Tag: Dartington

Words by the rising Water

Published March 18, 2019

A few years ago, I wrote a blog about the Words by the Water Festival of Words and Ideas. We have continued to visit this lovely festival most years, camping in our little van on the shores of Derwentwater and walking across the hill each day to the Theatre on the Lake, for an enriching series of talks, readings and lectures.

This year, following an unseasonably warm, dry February, the elements decided to greet us in Cumbria with rain, hail, snow and ice, which added a certain interest and spice to our camping.

The first night, as we slept, the lake crept up to meet us, so the next morning we were moved to a slightly higher pitch, where we were safe from inundation but could still enjoy the glorious view.

The following day, snow crept down the mountains to chill us a little, and the dramas of extreme weather continued through the week. After three nights on the campsite, we arrived back late at night to find our little van all alone. All the other camper vans and caravans had been evacuated during the evening because of the imminent risk of flooding, but as we had been watching the film of Oscar Wilde, with our mobile ‘phones turned off, we hadn’t received the message asking us to head for dry land. We drove out and found a quiet spot beside the road on higher ground, where we enjoyed a peaceful night’s sleep. The next day we booked into a b&b for the rest of the week, which was just as well as the campsite had still not re-opened by the time we left. By then, not only was the campsite underwater, but most of the surrounding fields and woodland.

This year’s programme of events at the festival looked as promising as ever, and we had ‘phoned the theatre on the day booking opened, to make sure we could get tickets to all the ones we wanted to attend. Tickets are not cheap, so it is necessary to be a little circumspect when selecting. But between us we covered a fair percentage of the treats on offer.

Rather than going through the programme to report on each event, I’ll mention some of the highlights of the festival, and pull together a few threads from the week.

Two of the best events we attended were on the first weekend.
Mike Berners-Lee gave an informative and balanced talk about climate change based on his new book, ‘There is no Planet B’. The well-researched information in his talk could not fail to shock, but he also found a way to offer at least some hope that all is not yet lost – as long as we all take the threat extremely seriously, and act now to save the planet.

Peter Sanford appeared in the main theatre to give a talk entitled ‘Angelology’. Peter is a gifted lecturer and held us spellbound as he explored the history and mythology of belief in angels. He quoted the surprising statistic that one in ten Britons claims to have experienced the presence of an angel. It would appear that many of these people believe in ‘guardian angels’, rather than in the more general, and more interesting idea of angels being messengers from God.

Among the other exceptionally good events were Diarmaid MacCulloch on Thomas Cromwell, Kenneth Baker on Sins and Sinners, Marcus du Sautoy on Artificial Intelligence and Melissa Benn on Education – all inspiring speakers. MacCulloch gently filled some of the gaping holes in my knowledge of history and Baker had fun with the seven deadly sins, amply illustrated by slides. Du Sautoy gave an informative and lucid presentation of where we are in the development of AI and although I heard some of the audience afterwards complaining that he had scared the life out of them, he was honest about the advantages as well as the dangers of AI. Melissa Benn was lucid, charming, ideological and practical as she proposed a better model of education through a National Education Service built on the same model as the NHS.

Marcus du Sautoy Melissa Benn
As usual, there were some well-known celebrities in the programme, such as Roger McGough and Melvyn Bragg. As one would expect, both of these spoke or read well, though perhaps being extremely celebrated can make it a little more difficult to stun an audience in a new way. There were also some quirky events, such as Christopher Skaife, the Ravenmaster at the Tower of London, talking about the ravens of the Tower (very good), and Irving Finkel, the Assyriologist at the British Museum, giving a rather strange and histrionic introduction to his latest book.

We enjoyed a couple of evening events: first a talk about Oscar Wilde by Michèle Mendelssohn, followed by the film, ‘Wilde’, starring Stephen Fry; and later in the week, a highly entertaining hour with the comedian, Robin Ince.

I chaired the Poetry Breakfast, at which 30 poets enjoyed coffee, croissants and fruit juice and read poems, either their own or from well-known poets. Without prior knowledge of the chosen readings, there is a always a certain risk to chairing an event like this, so it was gratifying that as the last reader finished, the clock showed that we had landed fairly and squarely on our advertised end time.

There was a philosophy day, at which Raymond Tallis and Julian Baggini spoke; an interesting talk about Gypsy Britain by Damian Le Bas; an inspiring story of a walk round the SW coast path, by Raynor Winn; an exploration of labyrinths and mazes by Henry Eliot; and a fascinating talk about Katherine of Aragon and Juana of Castile, by Julia Fox.

At a festival planned many months in advance, there are always likely to be a few changes and cancellations, but we got away fairly lightly this time. I was going to get my husband to report on the events he went to without me, particularly the political ones, but I think I have included enough here to give a good taste of the festival. Unfortunately, we had to leave before the final day, so missed a few events that would have been of interest.

This was the first year in which Kay Dunbar and Steve Bristow were not with us for the whole festival. Between them, this ‘Mr and Mrs Ways with Words’ not only started all three festivals (Dartington and Southwold being the others), but have run them brilliantly ever since their inception. They are now taking a back seat, and have handed on the Directorship to Leah Varnell, who with the rest of the Dartington team, especially Jane Fitzgerald and Philip John, is well-capable of maintaining the high standard of festivals that we have come to expect.

Comments closed

Publishing other poets

Published March 30, 2018

In 2007, Anne Born, the Managing Editor of Oversteps Books, invited me to submit a manuscript for publication, which she promptly accepted. She wanted to have the book published in time for Ways with Words at Dartington that July, so moved the book through the production process quite quickly, and ‘Touching Earth’ came out in good time for the festival. The collection included various sections including science and ecology, and the experience of being a woman. Later, Anne commissioned me to put together a collection of my winter and Christmas poems, but this book, ‘Festo’ was not published until after her death.

The following year, Anne became ill and I went to visit her. ‘Anything I can do to help, Anne’ I enquired, thinking she might like me to take some parcels to the post office.
‘Yes’, she replied. ‘I want you to take over Oversteps’.
I must admit that running a publishing house was not something on my wish-list, and I wriggled for over an hour before I accepted her ‘kind offer’. I was already busy with my own writing, as well as a full programme of guest lecturing and readings, and I was also working as an environmental consultant; but Anne was nothing if not determined and persistent, so before I left her house that afternoon, I had agreed to become Managing Editor. There then followed a steep learning curve.

Ten years on, I am pleased that I have had the opportunity to publish books by so many good poets. The logo on the left is the original one, which shows the back steps up to Anne’s lovely house in South Devon. To balance this , I designed a new, more modern one, and I have used both ever since (see right).

My first ‘discovery’ was made that spring, when I looked up a poem of mine in the Irish magazine The SHOp while visiting the Scottish Poetry Library. There I found work by a poet called Miriam Darlington, to which I responded enthusiastically.

I traced Miriam to Devon (where Oversteps is based), and that July, her book, ‘Windfall’ was published, once again in time for a reading at Ways with Words. We were in business. Miriam has since then undertaken a PhD in Creative Writing, and is now a regular contributor to the Sunday Times with her nature writing.

In the last ten years, I have published something in the region of 90 books, and Oversteps Books has taken up a great deal of my waking hours, though I’m pleased to report that it has not stopped my own writing. I will write in my next blog about the many opportunities poets now have for being published; but for this one, I’ll share some information about getting published by Oversteps.

To start with I published twelve books a year; as the work grew and Oversteps became better known, I found it necessary to reduce this to ten books per year; and I am now endeavouring to limit the production to eight books per year. Our books are well-reviewed and Oversteps poets give readings at many of the major festivals and poetry venues.

How does one go about having a book published by Oversteps? Full details are on the Oversteps website (www.overstepsbooks.com), but here are a few markers.

First, we publish only poetry, and accept submissions only from poets who have had a decent number of poems published in respected poetry journals or have won major competitions. This is just to keep the submissions to a manageable number; but even so, I sometimes receive as many as 300 submissions in a year.

From those submissions, I select between two dozen and thirty of the best poets, who are then invited to submit whole collections; and these are put before the Editorial Board at one of the two meetings we hold each year. No one knows who the members of this committee are — in order to avoid any arm-twisting; and the members of the board have no idea whose collections they are considering, as they are presented with the submissions ‘blind’. They have several weeks to work on the manuscripts before the meetings, and we then meet for several hours to thrash out which few books we can take forward to publication. Because of the ‘blind’ system, it really is the case that the poetry is judged on its own merits, and I happen to know that some quite well-known poets have not managed to squeeze through on occasions. I often wish I could take on more of the poets, as most of the collections that get this far in the process are certainly worthy of publication; but I simply cannot take on more books than I do at present.

I then contact the successful poets with the good news, and prepare memoranda of agreement for them to sign. At the same time, I have the unpleasant task of turning down those who did not make it. I hate having to do this, and am grateful that most poets respond graciously to this bad news; but there have been a handful whose responses have been less than pleasant. A few of the poets who were very close to being accepted have been offered the possibility of re-submiting later, and some of these have been successful.

I use desk-top publishing software to work on the manuscripts, and negotiate closely with the poets all through the process. I am a very fussy editor, and I’m glad to say that we have managed to avoid any typos or other mistakes in the finished books, largely because the manuscripts go back and forth between me and the poet many many times before I’m satisfied.

The poets generally like to provide their own artwork for their covers, and one of the tasks I most enjoy is designing those covers. The books are produced to extremely high standards in terms of both editing and design, and we receive many very favourable reviews.

With the first book (Windfall) I developed a house style that would allow a huge range of variations, while still remaining recognisably Oversteps.

Once I’ve checked the final proof and ordered the books from our extremely helpful printer, I can start on the post-publication work, which includes adding the new book to our website and sending out a newsletter about it. I register the new book with Nielsens, send copies to the six deposit libraries and the Poetry Library, inform organisations such as the Poetry Society, decide which magazines I should send review copies to and send those off in the hope that we might get reviews, pay the printer and sell as many copies as I can to recoup some of the costs. Poets are expected to help with the marketing and to arrange some readings, but I also organise some high-profile events at which they can read their work.

As you will have gathered from my description of the submissions process, the chances of being accepted by Oversteps are not high. But for the fortunate few who do manage to squeeze through the net, they will not only have a published book to be proud of, but will also be part of a successful and supportive group of poets.

When I took over as Managing Editor, I managed to secure a couple of grants from the Arts Council, which allowed me to purchase some necessary equipment and software. I have never applied for funding since then, as I was aware that other endeavours that were dependent on external funding often found that they could not survive when that funding was withdrawn. I therefore tried to make Oversteps self-financing. This was, of course, only possible as long as it was not necessary to provide salaries. I’m pleased to say that we have managed to survive on this basis through the difficult economic conditions of the last ten years. But I have to admit that it is getting more difficult, and there are questions as to how much longer we can stay afloat. There is a constant stream of book orders, most of which come through our website, and our wonderful poets help by giving readings and selling books themselves; and a small handful of our poets have returned again and again for reprints, pushing their sales figures up into the thousands. I am deeply grateful to them.

I am also grateful for the unexpected skills I have had to acquire. It has sometimes been challenging having to struggle with new technology, but most of it has been fun. I have also made a huge number of new friends, many of whom have become important parts of my life. I am always surprised when I first hear a new poet reading from their Oversteps book at a public event. Having been close to the work for many months, it suddenly comes alive in a new and exciting way. We have been fortunate to be given reading gigs at festivals and other events all over the country; but our special thanks must go to Ways with Words in Dartington, Devon, who give us a whole day every year — the festival’s Oversteps Day — to present the work of Oversteps poets. This year the Oversteps Day will be on July 14th, and I hope to see many of you there. Before that, there is a group reading at the Poetry Café in London, on Thursday 7th June. And there are many other opportunities to hear our poets reading. I include some of the forthcoming readings, as well as news about competition successes, in the Oversteps newsletter <overstepsbooks.wordpress.com>.

After ten successful years, questions are bound to arise about the future. The more Oversteps grows and prospers, and the number of poets continues to multiply, the harder it is for one person to manage the whole business; but this blog is just to celebrate the first ten years. The future will unfold in its own sweet time. In the meantime, I’d like to send warm thanks to all who have made Oversteps so successful: the poets (particularly the poets!), those who have bought books from us, those who have given us readings and other gigs, those who have responded to my newsletters — and to my long-suffering husband.

Comments closed

Poetry in public

Published February 19, 2013

This is the day when I should have arrived in New Zealand; and the first of my readings there was to be this evening at the charmingly named ‘Thirsty Dog’. Because disaster struck us half-way over the world, I can’t do this reading, or any of the others I was due to give in the next couple of weeks. Charles Hadfield and Hilary Elfick will be reading at most of the events I was going to, and they are kindly going to present some of my work to those audiences. So, instead of standing up and sharing my poetry, I thought I’d reflect on poetry readings in general in this blog.

All through my adult life I’ve had the privilege (and sometimes the burden) of giving countless lectures, talks and sermons. In recent years, however, I have far, far preferred to give poetry readings – and I’ve been extremely fortunate to be invited to read all over Britain and in several other countries as well. If by any chance you’re interested in where all these readings have been, you can find them on the Poetry page of my website (www.marriages.me.uk). I get a tremendous kick out of giving readings: writing can be a rather solitary occupation, and suddenly, at a public reading, one has the opportunity to engage with other people, to make them laugh or sigh, and to feel the energy of a common delight in poetry flowing back and forth between reader and audience. It really is a wonderful feeling when other people share and enjoy one’s poetry.

I’ll pick out just a few of my favourites to give a flavour of the range of opportunities for poets to share their work.

I was stunned and excited to be invited to read for a whole evening at Little Gidding a few years ago. The thrill this event gave me, obviously, was because of my life-long love of Eliot’s Four Quartets. The reading took place in a large and crowded, but cosy drawing room; and I was encouraged to go on reading for over two hours.

With Orta San Giulio in background

Poetry on the Lake in northern Italy is one of the highlights of the year for quite a number of poets. Like others, I first went because I was successful in their annual poetry competition – and then I was drawn back year after year. The readings are not so much large public events as good poets getting together to share their work with others who are on the same wavelength.

The list of participants is star-studded, and in a beautiful venue in the sunshine (well, mostly in the sunshine), friendships develop and inspiration flows.

A reading on Sacro Monte

One morning at the festival is spent reading at the various shrines on the Sacro Monte. Then, at the end of the weekend we are also treated to a wonderful piano recital in the Casa Tallone, a thousand year old building on the island, where Tallone pianos used to be made.

There are dozens of excellent poetry and/or literature festivals in Britain. Sadly I haven’t yet been invited to read at Aldeburgh, Ledbury or Stanza, but I’ve read at most of the others. I’ve been fortunate enough to read at Ways with Words at Dartington for several years running; and I read at The Space in another part of the Dartington Estate at the end of my poetry residency with dancers and choreographers from the Ballet Rambert. For a poet who is crazy about dance, this was a wonderful opportunity to indulge in some of the best things in life.

Venues at the festivals vary, and one of the more interesting ones at which I read was the Freiburg City Festival in Germany. The challenge was to read on a podium in the city square, and although seats were put out, I doubted if anyone would come to sit on them to hear a poet reading in English. However, I was mistaken, and before long all the seats were taken and there was a crowd of onlookers standing as well.

Audiences for poetry readings range from the polite to the wildly enthusiastic. There was a nice example of the latter, when Carol Ann Duffy read at the Torbay Poetry Festival this last autumn and she received a well-deserved standing ovation. I had a particularly warm and enthusiastic audience at this last year’s Guildford Book Festival, when I read and Peter Terry sang a selection of lieder and English songs. Music can work well with poetry readings, and when I read with a couple of other poets in the Lewes Linklater Pavilion recently, our readings were interspersed with guitar pieces.

A reading at Walpole As well as festivals, there are many other opportunities for readings. I’ve read in a number of bookshops, at the launch of magazines and anthologies that include poems by me, the launch of my books, prizewinners’ events, as the entertainment at parties, and regular poetry events such as the Troubadour in London, the Uncut readings in Exeter and pub gigs such as Tradewinds on Dartmoor. Other great venues have been the Edinburgh Fringe, the Walpole Old Chapel in Suffolk, the Dower House at Morville Hall in Shropshire, Slimbridge and Leighton Moss bird reserves and at university venues. There’s also usually an opportunity to read after giving a workshop or judging a competition. If you’re looking for readings, the possibilities are endless..

And yes, as every poet knows, giving readings is the best way to sell one’s books. In general, the major gatherings of poets do not lead to large sales, as most of the audience have plenty of poetry books already and are probably more interested in selling their own than in adding to their groaning bookshelves. Other audiences will snap up the books and delight in having them signed by the poet.

Then there is the issue of payment. Most poetry events are fairly cash-strapped, and some others have no compunction in exploiting writers if they can get away with it. It is unusual not to receive at least one’s expenses, and there are some shining examples of organisers who value and reward their poets. Among these, Patricia Oxley, the Editor of Acumen and organiser of the Torbay Festival, is one of the best. Of course one writes, and reads in public, for love. But it is amazing how much more valued one feels when someone like Patricia shows her genuine respect and appreciation by paying a proper fee. And several more of the events at which I’ve read have been kind enough to reward me quite generously.

After so many readings this last year, and the fact that I expected to be away now, I rather feared there may not have been so many in 2013. However, the invitations continue to flow in, and between now and the summer I have already been booked to appear at the Wenlock Poetry Festival, Cheltenham Poetry Festival, the Bath Week of Good Poetry, the launch of a magazine in Swindon and at Ways with Words.

Pity about New Zealand, though!