Graffiti Project - Latest

It's been a while since I posted any street art pictures on here for the simple reason that there is just too much of it around in Paris. I'd be at it all day and I have a real job and a ton of writing to do.

So...in a idle moment in Reading yesterday, I spotted this in an alley off Station Road. It's rather good.

On Going Kaos.

Paris Lit Up - End of Year One

Well it's been an absolute roller coaster of our first Paris Lit Up year, in which I have learned so much. More things than I could possibly have imagined about working with a group of disparate and marvellous people, taking photographs of poets who don't stand still, writing reviews of wonderful literary events, co-editing a fabulous magazine, running and preparing writing workshops, co-organizing and co-hosting a popular and exciting weekly Open Mic and so on.

At times it's been almost like a full time job, or has at least taken up every spare thinking moment. There is always something to do and I have had to make myself stop, reflect and find time to enjoy everything and everyone we have been working with.

I am really looking forward to all the great things we have planned for year two. More of those anon. Watch this space or rather the various PLU spaces (see below). But there's a magazine to launch, more workshops to plan and whole host of lovely Open Mic guests for your entertainment. The autumn is going to be packed. No sitting about thinking about writing. Speaking of which, it's a miracle that I have managed to get any of that done at all, but I have!

Visit the website, friend us on facebook, follow us on twitter. Open Mic is running right through the summer.  Enjoy! and THANK YOU to everyone who has come to an event, helped in anyway, or otherwise encouraged us to keep on lighting up the city.

Sunbathing in the Place des Vosges

The Place des Vosges is famously one of the few places in Paris where there is a) grass and b) grass you are actually allowed to sit on in the summer. In winter it has its little rest (la pelouse est en repose). So you'd think perhaps, in this city of rules and regulations (so much for liberte), that sunbathing in a bikini would be a bit, how shall I put it? interdit.

But not so. I was out there all day on Sunday and on Monday evening and for an hour just now, trying to kick start my holiday tan unmolested by jobs-worthy park keepers.

Hurray for that. But don't try it in the parks in Montmartre, where I have it on good authority they are more prudish.

Less of a hurray for the man who tried to pick me up, though. While I'm flat on my back asleep in the sun, do I look like I want to go for a drink with you? Well, do I? Ah, France. That's being hit on twice in one week. You get used to it after a while. At least he said my accent was good, but that might've been a line...

Poetry News

Delighted that one of my tattoo poems has had an outing in the latest issue of Magma. Circus Ladies of a Certain Age. You can buy a copy and read it for yourself here, along with a host of great poems from some big names. Thanks to Julia Bird and Helen Mort for picking it out of the pile. Now, all I need is for the whole manuscript to find a home. Hello, my lovely publisher...