What! The Heys
Welcome to the ‘What! The Heys’ podcast that tears the cover off the writing world! Whether you're a seasoned author, an aspiring novelist, or just a lover of great stories, I’m here to demystify the writing craft, explore the publishing industry, dive deep into the books we can't stop thinking about, and chat with amazing guests from across the literary universe. Get ready for a conversation that's as passionate and unpredictable as a plot twist. Let's get into it.
If you’re interested in my writing you can also check out my blog:
https://heyswolfenden.blogspot.com/?m=1
My Middle Grade/YA novel, ‘Jack Strong and the Red Giant’:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M22USRE?*Version*=1&*entries*=0
My collection of poetry, ‘Made in China: 50 Sonnets on Modern China’:
What! The Heys
Ep 15: with Ansuya Patel
Ansuya Patel is a British Indian poet who resides in London, U.K. Her debut collection, 'Wolves At My Door' published by Indigo Dreams won the Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize in 2024. She writes about her upbringing and heritage, as well as nature and her travels.
"Everything can be a poem." - Ansuya Patel
If you like this episode you can check out my novel:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M22USRE?*Version*=1&*entries*=0
And my poetry collection, ‘Made in China’:
Okay, welcome to another episode of What the Haze. I'm here with poet Ansuiya Patel. Welcome, Ansuiya. Can you start please by uh letting everybody know a little bit about yourself and and your work?
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. Thank you, Hayes. Lovely to be here. Thank you for the invitation. My name is Sansuya. I'm a writer, poet, creative, and uh how did I come into creativity poetry? Yeah, when when I saw you interviewing other poets and writers, and I thought this is a great opportunity. So I came into writing poetry about seven years ago. I was taking some courses at an institution in town in London, and I was doing creative writing. And I was struggling, really, lots of creative writing short stories. Every week we had an assignment to write a story up to a thousand words. And we could choose whatever theme we wanted to write on. So you know, and I guess having that huge range of options, I I never knew what I wanted to write about, but I would always come up to similar themes: family, culture, conflict. I was struggling with inner conflict, emotions. And one day I wrote a poem instead of a short story. I was struggling to write a short story. And one of the fellows in my group said to me, Maybe you should try poetry. Maybe you should try poetry. So I next one was. And that's when I thought, okay, so it's cool.
SPEAKER_01:It's cool.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. I thought maybe I should sign up for a poetry workshop. And I'd tried uh, and I was interested in Barbara. Barbara Marsh was doing Beginness Poetry, and I signed up for her course, it was 10 weeks long. And again, when I walked into my first poetry class, it was overwhelming because remember the teacher saying to me, Barbara saying to me, So what brings you to poetry? And I said, Well, I've been reading Khalid Gibraltar, Rumi, Sylvia Platt, and I thought, well, I would just maybe try out writing a bunch of poems. Really naive. Because I've been reading poetry for some time, and that's when I, you know, was introduced to poetry and the form, and every week it would be a different form, structure. And it was a quite big class, 16 to 20 students. So every week we would have homework and we'd probably workshop. Half of the students would workshop their poem, or it would be the week after. And that was nerve-wracking. Sending your work around the class, and then people making comments and then reading it aloud. So that's when I came into poetry.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you were saying at the end there, you were workshopping your poems, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, which I found to be super helpful because you know, you're writing, I'm writing poetry, but until I take it to a class and I'm workshopping it with other writers, other poets, people who've been writing a lot longer than I have, and then they, you know, then I've because I was using a lot of abstract imagery, and then, you know, I really learned about concrete imagery, and poetry is about specificity, making a list of things and naming things. So for me, having that structure was a really was a it's it still serves me. I still do a lot of workshops, and I'm still with the same teacher, and we meet every Wednesday on Zoom, and uh I think workshops are a great way, and reading lots of poets and the writers who've got me for myself, and contemporary poets are still that have work out today. Just reading, lots of reading, it helps.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's interesting about talking about writing poetry. You yeah, you do see me. I'm just listening to you now. You're obviously reading a lot as well. And I always find that like if you want to be, should we say, a good writer about whatever it is, I do think you have to read a lot of of that that type of writing. So yeah, it's no surprise that you know, getting published and and winning competitions. I mean I think that's fantastic. Yeah, so what what kind of things do you write about?
SPEAKER_00:For me, I like some of the prompts we were given in class and workshops, because a prompt could trigger off anything. You know, it could be a prompt of uh, you know, going for a walk, going for a walk and taking note of everything. Like I went to a yoga class earlier and walked down the street and I noticed, you know, some flowers coming through, noticed when the trees had been taken down. I started noticing things and noticed two blackbirds and blue tip this morning. So you start to take in all these details and you're collecting images. I feel like I'm collecting images all the time. And I take lots of photographs because I travel a lot too. So I take photographs and have notes in my pages app, and it's like I'm collecting all these memories to, you know, one day, well, whatever, they're there. They were there in my memory, but they're also in photographs to use. So and prompts, you know, when we're reading, it could be the first line of a poem that could just trigger something. It could be a word. I remember reading Ruth Stone's poem alone, and that triggered a that triggered a poem for me. Because it was just that moment in that poem that really kind of at the time it spoke to me. So poetry is just I guess it's a language in itself that you know you become really aware, you become acutely aware of the small details, senses, nuances, anything, and everything could be a poem.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think that's true, everything could be a poem. I like what you said at the end as well about like like poetry can be its own language, and yeah, I think it resonates with me quite a bit. And I've noticed like on even on Instagram, like, yeah, you I I'm reading a bit more poetry. On Instagram, I living in China, I don't really have access to like say magazines, for example, but I still think there's quite a lot of good, like British poetry, it seems to me, getting published or at least published on Instagram as well, like yourself, for example. Yeah, it's really rich and exciting, and I really do, you know, maybe you know, once or twice a day flick through my Instagram and I always look for some good poems. And like if I see something, you know, that I like, I should have said, I like to share it as well. And like, yeah, it's made me want to like definitely maybe I should make more of an effort and try. I used to like I think I subscribed to Agenda magazine a while back. I mean a real while back. I probably should try to find another magazine and just kind of maybe it's like a a quarterly or something like that, or bi-yearly, and just try to get something. Yeah, we'll see about that. Um, yeah, you mentioned about traveling as well. Yeah, it's something I'd noticed on Instagram. You travel around quite a bit, and how has that impacted upon your writing, would you say?
SPEAKER_00:I think traveling for me is great. It just takes me out of my everyday environment. I was in Sri Lanka at Christmas, and uh I was just collecting images everywhere I went, you know, I was taking lots of photographs, and then I'd be inspired and see something. I remember walking out of the hotel room first thing in the morning, walking across the lawn, onto the beach, empty beach, and then I saw these three blackbirds around the small gull, the drink fences small gull. And then, God, that was quite disturbing to watch, you know, sharp beaks pecking at the tail of the small gull. And I thought, wow, and I just felt powerless. That again, that was quite shocking to the nerves. But that again, you know, it's just an imagery that stayed with me, something that stayed with me. And I think I'll I wrote a poem about it because you know it's a memory. And it was something else. There was lots of weddings at the hotel, my father dancing with his daughter, and the music. So it's really evocative. Travelling is you know, doing tours, looking at temples, going to sightseeing, being in a tuk-tuk, that's an experience. The foods, so there's so many memories. But you can do that, I can do that in London too, if I just walk down another street, you know, to the next left, rather than do a right. I'll notice something. So it's been open to just being open, open to seeing, open to experience it, and open to what you feel, you know, your surroundings. So opportunities are always there to write, to create. It's like sitting down sometimes. And this there's this great method I learnt a long time ago. It's like the Pomodoro method, you put the timer on for 20 minutes and you just write. So whatever comes in those 20 minutes, and it's like then you put it away because you know, you don't have time to tinker with it because you might get one of two good lines out of it or a feeling, and then you can go back to it later. So, yeah, there are lots of ways of coming into writing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, I like what you're saying about being open to experiences, it's something I'm trying to talk a bit to people about. I mean, I live in China and there's experiences all around me, it's really rich, culturally rich, rich in the civilization. But I get it that not everyone can come and live in China. I get it that not everyone can just go traveling. So I'm very keen, very clear on saying to people, you know, go out, find your experience in your local town. There will be something there that will be out of the ordinary, and it's just a case of being willing to find it, you know, even if it's okay, get on the bus to the next town. You know, just do different things. And I think, you know, I think as writers, I I do believe that we have to be curious writers and we have to move towards the art, so to speak. I think that's the idea for me. Just out of interest, what are would you say are the my main themes in your work?
SPEAKER_00:The main themes in my work, like my collection. I mean, this collection came together because it was childhood neglect, abandonment. I grew up in India as a child, separation from my parents, displacement, trauma, grief, and then also resilience. Resilience breaking through, moving away, moving to a city, moving to London. So the themes have interwoven from the beginning towards the end of the collection, and uh they've been the strong themes throughout because I was writing other poems, but when this collection came about, I had a choice, and because I'd I'd submitted before and had some rejections. Then I submitted for a pamphlet as a poet. You start as a pamphlet, you start, which is a collection of 20 poems or so, and you get certain openings for competitions with poetry and you know, with mislexia or bad Betty. So when those presses are available and they have an entry point for competitions, you try and get a pamphlet together, and you put a pamphlet together and submit. So I was reading lots of collections and pamphlets, and I was looking at themes, and I did a couple of workshops, and I for me the same themes kept coming up, and I thought I have to write my way through this. I just have to write through all these feelings and feeling and give that voice and agency. And that's what, you know, so I had so many poems around these themes, around 100 poems. So when I when I was putting a collection together before I was submitting for the competition, it was 20 poems. I chose 20 poems uh across those themes. But now my writing's changed. My writing's changed since my books come out.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, in what way?
SPEAKER_00:I feel well, I feel freer in a sense uh, you know, those poems are out now, they're out in the world. I've also had a lot of healing and grief through and moved through that space. I feel lighter like my writing now. I'm writing about just different things. I was writing about my traveling recently. I was traveling writing about food, I was writing about I feel like I've got some distance and space from that, those poems, which is great. So I'm looking at writing in a different way as well. And also been also, you know, you're looking, I'm looking at the craft of writing. How can I improve my writing? You know, as you as a writer, as a poet, you probably, you know, I often question how can I play with this? How can I improve my writing? How can I come into a poem in a different way? Breaking away from some of those habits.
SPEAKER_01:I'm always saying the same thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, breaking away from some of those habits, you know, because they become habits for me, they can become habits after a while.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, improving as a writer, that it it it's it I think it takes hard work. It's always or at least it takes maybe not hard work, it takes like just a certain kind of state of mind. I think you have to approach you know when I I write fiction, every book I write, I try to do something different. Like switching narrative voices, like first time I did like first person, it was a massive leap. But maybe since then I made I just make minor changes, but I do different things, I might change the place, do characters I've not done before that maybe I don't know that much, but I find exciting. And that I I I kind of see writing fiction a bit like acting in some ways, like you know, I I'm I I pick characters that are not necessarily close to me like culturally, but I find it interesting. So I so I do it. And you know, uh I I think it's quite good. I think it is. Okay, and see I believe you want to uh read one of your poems out loud.
SPEAKER_00:I will actually. Then I'll I'll read uh I'm gonna read uh Watching My World Break on page 13. Watching my world break. The two beds dressed in new sheets in the guest room, amber marigolds gloat in the bars, the whole house hams in expectation. The maid sings a melody, an array of sag, dal puri spill the table. My three uncles loiter on the porch. Grandmother runs out as the car pulls in. A woman lets go of a child's hand, sobbs in grandmother's arms, talk of bad Indian roads, cold English winters, and long hours of work. The woman eats, weeps, laughs, turns the child next to her, a girl, a little younger than myself, and try and read their faces. The woman looks over at me. I don't blink like the doll in the box, the doll my father left with me. You're not eating, grandmother says. This is your mother. And that's your sister. My world ends. Faces stare, lips move, my tiny heart thuds, holds its breath as the cupboard sweeps me away inside, my mouth will not open.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love it, fantastic. I really get uh the heritage coming through and obviously your personal story really shines through there. Yeah, I just want to say I just want to read more of this to be honest. So thanks very much. Thank you for sharing that with me and everybody that will listen. You're very good, thank you very much. Yeah, what what was the main what was the main like reason why you wrote that poem?
SPEAKER_00:I think that poem it came through really strong because it was a memory I don't forget. And what I found writing poetry is I'm often surprised, I start off writing about an experience, and I'm surprised where it takes me, which is I'm sort of discovering something. And I've had, you know, I've had family members say to me, How I'm surprised you have all these memories of your childhood, you were really young, but I do because memory, in a way, it lives in the body. The body, you know, the body kick holds on to trauma, holds on to feelings. And it's only when I've been since I've been writing poetry, love those memories have become very clear. And the more I write, and it's almost like I can expect I can almost I'm almost there in that moment. The emotions are not as loaded as they used to be. I'm almost there in the moment, and then I have those feelings, and so it's like encapsulating those feelings into a poem and and then writing around those feelings. This the poems have been edited, but you know, just getting the first draft out. It's it's that's the key, getting the first draft out, those feelings out, and then you know, working around those. Hope that helps.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I like that. Yeah, you said about trauma. When I've had a few guests on here, it seems to be becoming quite the theme, you know, working out. It could be childhood traumas or or even adult traumas. Uh yeah, I know I think it's really interesting. I I really get the sense of you know, like a powerful emotion and like this kind of need to write and need to understand process, that's the word, process what happened. Yeah, it really comes through. So, you know. It's when I when I wrote my book, my first book, Jack Strong, is I was you know, uh how old was I? 31, 32, and I think I was processing a bit being bullied at school and just kind of in some ways reliving it through the main character. And it is interesting because once I finished writing that series, fine, doesn't bother me. Doesn't bother me anymore. It it's interesting, it was quite cathartic for that actually. But like I say, I think many writers do write about trauma. I think it I think it's great. I think it's great for writers to write about emotional things, to write but I to to sh you know be not not to be dispassionate and to it's almost like a testament the world's going around you and just admitting like these things they've affected me. I need to write this to to say something about it, to represent almost to use an Americanism. So yeah, good for you. I I think I think it's very brave as well. Very brave to write about these things. I'm not sure I'm not sure what I would have done actually, but it it's yeah, I think it's really, really good. Just moving on, I think I think I'm right thinking your your your collection's called Wolves at My Door, right? It is. I think it won the Jeff Steen's Memorial Prize, is that correct?
SPEAKER_00:It is, it is with uh Sarah James. We both joined with us in 2024. It was uh God, it's a real blessing, it's a miracle, Hayes, when I was submitting because the whole process of submitting poetry is something else. It's something else. Because I've been writing poetry for seven years, so when I started, I'll never forget, I think it was a lady called Catherine Lockwood who was super helpful. She did uh a workshop at City Late, it was two hours long on a Friday evening how to submit poems to magazines, and she writing a cover letter, and it was really informative, kept a copy of it, and the year or two later I was sub I started submitting, and my first poem was accepting it an anthology, which is at the City Late, and the year after another anthology. So it gave me a bit of confidence, okay, these are the anthologies, but now I have to kind of start submitting to, you know, in the real world, magazines and so on, and online zines, lots of online zines, and that's another, you know, another system altogether. There's so many submission windows now. There's a lovely woman called Angela Carr who puts together a huge submission, you know, an email every month, and I'm on the mailing list, and I'm all I'm overwhelmed when I look at the list of submissions. It's like I've got a you know, hundreds of poems. It's really great to have the opportunity to think. So I would go through some of the submission windows, look at the the sub publications uh, you know, I liked the poet's poems I liked, or the poet's psych kind of resonated to. And I started submitting Gypsophila, They're American. They published two or three of my poems, and I was, yeah, it's almost it's a nice feeling when you get poems accepted because then there's the rejections. Thank you. We've had, you know, so many, so there's the rejections, and there's a whole method of system which it's uh Jo Bell. I was looking at her book earlier. Jo Bell uh she wrote a blog about a system of, you know, you submit every month so many poems, like you have pockets, three poems in each pocket, and you submit to so many magazines. It's all quite time consuming, and it's also a lot of mental energy because you bring that set time aside. And also looking at what work you do have available to submit to. Is it ready? I think what I've learnt is sometimes I've sent out work too early, because poems need time to marinade almost for me, to go back and do another edit, because I tend to overwrite. I mean, I can go back and see my own, you know, which is cringe worthy sometimes. I look back and I think, oh no, I've written, repeated myself here. So yeah, so I've been working through some of these poems, submitting for some time, and in 2003, started submitting to pamphlets. Remember my teacher Barbara, in a workshop I've been with, sometime suggested I put a pamphlet together and I tried that, submitted that, a couple of rejections with dyslexia, bad Betty. Then there was another publication called Barche, I think they're Liverpool. And I submitted some poems to them. And the second year, they I was highly commended. I had about four poems in their publication, which was really great to see four poems, you know, in one of their book books, in one of their collections. And the year after there was another opening, I thought, okay, I'm just gonna try again. Just, you know, submit again. And had a different theme. And then I did a workshop, a great workshop with uh Malaika Booker, who's amazing. She's got so much energy, and she did this thing called Promptomania for the weekend. And it was a whole day of prompts and writing from 10 till 4. I have a whole notebook filled with prompts and ideas. And she said, write a po write something, write a poem, write a poem about something you don't want to write about. You don't want to tell anyone. And I knew I had some poems about a relationship. I was in my twenties, which was quite just difficult, allung, codependent. I thought, I've got to write about this because it's still, I'm still feeling those feelings. You know, I'm still carrying some of those feelings. There's still a bit of, you know, emotional uh tension there. And I wrote this poem and I wolves at Wolves at the door. And when I was submitting this time, then I was I submitted elsewhere and got log listed, and I thought, I'm gonna use that poem, Wolves at my door, as a title, because when I was going through all the themes of my poems, and I thought, wow, I felt powerless as a child. There were, you know, did feel like there were people at my door. I had no control when I was a child. As an adult, I have choices now, options. So now I see it in a different light, but still that title just felt right at the time. And I thought I'm gonna submit 20 of my poems that kind of resonate to that title, that the strongest probably that I'm having my yeah, I have at the moment. And I submitted those to Jeff Stevens Poetry Prize. And when I won, I was so shocked. I was so shocked. I'll never forget when I got that email, it was in September. I had to read it twice, and I thought, wow, now, but then I thought, wow, now the work starts because I had a time period where I had to submit the whole body of collection of work, which is, you know, almost 40 poems, and it's uh the pamphlet book itself is you know 53 pages. But I had loads of work, and uh, I think once I knew what the theme was and I had lots of work, I went back and edited it, and then trying to write their final poem for their collection, I found challenging because I thought, how do I close having you know put this work together now? And again, that was again, I remember going out for a walk first thing in the morning. This is what I would do. Wake up, got for a walk first in the morning. It was very quiet at 6 37. I mean in London, it's pretty cold at the time, and I'd be in a square, and I'd see the blackbirds, I'll see, you know, listen to the bird song, noticed the trees and the shapes and the leaves, and I and I thought, I know what I want to, I know. I just knew. I thought I'm gonna go back and it started to come together, the final poem, and then editing that, and then go getting a friend to proofread my whole collection and the order, that was another it's all these choices you have to make. You know, I did a lot of workshops, I listened to a lot of podcasts, have to put a collection together, and everyone does it differently. You know, people have themes or they have sections, and I went over all these options, and eventually I decided to put all my work on a coffee table, and I left it for a few days. I live on my own, so it was easier to do. Then I went back and I reordered the work, then I reordered. I did this for about two weeks, then I took some poems out, put more poems in. And eventually, by the time I was kind of happy with what I had, you know, I proofread it, then I found an editor, and I sent it to an editor. I found some of the reads here, found, and I spoke to this lady who's actually really free, a well-known poet, Martha Spracken. And she was amazing. She's she happened to be free. She just finished this big job she was working on, she happened to be free, and she started working on my work. And I think the first thing she said to me was, Oh, and Sunny, I've just read two of your poems, so I'm just having a cup of tea, and she says, They're they're great. And you know, she she just made a comment and it just made me feel she's the right person for my work. She she understands. It's finding the right person who, you know, is engaging with your work again. And uh two weeks later I had the copies back with the proofs and edits, and with the edits, not the proofs, the edits. So I started working through the edits, put that together, and then submitted it to Indigo, to Dawn. And the proofreading, that was another. I'm neurodiverse, so proofreading was pretty hard. I mean to proofread. I went through six proofreads because you know, then I thought, okay, it's just a little typos of words and double checking. And once that was done, it was like, oh my god, it's done now. This is great, it's finally done. And the cover. Now Ronnie was working on lots of other covers, so the cover designs came through a few weeks later, which is exciting. And he sent me some suggestions. Again, I saw this cover first, and he sent me a few others. I just couldn't decide immediately. And then I went back to the first choice because again, I somehow instinctively knew, but I don't know about you, because you write, it's like surrendering the final process to someone else. I found that challenging because I wanted to still have that element of control, and I had to let it go in the end, and and it's turned out, you know, I'm really pleased. But it's nerve wracking putting a book out into the world, isn't it? Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I was gonna say I think the title for the the collection of Wolves at my door, I think it's really really arresting. Really grabs your attention, I have to say, it's a great title, I have to say. Yeah. You mentioned as well about like, you know, deciding like when your work is ready. I think I think that's always hard. I talked about Sarah James and like when I wrote my first novel, I sent it off too early. I I wrote it, I edited it, but because it was my first go, really I should have waited a year or two because I re-edited it and cut loads of words out. I didn't rewrite lots. It was more it was more cutting, it was more just deciding what was important and what wasn't, and getting rid of what wasn't. But by then I'd already sent it to a lot of agents and they still rejected it. And it it was like i I I I think they probably probably would have rejected the second version anyway, to be honest. But it i I did learn a lesson from that. Sometimes you have to just leave it, but then other times you write a book, you write a poem, you can edit it and then leave it in a drawer for a year or two. You and then edit it again, you could do that. I'm not saying that's the wrong path, but at some point you just have to show it to the world, as you said there. You just have to go for it, and maybe most of the time, so for books, you do get turned down, but it i it I think it's a hard balance to take. With my poems, I hold on to them for quite a while. I I I just and I I I'm always re-editing my poems. I I go back and I I look at them again and you know, maybe a year later, and I'm like, oh, I use that word. Like and I I'm trying not to tell too much. And I go, Oh, that whole line's telling. And and and I think you can overanalyse it though. I think you can like the editor or a reader doesn't necessarily fixate on that line, or even a half a line. They don't. I think sometimes as as writers, we are our own worst critics, and I think that's an aspect of like the writing process and the publishing process that I think maybe like people who just read don't really appreciate. I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean you have to be a writer to truly experience that. Like I say, I find it hard sometimes to kind of gauge. Like I said, I think maybe my books, I think maybe I send them off too early, my poems, maybe I keep on to them too much. I don't know. I need to work out what's best, I would say. But yeah, yeah, yeah, winning the Jeff Stevens Memorial Prize, how did that feel? Like, how does it feel?
SPEAKER_00:It feels so still taking it in sometimes. I mean, the other day I was in the poetry library, I took some books in, I was holding on to uh to be renewed on Friday, and the guys at reception, one of the guys, Troy, he knows me, and he said to me, Oh, and guess what? There were a bunch of books on the table. My book was on the table. I was so shocked. I thought, wow, oh my god, my books landed at the poetry library and amongst all this other poets. It felt when I left there, I was pinching myself and I was speaking to a friend. I thought, wow, been coming here for years, and I never thought I'd be doing this. I'd be writing, I'd be a poet, I'd book out. So I'm thrilled, I'm really grateful, really thrilled, and I'm also thrilled for the the child, the child in me that wanted to write, I wanted to express itself, that sense of wonderment that anything's possible, you know, that when I take out the logic and intellect, it's like that sense of excitement, you know, that childlike feeling. I've always had that, and I still have that, and I love that because that's where the excitement is. I'm thinking, I can start a new project, I can start some working on something else. You know, forget the you know, the intellect that comes in and say, Well, that's a lot of work, and that's you know, you've got to go through all this again. So, no, it's great. I'm so grateful, I'm so grateful. And also I get to try out other things now, you know, maybe in the future, a pamphlet, I think, next or something on a theme. No, it's great. And it's also great to have a work out with the world, you know, my book out with the world, and to share that, share the poems with the other people. So they're not tucked away by folding my pages up, and you know, they've made it, they found a place in the world. And I think for me, the most thrilling experience I had recently was uh my brother brought a copy of the book and he read it, he was reading it and he called me so as he he received it, he read a few poems and had this conversation with him. Like it was really moving. So it was those personal moments and friends who emailed me at night later. Oh my god, I read this poem on page so and so. And you know, those moments have been really amazing, really touched me. Yeah, those just simple personal moments of friends, yes. So thrilled, up thrilled.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I can imagine going into the shop.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, because in poetry, not everybody reads poetry, but then I've had friends who bought my book and thought, oh, that's great. They and they're becoming interested in poetry, and they say my poet is ex is accessible, you know. Which again, I want it to be accessible. I want it to I want someone to pick up a book, my book and think, okay, yes, I understand. I feel, you know, I'm in that moment with you, the writer. So it's a great idea. It's very accessible. Yes, great way to connect with the world.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think it's because like because obviously you've you've experienced these things and you you you you feel deeply passionate about them and you're writing about them, there's a strong subject that comes through and they're they're very narrative driven. And I think people identify with that. I think they want to read a poem or a story that they can relate to. Even if they've not expressly lived your life, they'll have gone through discomfort and tragedy and it allows and then it kind of resonates back with them. I I I I do think m my own personal opinion about modern poetry is the best modern poetry, you know, is is not to what's what I'm looking for, not to it's not putting on airs, it's just telling telling a story or expressing emotion or describing an image, whatever. But it's doing it in an honest open way, with good language, to be honest. It's something I get from about as I say, I'm dipping back into like British poetry, and I really get that aspect of language, I think, the way words sound, especially on the page. And I think I think that come I think that comes through. I'm seeing a lot of at the moment short poetry as well, which I really like as well. Yeah, it's kind of it's I mean it's very interesting actually. Okay, uh so what so what what do you say, what are your next steps now for writing?
SPEAKER_00:Well, at the moment I'm still writing, I'm gonna work I'm doing some workshops at the moment with Marjorie Lofty, then in the morning, 7.30 for 30 minutes. We are looking through T.S. Eliot's uh poet lists, which is great, reading poems, two or three poems every morning, maybe taking a line from there as a prompt, and it's a way to start up some of our own writing. So I'm just working through some new poetry, poems, some new ideas, and uh yes, and I'm trying to read more. This year I want to read a lot more, and I want to read slowly because with poetry you can't speed read, you know, it's not fiction, even fiction. I think I want to read as a writer because that way I'm looking at how poems come together and how you know, and I admire so many po amazing poets out there. So there's so much to take in, and you know, and I love poet poets that challenge the form as well, experiment because it almost gives me the they inspire me to you know to try a new way of landing into the poem. So that's what I'm doing, lots of reading, I'm starting a workshop this coming Wednesday with Barbara. And also when I do other forms of creativity, you know, I want to do some watercolours, I do a lot of yoga, I do it some, you know, lots of stuff. That way you keep the muscle flowing, you know, it's not just one thing. Because I think when you have a full life, you you've got a lot more to write about. Not always traveling, you know, travelling within London, and there's lots to see in London. You've got exhibitions and you've got shows and films, and so many books to read I want to read. I've got lots of books on my desktop, you know, had time to read. Yeah. Now's a good time the winter. These months are quite a good time to indulge in reading.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, definitely. Yeah, you mentioned at the end, like about it's it's not just about writing and reading. You do need experience, you do need to get out. A big it's something I get from living in China. I've always inspired by my experience. My my last novel was inspired by where I live in Chengdu, in a really roundabout way, because it it it it's a dystopian fiction, but but I started to imagine well what would happen if there was no humans left on planet Earth. How quickly would nature bounce back? And I got that from here to like the Th'd be elephants here like a thousand years ago. And I was like, oh no, of course, that that species of elephants extinct now. And and I started to kind of think about that and kind of almost like kind of have a go forward or go backwards. And little things like that, and just been walking around and just yeah, walking next to rivers and just starting to imagine these things and think about it, and you know, but you can't do that if you just if you just sat inside writing and reading all day.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, I'm no, no. I'm pretty active, I've got to be out. I'm definitely ADHD. I need to go and do exercise every day, go for a walk, and and keep yourself stimulated, engaged. You know, if you just walk down a different street, different road, different neighborhood, you have a whole new experience. So it's been open to that, not just walking around with your headphones in, I guess, and just being mindful.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, sure. You were saying, I think before about the workshops you're doing now. I think you're saying, are you uh the chair now or or a co-chair?
SPEAKER_00:No, the workshops. So there's a I'm I'm I've joined Rebecca Swift's a women's organization, which is great. Open mic every eats once a month. They have a mic on a Sunday, and they often have really good poets who will do a workshop, there'll be QA. So I've got a membership there. And what I also do is have you heard of London Writer Salon? They're great. They're great, it's a great writing community, and uh it's based in London, but it's international. They have four writer hours. There's one in the morning, eight till nine. I usually join that. There's a New York one at one o'clock, and there's an Australian one, there's four times slots a day. And it's a whole community of writers. Sometimes there are two, three hundred people online, which I love. And you know, it's a 15 minutes uh session, and there's usually a reading at the beginning. You know, it's a meditation or a prompt or something inspiring. So all of a sudden, it's an inspiring inspiring quote. And that's great because you know, everyone's turned up. You'd have to have your camera on, you can bring your pajamas, have your cups of tea, but everyone's there to do the same thing, everyone's there to write, to create. They're writing, and people are doing amazing things. They're writing books and blogs, and so many people are creating substats, and you have students turning up doing their you know dissertations, so it's a really good energy. Because it's quite lonely being a writer. So for me, I like community, I like being in communities because it helps me to stay focused on present and also inspired, fueled, creatively fueled as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it does sound quite inspiring, I gotta say. You mentioned about like lonely being as a writer. Yeah, it that's the irony, isn't it? Uh writing is a very it's a lonely endeavor in the sense that you're writing, you have to be alone to write. And then and then with reading, you've got to be alone to read, that might be that's a few hours a day. But we need affirmation, we need to get books published, printed, you know, poems to win competitions. And to do that effectively, we have to move into you know, the public sphere, for want of a better word. And I think some people do find it very difficult. And it because it is difficult, it's I would say that's the reason.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean I can be an introvert and occasionally an extrovert, you know, so it's mostly an introvert, but I find I you know, I can go to a cafe, I can go to a really nice cafe nearby, have a pot of tea, and sit there for two hours and write an edit. I love that. I love being in nice spaces and just to be able to create. And uh, you know, somewhere too quiet, like in the and I go to a library, it's a really nice library near where I live. I go there on the first floor, that's another nice space. So it's finding nice spaces. I can go to a museum, you know, a couple of go to BNA, I can go and sit near the top floor, I can just go to these places and be creative. So it's just it's like having a date with yourself. You take it to go along with your laptop or your book, wherever, and you can write. Right? It's very easy. It's low-key, you have your notepadbook or your a tablet with you, and you can do that anyway, Wallace. I think I read about a part of the.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I really get the sense that you were yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Sorry, I was gonna say I read about a part of the who would go on long bus journeys just to write. What kind of like that, you know. He took a bus in the morning and just on the bus a whole day, just right, because you know, till he got some wet out, then it would come home.
SPEAKER_01:I like that idea. Riding on buses. I I I I was w when I first came to China, I was very inspired by bus journeys where you meet, you come into contact with, you sat next to, you sat behind, you sat in front of people from a different world. You know, effectively like subsistence farmers. You know, and do you speak captive? Very labouring class.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Do you speak any of the languages in China?
SPEAKER_01:A bit. A bit. I always say a bit. Uh I speak enough. Brilliant. Speaking I wish I spoke more, but I I'm not I'm not very good at languages. I I I write and I read, and that's you know, minimum two hours a day, you know, and and that's brilliant more most of the time.
SPEAKER_00:That's brilliant.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's a dedication.
SPEAKER_01:That's my learning language time. Yes. But I I wish I knew more Chinese because I think I'd know more about the culture and the people and I I would get a a deeper insight. But then because I don't have that language, I maybe observe more. And I'm I'm reading body language and I'm and I'm looking out the window more. So it it it's interesting how it if I could speak the language more, maybe I'd if it makes any sense, I'd be in people's faces more, which might not necessarily be a good thing. Talking to them, sure. But maybe because I can't do that, I kinda stand back a bit and I and I observe and like China's like very much like a land of contrast. Like my school, this is like multi million pound, you know, set of buildings. It's next to subsistence farming.
SPEAKER_00:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01:It it's you know, and and yeah, and it makes me and and and if if I if I'm there, I I get the contrast, and I write about it, it's a very powerful like emotion. You get an idea, I have to write it now. You know, writing down a note in a in a notebook and writing it in a month isn't really acceptable, I think, with the best poems anyway for me. Yeah, so I find China very, very powerful for that. Very powerful.
SPEAKER_00:You're at a fascinating place to be writing fiction.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but I was gonna say about yourself, like as I'm listening to you talking about moving around London and really get that sense you're moving around, you you're experiencing, you you're soaking it up. I get the sense that you're able to write in many different environments, even if it's just you know sitting down, but still you're able to write in many different environments at many different times of the day, I presume. I think that's I think maybe I got that as well from writing poetry. I think I think it's it's very necessary in the modern world, I think.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yes. I mean, I'm a morning person. In the morning, I love it when I have you had a Julia Cameron, Morning Pages. So I've been I've been doing Julia Cameron's morning pages, and this is that's what's brought me to poetry because remember her thing is first thing in the morning, long hand, write three pages, write down everything that's in your head. It's like emptying out your head or all of them whatever's going on. You know, whether you've things you need to do, things you haven't done, things lingering in your mind, and then out of out of from there, you kind of it sparks of some creativity and the meditation. But the writing in the morning, I'm really clear, that's when I want to write and edit. In the afternoon I can do some too, but by the afternoon, writing's different already. Some days I can, but in the evenings, I'm not I can't write in the evenings, find it very hard. I can read, I can read in the evenings, but writing, yes, I have time to make the most of those early hours of the day.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm very similar. I ideally I would write six till nine in the morning. Yes. No problem, but it it's not an ideal world. But I I think I get my best off is at the moment I have to write on the s on the bus, going to school in the morning and coming back. It's not ideal. Far from ideal. And I'm gonna bin that soon. I'm gonna move on. As my I've got a young kid and he's getting older, so from like February, March, I'm gonna go to riding at night time, like this time, because I'm just getting a bit sick of riding on buses, and it it was okay as a necessity to write. It was that I just wouldn't have had the time to write because I ran uh I work quite long hours at school, but I think I can maybe do it's hard to say actually my kid goes to bed at different times, but he can go to bed at eight in the evening. Yes, yes. He can also go to bed at ten. But I'd prefer not to be riding at night time, but I think it's gonna be better than the school bus. So I don't mind. I I do try to advise other writers, it it I think everybody has their own you know, what would we like, style or or comfort zone. But I do think to be successful, when I say successful, I mean just being productive. Forget validation for now. Yes, forget winning things are getting published, just just producing things. Yes, over a period of time, your life will go through change in your circumstances, and you you have to be able to go, right? I was riding in the morning, now I'm riding at night because this is different. Or I was riding in a quiet place, but now I'm riding in a noisy place, but I have to uh you have to write it, in my opinion, anyway.
SPEAKER_00:But no, I I hear you, you've got to be flexible. I mean, ho on holiday somebody asked me, Did you write? I said I did actually, while my partner was sleeping in the morning, I had to have a cup of tea, I'd sit outside and just write for 30 minutes. So it's like you learn to be flexible and you learn to become creative. We're creatives. You keep your options open. And if something comes to you, an idea, you've kind of gotta take you have to take advantage of that. If it's five minutes, try and get something down. So it's good to hear your system, good to hear how you yeah, incorporate your writing into every day, bus journeys, yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, yeah, my my I've been in writing, I've been living in China how long sixteen years. Oh wow, that's good, right? I've been writing all the time.
SPEAKER_00:Have you? That's amazing.
SPEAKER_01:Every year, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's inspiring. Sixteen years. Yes. So you must have a lot of work. You must have a a lot of work then.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. I'll be yeah, how many how many novels I've lost track? I think I wrote I think I've written twelve, but five of them are one series, so it's really seven fresh. But they they're not that long though. They I I typically write between 40,000 and uh sixty thousand words. Young adult literature is not too long, and I do like to write quite direct and and keep the pace going. And then poetry like one full-length collection that I'm brilliant. I've never I when when I wrote it, I was like, right, boom, finished, done. No, it's not finished. It is one of those that I I might have published fifty sonnets, but it's not finished. It I'm still writing like poems about China all the time. Yes. Maybe now just a few a year, but it it's quite substantial. Might you know, I would like to maybe publish again, maybe like a hundred sonnets, but I want quality of a quantity. I'm like, I reject a lot as well. I I'm a bit uh sometimes yeah, I'm a big believer in less is more as well. And fifty is a great round number.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:54 isn't. So there's always these things to consider, and you know, and yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But that'd be that'd be really interesting. I mean, that what a great theme.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Abs I mean, i i it's yeah, my my poetry collection is called Made in China.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And it's about I was made in China, things are made in China, the problems are made in China, because I I'm very socially conscious with that.
SPEAKER_00:So were you born in the China?
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no, I was born in the UK, but yes, I suppose I want to say I maybe I was born in China poetically.
SPEAKER_00:I see, I see. Made in China. I love that. That's great, that's great. That's a great angle to think about. That's yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and like a lot of my sonic titles, they they're meant three or four ways to give a bit more meaning. And like there was a lot in the early years of like a lot about the pollution and traffic, and maybe there still isn't, I try to write about the the the labouring people, and but then lately I've started to write a few more like nature poems and try to write about the beauty of nature at times, or how nature finds a way to survive or thrive, even in the middle of a city. And so it is it the whole thing's a big sonic sequence, but then within that, there's all these other mini mini sequences that are being added to all the time as I write, or new ones are created, if that makes sense. It it's I mean it's quite modern, it's not like you know, I'm not trying to be Shakespeare or anything, you know. Shall I compare Beijing to a thing? No, nothing like that. Nothing like that. Yes. I try to blend like like obviously the sonnets of traditional form, and I try to blend that with like a lot of modern themes, and again, I mentioned earlier about like British like poetry that the sound I think of the poem and the words are in very important, I think. I think a lot of British poets I think they've got a very keen sense of sound, how the words sound, and I'm really trying to do that with my poems as well. I'm trying, because it's something reading design whether I'm successful or not.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, it's a good reminder of sound.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I envy you. Do you? What's sorry?
SPEAKER_00:I didn't hear what you said. Sound and space, we were talking about what we're in poetry.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I've not gone down that kind of I I did publish some of these poems in small presses around the world, but I've just fallen out of that habit. But I think so I I I admire you a lot for you know carrying on doing that. And it it does seem does sound like a bit of an ordeal at times, but I think it's probably a worthy ordeal.
SPEAKER_00:It is, it is.
SPEAKER_01:I maybe I should have a go at sending my poems off again.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I think you should because it's it's a dedication, but it's gratifying too. Even now when I get rejections, I think, okay, I submitted so many. There's one acceptance, so many rejections, but it's still you know, you're still writing, submitting, putting the work out there.