I blame Noel Duffy for my red face. My friend, the Irish poet whose inspiring new poetry collection On Light & Carbon sat in my lavatory for the last couple of months begun enthusiastically but then fell victim to my recent illness that has removed me from life as I knew it all year.  I’m still not fully recovered but I’m a lot better and having finished the collection a couple of weeks ago,  I decided to read it over again in one sitting to piece together the links that went flying around my brain since the first interruption.

As a fan of his previous collection, In The Library Of lost Objects, I had been looking forward to this new collection from Ward Wood Publishing, who also published my novel – just to let you know that Noel and I are part of the same family.  On Carbon & Light draws on his scientific background (he studied Experimental Physics at university) but that needn’t deter anyone like me who wasn’t allowed to do Physics A ‘level at school because it couldn’t fit into the school curriculum with English, History and Music. I’ve always regretted my scientific ignorance but, believe me, this collection isn’t a physics textbook, it’s about man’s lot in a universe beyond our control and, to me at least, frightening in its chemistry but beautiful too in its mysteries. Into this universe, Noel pitches himself, and us, against the force of scientific truths and their significance to Time as perceived in our own lives and in the history of homo sapiens while allowing us into poignantly moving tales from his own personal history. It is no wonder that many of the scientists mentioned in the collection, are concerned with news ways of seeing, this is what Noel encourages us to do too in our own lives. These poems, in impressively paired down language, restored my wonder in creation but challenged my courage in dealing with my place in time and space.

The April sun shone down on me while I read Noel’s book, not this time in the loo, but out there in my garden –  you can even see the light beams that found me there in my garden chair. I came inside red-faced, partly because it has taken me so long to read Noel’s book and partly because I still haven’t fully learnt all there is to now about sunlight’s effect on pale-skinned poetry lovers who spend too long out of doors under the influence of Noel Duffy’s inspired vision. I’m now regretting all over again that I wasn’t allowed to mix physics, history and English literature at school – Noel shows that they are profoundly interconnected. I’ve returned to my own humble verse newly inspired.

Here in one of the key poems from the collection,  Reykjavik, he shows us how exploration into the unknown, sometimes ecstatic, sometimes cruelly painful, leads us back to ourselves where we have to live enlightened, hopefully, alert to meanings beyond our understanding but ultimately, inseparable from our tiny space in the great order of things.

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Talking of my fellow Ward Wood writers, I’m going to be appearing with three more of them in Greenwich,  London on 30th April.  Come along if you can.

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STEPHEN DEARSLEY’S SUMMER OF LOVE BY COLIN BELL

My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published  on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

It is now available as a paperback or on Kindle (go to your region’s Amazon site for Kindle orders)

You can order the book from the publishers, Ward Wood Publishing:

http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm 

…or from Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-Bell/9781908742070

…or from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley’s%20Summer%20Of%20love

The post Why I’m all red-faced over Noel Duffy’s new book. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

Last night I finished reading Irish writer, Noel Duffy’s two novellas, The Return Journey & Our Friends Electric published by Ward Wood Publishing http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/
who, I’m proud to say, are also going to publish my novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love,  later this year.

 Reading and enjoying, Noel’s book, brings me to an important and slightly nervous moment in my own writing career, as it brings me to the end of reading Ward Wood’s impressive fiction list. Doubly impressive considering the company has only been running since 2010. Nervous for me, because I believe that I’m next in line and it’s a hard act to follow.  I’m still emerging from Noel’s two novellas, a lovely form, this the short novel or long short story especially when two of them are co-joined like these in one neat little volume. The novellas are stylistically contrasted but both reflect Noel’s poet’s sensibility and concision of language. They wear their erudition lightly too whether it is philosophy or 1980’s rock music. Also, dare I say this, they express his charming sense of hard-won optimism too. I’m still waiting to give his Hermann and his Tom a well-earned high-five.

So I’ve got to the end of the current list of seven paperback and two Kindle-only novels by this interesting group of writers who are rapidly in danger of becoming friends. I’ve now met five of them, Joe Stein, an ex-boxer, who is WW’s intriguingly existentialist crime writer, Noel Duffy, who is also an award-winning poet,  Sue Guiney who writes movingly about her life in Cambodia, and Shauna Gilligan, the stylishly adventurous Irish writer and, of course, Adele Ward herself – she is the Ward in Ward Wood. I’ve also got to know and laugh with the other two, the Finland-based Mike Horwood and the fellow-Sussex writer and a funny stand-up comedian, V G Lee on Facebook. I’m truly proud to be joining their number especially as we seem to know how to have fun together too.

I’ve now moved on to Ward Wood’s poetry books starting with Noel Duffy’s In the Library of Lost Objects, excepts from which I heard him read in a recent London event and Peter Phillips’ No School Tie. Peter is one of the regular poets at the Camden-Lumen Poetry events  http://camdenlumen.wordpress.com/  that I try to take part in on the first Friday of every month. I’m going tomorrow when Ward Wood is hosting the event with readings by Sue Guiney (my companion on an entertaining London underground journey) and Camden Lumen prize winner, Caroline Squire but the event is also launching Peter Phillips’ newly published collection, Oscar and I. I’ve heard some of the poems from this book already and enjoyed Peter’s wonderfully dry sense of humour which, I’m pleased to say, is very evident when you meet him too.

So I’m still on my way through all the Ward Wood publications adding Peter’s and Noel’s collections to previously read books by Bob Cooper, another Camden-Lumen prize winner and an ever vigilant eye on Birmingham inner city life, and Ward Wood’s own Adele Ward. Adele’s Never-Never Land was my introduction to her work and to her herself. It’s a moving autobiographical collection – a memorable way of getting to know the energetic and highly perceptive soon-to-be publisher of my own work.

Meanwhile, I’m getting into gear for the imminent publication (in October)  of my novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

You can already pre-order the book from the publishers, Ward Wood Publishing:

http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm 

…or from Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-Bell/9781908742070

…or from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley’s%20Summer%20Of%20love

The post I feel like I’m joining a club – reading and meeting Ward Wood Publishing’s writers. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

This was my road in Lewes, UK, at three o’clock this morning. No much going on but that was OK because I was on my way to bed after a highly entertaining evening in London where I’d been to a reading by two Irish writers, a poet and a novelist, both published by the publisher of my soon-to-be-published novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love.

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm

I love to go to these writer events because, as I wrote yesterday, the business of writing is a solitary and often intense experience only undertaken by a particular type of person and not always understood by people who don’t get a kick out of spending hours absorbed in mental puzzles alone at a computer keyboard for hours at a time.

I am lucky to have Ward Wood Publishing http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/ as my publisher because not only does it do a great job but it is also small enough to be personal. Over the last year, I have meet a number of the other Ward Wood writers but last night was the largest gathering so far when six of us sat around a table with some wine talking and telling stories in the way that writers do. It was one of those rare occasions when I didn’t feel that I was that odd after-all. When the readings, highly enjoyable, were done, we retired downstairs to the bar and a fine old writers’ conversation began which was fueled with wine but not drowned in it. I did however end up on the last night train feeling that the journey has been more than worthwhile, it marked the beginning of a feeling of belonging to what really does feel like a family of Ward Wood writers. It is strange how well we all seem to get on – I think that is due to the personality of Adele Ward, herself, who chooses everyone on her list and who seems to have gathered together a group of writers who don’t  go in for competitive one-up-manship but who enjoy talking about the crazy thing called writing.

 I’m pleased to confirm, by the way, that I may feel a bit tired today but I have no hang-over apart from the pleasant glow of a night well spent.

So these were my companions from last night:

The event was in honour of Ward Wood’s two Irish writers.

Noel Duffy, the poet and author of an award-winning poetry collection, In The Library Of Lost Objects, who manages to communicate vividly intelligible thoughts with imagery inspired by insects, myths and physics without losing a scientific ignoramus like me.

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-poetry-noel-duffy-in-the-library-of-lost-objects.htm

and novelist, Shauna Gilligan whose novel, Happiness Comes From Nowhere has received, as they say, glowing reviews. I’m not surprised. Her book is an ingenious collection of short stories around a few central characters that builds into something substantial,  full of insight and humour.

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-shauna-gilligan-happiness-comes-from-nowhere.htm

It was great to hear them reading from their own work in the elegant environment of the London Irish Club and it was doubly enjoyable sitting in a row with other Ward Wood writers too.

Joe Stein, author of Ward Wood’s Garron crime series, an ex-boxer who shares my interest in things martial

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-joe-stein-that-twisted-thing-called-truth.htm

and poet Peter Phillips whose collection No School Tie is full of his characteristic wit and phlegmatic humour and who has become a friend now that we both read at the monthly Camden/Lumen Poetry meetings.

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-poetry-peter-phillips-no-school-tie.htm

and of course, Adele Ward, herself, publisher, yes, but who is also a poet and novelist and, I feel, a friend.

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-adele-ward-everything-is-free.htm

The post A great evening with some of the other Ward Wood writers appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.