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Short notice I know, but I’m reading tomorrow night with a great bunch of other writers. The venue is Thyme cafe in Ballycastle and we will start around 7.30. Tea and coffee available, or if you prefer something a little stronger you can bring your own bottle. It will be a nice relaxed evening, so if you are in the area why not come along and listen to a mixture of drama, short stories and poems from Jo Egan, Anne Harris, Myra Vennard, Pamela Greene and myself.

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Acts of Resilience: Stories that glow in the dark
For further information or to rsvp: gerri@moriarty.prestel.co.uk
The ‘Acts of Resilience’ project took place in East and South Belfast during 2011. Through story-telling, poetry and creative writing, it explored the idea that people can survive and grow, in spite of hard times. What gives us strength to carry on? How do we encourage others that it is possible?
The project has resulted in a short DVD and specially commissioned poems by Moyra Donaldson and Damian Gorman and will be celebrated at a special reception in the Banqueting Hall, Belfast City Hall, on Monday December 5th at 5.30 p.m, hosted by Belfast Community Safety Partnership.
Please do join us for this event and bring a friend.
We very much hope that the DVD and poems will raise awareness of the importance of encouraging resilience. If you are aware of a teacher, youth leader, community or voluntary sector organisation who might like to use the DVD to encourage dialogue, please do forward the invitation to them.

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I’m just home from the launch of Abridged 0-23:Desire and Dust. It’s a classy publication, beautifully produced and I’m really pleased to have a poem included. The poem ‘The Flayed Horse’, is printed over an image by Ackroyd & Harvey, called ‘Burning the Bone’ from the making of ‘Polar Diamond’
It’s a fascinating project where the artists were given a polar bear bone by the Govenor of Svalbard in 2007 and they used technology to accelerate a process that usually takes millions of years – growing a diamond from graphite. They extracted the graphite from the cremated ash of the bone and grew the diamond with the support of the Royal Academy of Arts, London.
Look out for a copy of the magazine – there is lots of excellent stuff in it, images and words. A big congratulations to the editors Gregory McCartney and Maria Campbell.

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So – Aspects Festival kicks off on the 21st September. I have my tickets booked for several events and I’m particularly looking forward to hearing Dan Cruickshank, an expert on one of my favourite times in history. Also keen to get to Leanne O’Sullivan’s reading. I haven’t heard her before. There are lots of good things on during the week, so you should have a look at the programme if you haven’t already. All very welcome of course, to the Sunday night event with Kevin Barry and myself, hosted by Malachi O’Doherty. It’s in the Vin Cafe – so you can have a nice glass of wine or two as well! Must be good…

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I’m heading down to Enniskillen on Saturday 3rd September to do a full day workshop with the local writers’ group. The venue is the Westville Hotel. It is also open to non members, so if you would like to come along or know anyone in the area who might be interested, the contact for booking is Dianne Trimble   mailto:trimbell@yahoo.co.uk

The workshop will have 3 sessions, one on short story writing, one on publishing and one concentrating on poetry.
All welcome!

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I’ve been trying to make the most of a few weeks off work to get some writing done. Managed to start a number of poems, most of them not finished yet – but I think this one is!

Little Daisies
Juice from daisy leaves and roots
given to little dogs in milk,
keepeth them from growing great.