly… but I’m told they were delicious. My most recent offerings were the double chocolate truffle cupcakes you see in the bottom photo. These are a variation on the basic chocolate, but with gooey ganache on the top and a Booja Booja truffle for decoration. FREAKING LUSH. What next, I wonder…? I am officially a cupcake addict!

(PS: I made a Flickr set for all my vegan baking — and some of the vegan food regularly rustled up for me by the Lovely Boyfriend — so if you fancy following my spoon-lickin’ exploits, check back here!)

The Making it Home Project

I’m really excited that I’m finally able to talk publicly about my involvement with this amazing project! I keep mentioning this mysterious women’s community project I’ve been working for, but I’ve been unable to go into much detail until now. I’m happy to announce that we’ve been able to go public, thanks to an injection of much-needed funds from Creative Scotland. So, what’s it all about?

Poetry is an extremely powerful educational and social tool. It has all sorts of amazing uses — I’m sure that if you follow this blog, I don’t need to convince you of that. Making It Home was born when, a little while ago, the Refugee Survival Trust decided to harness the awesome power of poetry and use it to do cool stuff in some of Scotland’s local communities. They got in touch with Glasgow’s Maryhill Integration Network, Edinburgh’s Women Supporting Women (part of the Pilton Community Health Project), and the wonderful folks at the Scottish Poetry Library, with the aim of creating two poetry-reading groups for women. Through the poems read, discussed and shared in these groups, the women present would explore ideas about home: belonging, nationhood, community, family and everything else the word ‘home’ conjures up.

I feel incredibly lucky and blessed, because I was approached to be the creative facilitator at Women Supporting Women. My group of incredible women have given me a whole new understanding of what poetry is, and what it can do. They’ve discussed poems I’ve read probably hundreds of times, and made me see them in totally new ways. They’ve learned tons about poems and their ever-so-slightly magical powers — and so have I!

Even better: thanks to the funding injection, the project has grown a new arm. As of early January, the Making It Home groups teamed up with Media Co-Op, a brilliant independent film-making co-operative based in Glasgow. These guys are now working with the groups of women, teaching them how to translate their many, many great responses to the poems into short films detailing their personal journeys. It’s early days yet, but already it feels like a whirlwind of brilliant ideas and inspiration. I’m so happy to be part of the ongoing project, and feel really lucky to be able to witness the creative process behind what will, eventually — we hope! — become a full-scale film installation that all of YOU can come and see and support!

(Both these photos are from the Maryhill Integration Network’s amazing Flickrstream.)

What are YOU loving this week?

*

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!

You may remember my admission here, in January, that 2011 had not been a very good year. I wrote here — and in my paper journal — that I wanted to reclaim my life from work-related stress and insomnia. I also wrote in my paper journal that I wanted to extricate myself from the politics and cliques of the poetry community (locally and online), and just write. It took a while — nearly all year, with the latter — but I feel like I can now say I managed to do those things. 2012 was a good year, all told. Here’s some of the stuff that happened.

In 2012, I…

* worked as a reader for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the fourth year running.

* won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award, and am about to begin — quite belatedly, which was my choice — my programme of creative mentoring.

* spent two great weekends in York early in the year, and remembered how much I loved it. Going back soon!

* moved from a 0.7PTE contract at work to a 0.5PTE contract, as part of my “reclaim my life!” challenge. Less teaching hours, less office politics, more free time, less stress (also less money, obv, but that’s OK).

* moved into the third year of studying for my PhD in Creative Writing. Switched to a brand new thesis topic for the third time. Probably drove my supervisor crazy.

* delivered a lecture, “Making Poems, Writing Histories, Excavating Myths”, to the Melrose Literary Society.

* went vegan, and I love it.

* scored an amazing haul of SEVENTEEN antique typewriters on Freegle! (Still haven’t got round to starting restoration/reclamation work on most of them…)

* organised an all-female poetry slam to celebrate International Women’s Day 2012. It went really well!

* celebrated my 26th birthday with not one but TWO birthday parties: one a nom-tastic vegan dinner at Zeffirelli’s with my family, the other a fabulous few rounds of cocktails at The Dome with friends. Yay!

* attended the Scottish Women’s Aid Feminist Day School at the University of Edinburgh, and was inspired.

* was shortlisted for an Eric Gregory Award for a second time (first time was 2010. I forgot to enter in 2011).

* competed in Literary Death Match (Edinburgh, ep 4) AND FREAKING WELL WON!

* spent a week in beautiful Barcelona, and totally fell in love with the place.

* spent a weekend training to become a Scottish Women’s Aid Community Champion. Possibly the most empowering weekend of my life so far!

* performed in “Dear Glasgow,” directed by David Grieg, at the Traverse Theatre.

* read poems in a magical launderette in Durham!

* spent a long weekend in gorgeous Whitby — surely the most literary seaside resort there is? — with Lovely Boyfriend.

* was introduced to The West Wing, fell in love, and watched all seven series in the space of a few weeks.

* spent ten days in Greece while One Night Stanzas was on hiatus. Visited Athens, and spent a week in a one-room cold-water whitewashed cottage on the tiny island of Hydra. Here’s the view from our room! We went swimming at daybreak, befriended donkeys, made lots of delicious vegan food, and spent tons of time writing, writing, writing. It was great.

* taught Creative Writing at the Scottish Universities International Summer School for the third consecutive year. My wonderful students were Dan, Linda, Sarah, Joanna, Daniel and Jill. You guys were fab!

* had a poem shortlisted in the Mslexia Women’s Poetry Contest.

* went to see George Watsky on the London leg of his Nothing Like The First Time tour. Also spent a fabby weekend hanging out in London!

* organised and hosted One Night Stanzas presents Watskyx2 — definitely my biggest and scariest moment as a poetry promoter! But it went SO WELL, yay!

* went to a ton of great stuff at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, including Louise Welsh, Andrew Keen, Alice Oswald’s Memorial event (OMG!), Daniel Franklin launching Megachange, Billy Letford & Sean Borodale and Marina Warner (who I also saw at the International Festival, ’cause I’m a fangirl).

* read poems at Blackwells: Writers at the Fringe.

* attended a discussion that included the amazing Jean Kilbourne, personal superheroine of mine, and met her afterwards! Swoon!

* was employed as a creative facilitator with a local women’s community support group (details redacted!), and I am loving working with these amazing women as they read poems, share stories and unlock their creativity!

* joined the Shore Poets committee and became their blogging/tweeting/Facebooking person, among other things!

* survived root canal surgery!

* got tattooed (again).

* went to beautiful Paris for the weekend with Lovely Boyfriend to celebrate our two-year anniversary!

* helped run Scottish Women’s Aid’s I GET IT campaign, spreading positive messages about healthy relationships to young people aged between 16 and 25.

* wrote articles and reviews for The Skinny, xoJane (two, in fact), the Edinburgh Review (again, two! One’s online here) and The Scottish Review of Books.

* had three poems included in Where Rockets Burn Through: Contemporary Science Fiction Poetry from the UK

* spent an amazing day at the Maryhill Integration Network in Glasgow, meeting incredible, inspiring women, and being treated to a crash-course in filmmaking, a fashion show, a dance recital and a ton of delicious food!

Favourite photos from this year:

Just one of the many millions of photos I took of delicious vegan breakfast/brunch food. I obtained this book upon becoming vegan and it changed my world!

Lovely Boyfriend being lovely.

I will remember summer 2012 as the summer of hooping in the park with my sister!

I love living in Tollcross — and my top floor, bay-window view! — so, so much.

My fantabulous SUISS Class of 2012!

All the lovely performers from One Night Stanzas presents Watskyx2! Such talent!

Just when I’m feeling down and crap, along come my amazing students to make me feel inspired again.

♡ ♡ ♡

A loopy family portrait.

Visiting the jaw-droppingly gorgeous GiftED sculptures.

& Christmas comes to ONS Towers!

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!

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

*

You can also visit Read This Press for 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!