Review of 2013 in writing terms.....

REVIEW OF 2013

Looking over the last year of writing it's been quite a mixed bag. I attended various poetry writing workshops, one on flash fiction and an online feedback course with The Poetry School. The feedback course has made me look at my poetry in a new way and has helped in editing some of my older poems which sit there festering and have either been submitted many times or I've never felt they are ready to submit!

I took two poetry writing challenges online - one in January and one in July.  I've had a fair few rejections but I have continued to have submissions in the Open University Poetry Workbook which have been well received and had a poem published in their 2013 Anthology.

There was a first for me with a piece of flash fiction being published on Paragraph Planet website in June and I had a collection of six poems translated into Romanian by Mariana Zavati (also a member of OU Poets) and published in a Romanian Arts magazine called Pro-Saeculum. I also had a poem published in Areopagus but I've been a bit lax there and didn't submit to every edition as I usually do.

I had a poem accepted for the National Poetry Anthology only to discover that this a vanity publishing concern and withdrew my poem.

Finally, in December I heard that I am runner up in a local libraries poetry competition and will get to read my poem and collect my prize later this month.  I'm hoping to take a tiny 'fan club' with me!

I still have submissions out there with deadlines ranging from December to April and one can only hope.

My immediate plans? Well, I'm currently working on a small collection to submit for a pamphlet competition which has to be in by the end of the month. I also need to get my votes into OU Poets by the 6th January for the next Anthology. Other than that I hope to perhaps get round to editing a story I finished last year and re-visit some poems, edit and submit them. I have no plans to attend any courses so far, at least not until after Easter as having just filled in my diary for the first few months of this year I haven't much more time!

Hope all your writing is productive and successful in 2014. Thank you for dropping by.  Happy writing and reading!