Midway through February and the rain has come my way, here in Lewes, UK.  It might get a guy down, damp feet and water down the back of the neck,  but, somehow, when the bulbs are stirring , I don’t feel too miserable.

It’s St David’s Day and therefore it’s opening time for daffodils in these parts. The croci have started too, just as the snowdrops are on the turn.  It’s definitely the beginning of the gardening season here, so watch this space to see how my small urban garden grows this year.

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I have two new Fibonacci poems published today in the splendid Fibonacci specialist journal, The Fib Review. It’s always a challenge to try to squeeze big things into little boxes but I had a go when I picked the great, melancholy and alcoholic Finish composer Jean Sibelius as the subject of one of these miniature syllable-count poems that are based on the so-called Fibonacci Code with the sequence of numbers 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 etc. In the second poem, I try to take us back to our common ancestry in Africa.

Here’s the link – there are a lot of other Fibs there too – well worth you reading.

http://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/colin_bell1.html

If you have never heard Sibelius’ music, take a listen to this, the finale from his 5th Symphony. It is thrilling – you might even hear those swans flying.

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I hope the Oscars Ceremony 2017 doesn’t just get remembered for the chaos that broke our last night over the winner of the best film. OK, it’s extraordinary that it could have gone so wrong and become the nightmare of everyone who has ever been nominated for an award but……let’s not go too Hollywood over all this.

Let’s remember the occasion as the night that a wonderful film, deservedly, won the film industry’s most glamorous award and that Moonlight was, eventually, given the prize for best movie. Congratulations to all concerned and an extra round of applause for the hugely talented director, Barry Jenkins (previous films include the impressive Medicine for Melancholy, 2008).

Congratulations to another talented director, Damien Chazelle (remember his great film, Whiplash, 2014) who got tangled up in the mis-announcement farce over his wonderful film La La Land but still ended up winning the Oscar for best director.  After all the chaos and Hollywood campery, there was something highly satisfying in seeing two terrific young film directors both winning Oscars for films that took risks, let their imaginations run free and showed a profound respect for their medium. Not every Oscar ceremony has had the embarrassment of riches that was on display this year. Both films were worthy additions to the great art of the cinema. Bravo to both of you. Oh yes, and to the splendid director-writer Kenneth Lonergen for another great film, Manchester by the Sea – I wish all three directors could’ve won.

Also, let’s not allow the showbiz  furore to let us forget the four outstanding actors who won Oscars for truly memorable and moving performances.

Mahershala Ali – best supporting actor (Moonlight). Movingly humane as a philosophical drug-dealer.

Naomie Harris – best supporting actress (Moonlight). Heart-breaking as a conflicted drug-addict mother.

Emma Stone – best actress (La La Land). There is nothing this woman can’t do, honestly, she’s truly great and, I’m sure, the best is yet to come. Her face acts with every muscle and even when she’s completely still.

Casey Affleck – best actor (Manchester by the Sea). An astonishing portrayal of the unrelenting grief of bereavement and the problems of expressing masculine emotion.  No one has done this better.

If you haven’t seen  these movies then please do. Moonlight,  La La Land and Manchester by the Sea – they all travel down difficult roads, they all challenge our perceptions and, yes, they all play with our hearts.   It was so good agreeing with the Oscars this year.

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As we reach the middle of February here in Lewes, UK, our winter is releasing its frozen grip out there and I can already see signs of hope out there on the horizon. I, inevitably, have succumbed to the latest viral infection that it buzzing round town but I haven’t been entirely idle.

I’ve been reading Alex Ross’s excellent book on 20th Century classical music, The Rest Is Noise. One of my new year’s resolutions was fulfilled this morning when I came to the end of this massive and massively impressive study of a difficult but truly exciting period in music.

I have also been writing – pretty well as usual – and over the last week, amongst other projects, I have written six new Fibonacci poems, scribbling away in the little doodling book that I keep for the purpose.

Naturally, I’ve been keeping company with a number of 20th century composers during this time and, this week, I’ve been listening to Shostakovich, Copeland, Jerome Kern and Messiaen – what an amazingly varied century it was for music.

Outside, in my little urban garden, things haven’t been idle either.

The bulbs are more than stirring….

the primroses are in bloom…

as is the wonderful Hellebores out there, like the primroses, thriving in two of the garden’s darkest corners.

My camellia too is beginning to flower with its boldly unseasonal red petals.

The snowdrops, of course, are now in their element….both old favourites….

…..and new plantings.

Before the lurgey forced me indoors, I’ve been out on my rambles around Lewes and was delighted to find one of my favourite plants in bloom down the road in the town’s Grange Gardens.

The Chinese witch hazel, hamamelis molis, with its intoxicating perfume and vibrant colour offers more than enough hope to me here in this moody Lewes February. Late winter is always interesting here in the UK, if you love plants. You just have to look a bit closer for their beauty.

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Mr Nnamdi Nwachukwu is working on my website at the moment so look out for a few changes. They will all be for the good – I hope. Let me now what you think.

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My new novel, Blue Notes, Still Frames is now officially published and generally available from online sites as well as bookstores and it’s now time to announce the book’s Brighton launch which will take place on Thursday, 2nd March at the splendid Have A Word event, brain child of the enthusiastic and energetic host, Ellis Collins. As Blue Notes, Still Frames is the second in my series of Brighton-themed novels, it’s seems right to give it a grand Brighton send off so i’m delighted to be reading in my home town with my good friends and fellow novelists, VG Lee and Allie Rogers. Music is an important theme in the novel so it is doubly appropriate that Brighton band Octopuses will be there too, playing music from their current album, Yes Please,  and, I’m told, songs from their projected new album too. As Octopuses is my son Adam Bell’s band this will make the show a family affair.

Tickets go on sale today at www.wegottickets.com 

Family too is VG Lee, or so it seems, as her work is published by Ward Wood Publishing,  http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/ as are both my novels.  My good friend VG Lee, is also a Sussex writer, and her novels are both wonderfully funny and powerfully poignant. Her latest, Mr Oliver’s Object of Desire came off the Ward Wood production line just ahead of mine. It’s a great and entertaining work and VG Lee is a terrific performer, so her reading will be terrific, I know.

I’m really happy too that the other reader on the night will be another of my friends, fellow Brighton novelist, the highly talented Allie Rogers who will be reading from her debut novel, Little Gold, due to be published by Legend Press in May this year. http://www.legendtimesgroup.co.uk/legend-press/books/1446-little-gold

To put you into the mood, take a listen to Octopuses’ latest single, Not The Bees, now officially endorsed by Caroline Lucas and the Green Party. They are great, believe me, hear it for yourself:

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Copies of my new Brighton novel arrived today – hurray! Now that I have the actual physical objects, I really feel like it’s been published.

Stephen Dearsley, from my first novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer of Love, isn’t a bit jealous that he has a new companion – it’s a bit like having a baby brother – or maybe not. Anyway, I feel like a new child has been born.

Many thanks to Ward Wood Publishing, and especially to Adele Ward, for producing such a beautiful book. Thanks and admiration to to Kayla Bell who designed the brilliant Modernist cover – I love it.

So folks, it really is out there now –Blue Notes, Still Frames is my second Brighton novel and it moves forward to 1994 – My first Brighton book, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer of Love was set in 1967.  Here’s the publisher’s blurb, if you want to know what it’s all about.

You can buy the paperback edition a number of ways. Either directly from the publishers:

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-blue-notes-still-frames.htm

From Book Depository, especially if you are outside the UK:
http://www.bookdepository.com/Blue-Notes–Still-Frames/9781908742629

You can buy it at Amazon too – especially if you want the Kindle edition which is already online:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_24?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=blue+notes+still+frames+by+colin+bell&sprefix=Blue+Notes%2C+Still+Frames%2Caps%2C124&crid=1N88VF8VOJ86O

Or, of course, you can order it from your local independent bookshop. Mine, here in Lewes is the excellent independent bookseller Skylark – the owner, Matt Birch is a champion of Lewes’ artist community and for that we are all grateful.

He is stocking both my novels so go and see him at the Needlemakers, West Street, Lewes,  or contact him via his website:

http://www.skylarkshop.com/

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Great news! My new novel has arrived. It’s always a thrilling moment to see it in print after the three years of drafts and redrafts. Yes, it really exists – that’s my first reaction. It looks great too. So thanks to my publishers, Ward Wood Publishing, and to the cover designer, the hugely talented Kayla Bell.

Blue Notes, Still Frames is my second Brighton novel and it moves forward to 1994 – My first Brighton book, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer of Love was set in 1967.  Here’s the publisher’s blurb, if you want to know what it’s all about.

You can buy the paperback edition a number of ways. Either directly from the publishers:

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-blue-notes-still-frames.htm

From Book Depository, especially if you are outside the UK:
http://www.bookdepository.com/Blue-Notes–Still-Frames/9781908742629

You can buy it at Amazon too – especially if you want the Kindle edition which is already online:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_24?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=blue+notes+still+frames+by+colin+bell&sprefix=Blue+Notes%2C+Still+Frames%2Caps%2C124&crid=1N88VF8VOJ86O

Or, of course, you can order it from your local independent bookshop. Mine, here in Lewes is the excellent independent bookseller Skylark and they will be stocking both my novels:

http://www.skylarkshop.com/

I shall be doing my first reading from the new novel tonight, here in Lewes, at the latest Needlewriters event at the lovely Needlemakers centre, in West Street, with my friend, the poet and novelist Kay Syrad and the science fiction writer, Matthew De Abaitua, whom I’m yet to meet. It should be a fun evening so, come along if you can. It would be great to see you there.

Here’s the Needlewriters’ web link to give you more information about the writers:

http://www.needlewriters.co.uk/#/whats-on/4539813579

P.S. The readings went really well last night at Lewes’ Needlewriters’ event – I left feeling that new new book is well and truly  ‘out there’. My thanks to Janet Sutherland and the Needlewriters’ committee for their support and for asking me to read. It’s a lovely event.

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I shall be reading from my about to be published novel, Blue Notes, Still Frames,  (Ward Wood Publishing –  http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-blue-notes-still-frames.htm ) on Thursday the 12th January here in Lewes UK.  If you can make it, it would be great to see you there.

I’m waiting neurotically for the printed copies to arrive and also for the Kindle edition to be published. Exciting times.  This will be my second Brighton novel. My first, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer of Love, was set in 1967,  but, this time, it’s in the year 1994. Here’s the blurb that will appear on the back cover:

‘Colin Bell transports us back to Brighton in 1994 for his second novel Blue Notes, Still Frames, with a full cast of characters drawn together through the music and photography of the title.

Busker Joe lives on the beach with his flute and his troubled Goth girlfriend, Victoria, who’s a singer. He borrows a bath towel for her from Rachel and Alan, a prosperous young couple from the rapidly growing world of computers. The meeting will change all their lives…and other lives too.

There’s Harry, a beach bum drummer; Nico, a transient American who takes revealing photographs of passers-by; Kanti and Diep, mysterious artist twins from Nepal; Lionel and John who reveal more than their bodies on the nudist beach; and pub landladies Jacqueline and Rosemary who top up their income by dabbling in the sex trade.

Joe is always there, weaving more than  melodies with his flute.’

The reading will take place at the Needlemakers in Lewes, the splendid quarterly literary event where I was invited to read from my first novel too. I’m lucky to be sharing the billing with a friend, the novelist and poet, Kay Syrad and science fiction author Matthew De Abaitua. It should be an entertaining evening.

Matthew De Abaitua is an Arthur C Clarke Award shortlisted author of science fiction. His second novel If Then is set in Lewes in the near-future and was written in the flat above the Needlemakers. Locus described it as ‘full of magisterial weirdness, melancholy joy and hopeful terror. If I begin to toss out names like Adam Roberts, Brian Aldiss, and J. G. Ballard, I will not be lavishing undue praise.’

Kay Syrad’s publications include a poetry collection, Double Edge (2012), two novels, The Milliner and the Phrenologist (2009) and Send (2015), which investigates pre-verbal experience; and Exchange, an art-text work with Chris Drury (2015). Her artist’s book work of the lightship men: 1000 tasks (2013) was bought by the National Maritime Museum. She is Poetry Editor of Envoi and co-founder of the VERT Institute for art events & writing in Laughton.

Before becoming a writer, Colin Bell worked as a TV producer-director and executive producer making arts programmes for ITV, Channel Four, the BBC and also for American, Japanese and German broadcasters. His first novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer of Love (Ward Wood Publishing, 2013) was long-listed for the Polari Prize. His second novel, Blue Notes, Still Frames is due out in January. His poetry has been published in the UK and the USA where it has been nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize.

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