EventsEventsEvents!

I've been busy. Since the launch of The Africa in my House, I've been promoting it at various events. The first was a headline spot at Fire and Dust on 1st June, the open mic I usually go to. Loads of old friends came who I didn't expect and it was a really lovely evening. I was nervous about reading a story but felt that I needed to, in order to give people a proper flavour of the book. I noticed, reading God of Shadows, that I was reading it like a poem, concentrating somehow on the sounds of the words rather than their meaning and I recalled my lessons in Storytelling at the Harambee Centre more tat ten years ago (thank you George Anang'a) and began properly telling the story, which worked much better.

For my next reading at Poetry on the Stage on June 3rd, I wasn't headlining and didn't have much time, so I stuck to poems. I tried to tell the poems like stories, putting more feeling into them and I think it worked OK. I was really impressed with all the performers, especially Jackie Hagan and Shaun Fellowes. IT was a great night, curated by the brilliant Leanne Bridgewater (check her out on Youtube).

Our London Launch was on the June 6th at Housmans Radical Bookshop in London. Myself, Jonathan Pinnock and Jamie Thrasivoulou were all launching books through Silhouette Press. All of us are completely different poets in style and content. I'm honestly proud to published alongside these writers. Jamie writes muscular and energetic poetry fuelled by social injustice and Jonathan writes poignant and funny poems which gently mock the middle classes. What we have in common is a social conscience - so Housmans was perfect for our launch. It was a lovely venue for us. It's also an amazing bookshop. It made me wish I was richer, ironically!

Since then I've been working my day job and writing. I've completed a few poems, just heard that 'Message in a Bottle' want to publish one of my poems (yay!) and I'm looking forward to the Coventry/Cork poetry exchange in July, followed by an outing to WORD! in Leicester at the Y Theatre (www.wordpoetry.eu) on the 1st August. They already have headliners, but are giving me a few extra minutes and you never know - if they like me, they might invite me back!