Appreciating 2012

Ros Barber
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Between Will Brooker and Irvine Welsh at the Edinburgh Book Fest 2012
Between Will Brooker and Irvine Welsh at the Edinburgh Book Fest 2012

On this final day of 2012 I want to acknowledge what an incredible year it has been for me.  The publication of The Marlowe Papers in May was the realisation of a childhood dream and in the hardback Sceptre produced something incredibly beautiful that I would adore even if it didn’t have my name on the spine. Launch day couldn’t have been more perfect.  Will Self was incredibly generous to give his time and brilliance (especially given the front of his house had just collapsed!) to create a launch event worthy of one of my favourite places on earth, The British Library – and co-create an entertaining and thought-provoking evening.  And then the reviews in the press and on the radio: copious and enthusiastic.  This was the year that Twitter finally came into its own for me; I loved the fact that readers swept away by the book could so easily let me know and more than one day started with the news that someone, somewhere, was blown away by the words I’d been quietly honing for half a decade.

The highlight for me was probably the Edinburgh International Book Festival: a wonderful experience.  I’ve been invited to many literature festivals over the years in my capacity as a poet, but the EIBF beats all others so far in terms of hospitality to its authors.  Authors often spend years (indeed, decades) feeling like outsiders; we are observers rather than get-stuck-inners, therefore not great joiners, even though we long (as all humans do) to feel like we belong.  Edinburgh managed to generate a feeling of belonging and being appreciated that I have rarely found elsewhere. It spurred me on properly begin (after over a year’s composting) the next novel, motivated by the knowledge that I must write another book to have a chance of being invited again.

Other highlights?  It will be hard to forget sitting in a Norfolk farmhouse on May Bank Holiday weekend, surrounded by my extended family, hiding under my hair and barely daring to  breathe as I waited for the first pre-publication feedback – the verdict of the critics on Saturday Review.  Or the moment where Will Self wittily demolished my father-in-law’s heckle on historical bibles.  Or asking an editor at the Bookseller what he thought of reading the book a second time and his answering ‘I haven’t stopped reading it’.   Then there was the moment on the train up to Yorkshire where the opening of the next novel arrived unbidden, followed by the wonderful New Novelist’s night in the recently flooded Hebden Bridge.

It has been an amazing year.  2013 sees the book published in the USA, my travelling to Staunton Virginia to deliver a paper at the 7th International Marlowe Society of America conference, running a writing retreat in the Dordogne, and many other exciting things.  It feels like life is just beginning.

 

Writing Retreat in the Dordogne – Book Now!

Ros Barber
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Dordogne Writing Retreat

Fully Catered Writing Retreat in South West France – 16-21 June 2013

Poetry at Le Manoir de Gurson, Dordogne

Looking for a writing retreat somewhere beautiful and relaxing with a professional writer to guide you? You and your writing are at the centre of this writing retreat in the heart of the Dordogne. 

Prize-winning poet and novelist Ros Barber will inspire you and help you hone your writing in a structured-yet-relaxing week of creative focus. Whether you are writing poetry or prose, bringing a manuscript in progress or beginning a new writing project, Ros will individually guide each participant to help them get the most out of their week and their writing. Ros can also give advice on getting your work published.

After a delicious breakfast, the mornings will be about knuckling down to writing, with a mix of structured workshops where you can generate new ideas and explore new approaches. Alternatively, you choose to work alone on your own writing in your room or anywhere else in the locality. Just before lunch, Ros will facilitate a feedback session, where you will give and receive feedback on any writing you’d like to share with other participants.

The afternoons are your own: for writing in the house or the extensive grounds, gaining inspiration from the surrounding countryside and villages, or just lazing by the pool allowing the ideas to flow to you. You’ll be offered a one-to-one mentoring session during the week, so bring some work-in-progress to discuss with Ros. There will also be plenty of opportunities for ad hoc sharing and guidance.

After the evening meal, we’ll gather together for a relaxed combination of reading and discussion over a glass or two of wine.

Dordogne Writing Retreat

 Relax in Style

Le Manoir de Gurson is the ideal venue for such a venture, nestling in 98 acres of beautiful scenery in South West France.  You will be inspired by all around you, and benefit from Ros’ experience on a first-hand basis while you spend time with like-minded people in a spectacular setting.

When you are not writing, you may like to spend time on the sun terrace, or in the pool which overlooks the hidden valley, fishing lakes and woods.

This is the place with the space to relax, unwind, and be inspired.

Le Manoir has been awarded 4-star rating, and every bedroom has private en-suite facilities.  There is a large fully-equipped kitchen, lounge with tv, front and rear halls, 5 en-suite bedrooms (4 kingsize, one twin) and private pool.

Ros Barber is the author of three collections of poetry, including Material, a Poetry Book Society recommendation.  Her work has been featured on Radio 3’s The Verb and Radio 4’s Saturday Review and Poetry Please. Critically acclaimed verse novel The Marlowe Papers is longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2013, was listed in the Observer’s Books of the Year 2012 and was joint winner of the Hoffman Prize 2011.  For twelve years a creative writing tutor at the University of Sussex, she now tutors for the Arvon Foundation, Ty Newydd, and the Poetry School in London.

For full details of the week, and to book, CLICK HERE

Why Dylan Thomas means a lot to me

Ros Barber
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Dylan Thomas Festival

On Wednesday I read with Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea as part of the Dylan Thomas Festival. I was very excited about the invitation, and it was only when the organiser, Jo Furber, asked me about whether Dylan Thomas had influenced me, that I realised why it meant so much to me.

I first remember being aware of Dylan Thomas when I was about eleven and my older brother studied Under Milk Wood at school. He relished the language and humour and started reciting chunks of it at home in his best Richard Burton impression. I’m glad to say his class were listening to it, not just reading it. I don’t think I’d realised before the importance of hearing poetry and the great pleasure of speaking it – particularly so with the kind of poetry that fills the mouth as this does. My brother was thrilled with the ‘naughtiness’ of Llareggub and that made a great impression on me, too. Neither of us realised you could be a serious and respected poet and subtly slip in something so rude (as we perceived it). And there was more, of course. My brother’s enthusiasm prompted my mother to dig out a Dylan Thomas collection from the bookcase, and although some of it was beyond me then, I knew Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night very well by the time my brother died three years later. I know that’s the one villanelle everyone digs out when they’re teaching form – something else that has been immensely important to me – but it remains the pinnacle of that particular form, and for good reason. The containment of strong emotion in the manacles of a tight form gives it great power, and that’s probably the most important thing I learnt from this particular master.

I was thrilled to appear at the Dylan Thomas Festival – a festival where the focus is, thanks both to its namesake and location, so much on a fundamental love of language and its musicality. It’s one of my greatest joys to read poetry to an appreciative audience. For me, poetry is meant to be experienced in the mouth and in the ear, and it’s always a thrill to bring those flat words on the page to life for the pleasure of other language lovers.  And I’m sure my brother was there in spirit.

Where Does the Day Go?

Ros Barber
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Yesterday, the day went to the Wantage (not just) Betjeman Festival.   After giving the dog his customary walk, and failing to do my daily yoga, leaving at nine to drive to Portsmouth and pick up a big fan of The Marlowe Papers who I’ve got to know a little over the last few months via Facebook and Twitter.  She’ s disabled and the public transport between Portsmouth and Wantage isn’t the easiest to negotiate even for the most sprightly of us – and I thought, what the heck, spare seat in the car, only a small diversion off an alternative route, maybe half an hour longer in total.  We got there an hour early so we could have lunch which was on her as a thank you (she also gave me a very lovely planted flower arrangement). The disabled badge was handy parking-wise.

I ran a creative writing workshop for seven people from 1-3pm;  they were a good bunch, willing and good-humoured, and Dorothy, chief organiser there at the Vale & Downland museum, commented on the laughter coming through the walls.    Between 3.15 and 5.30 I wrote just over 400 words of the next novel at a table in the cafe.  From 6 until 7 I did my scheduled reading and talk on The Marlowe Papers.  A fabulously lively and interested audience asked some great questions after the reading and – as usual – we could easily have gone on, but there was another event slated.    Then back to Brighton via Portsmouth, roof down all the way (the chief benefit of travelling by car, in my view) and pretty much straight to bed. Read more →

Get Published – Advice for Young Poets

Ros Barber
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Young Poets Network - get publishedI returned to my old home town of Colchester recently to give a talk at one of my old schools, and was asked by a young poet there how to get published. Specifically,

  • which are the best magazines or journals to submit to when you want to get published?

and

  • is there any way of getting past the shredder other than the poems themselves being very good?

So I thought I’d lay out a few useful pointers for young poets looking to make their way in the world. Read more →

Me and My Big Mouth

Ros Barber
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Alliteration alert. I’m a pretty positive person nowadays. It’s policy not to carp, criticize or complain.

I broke that rule in my last post. And what happened? Within hours I had developed a stinker of a cold (the first for two years) and the next day a motorist opened their door and knocked me off my bike. I take that as reasonable feedback. Do what you want with your public art projects. I’ll find of way of getting peaceful with it.

In the meantime, here’s me spouting off again. Many thanks, as ever, to Tim Pieraccini.

The Marlowe Papers at Wantage Betjeman Festival

Ros Barber
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Vale & Download Museum, Wantage

Workshop  1-3pm   £10

Reading      6pm        £6/£4

Ros Barber’s critically acclaimed verse novel The Marlowe Papers has been called ‘the best read, so far, this year’ (Sunday Express), ‘elegant and charmingly playful’ (Sunday Telegraph), ‘a thrilling alternate version of Marlowe’s life’ (Observer) and ‘a gripping addition to the authorship debate’ (The Times).  It has also been hailed as ‘surprisingly accessible’ (Time Out) and ‘as excitingly plotted as any holiday thriller… The Marlowe Papers thunders along like an episode of some Elizabethan 24’ (Literary Review).  
Ros herself is renowned for the entertaining and powerful quality of her live readings.  Come and hear Ros read from, and talk about, The Marlowe Papers at Wantage Betjeman Festival on Tuesday 30 October at 6pm.  Questions on the research behind the novel (e.g. Elizabethan spy networks) and the process of getting a verse novel published by a mainstream publisher are very welcome.   You can hear an extract of Ros reading The Marlowe Papers, and download a free mp3 audio of the opening chapter, at www.rosbarber.com.  More details, and online ticket booking here: http://bit.ly/TfGj6x

The Marlowe Papers was joint winner of the Hoffmann Prize in 2011. It was published by Sceptre (Hodder & Stoughton) in May 2012 and will be published in the US by St Martin’s Press (Macmillan) in January.
Ros will also be running a poetry workshop from 1pm-3pm.  Tickets (£10) to be booked separately.

The Marlowe Papers at the Dylan Thomas Festival 2012

Ros Barber
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Wednesday, 7 November, 7.30pm

Ros Barber and Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch at the Dylan Thomas Festival 2012

Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch’s acclaimed third collection, Banjo (Picador), commemorates the arrival of Captain Scott at the South Pole in 1912, exploring the way in which music and theatre enabled the ice-bound communities to survive. Ros Barber’s The Marlowe Papers (Sceptre) is an extraordinary novel in verse, telling Christopher Marlowe’s alternative story, in which he is exiled to France and writes plays and poetry under the name William Shakespeare. Both will be reading from their work at the Dylan Thomas Festival 2012.

Ros Barber’s critically acclaimed verse novel The Marlowe Papers has been called ‘the best read, so far, this year’ (Sunday Express), ‘elegant and charmingly playful’ (Sunday Telegraph), ‘a thrilling alternate version of Marlowe’s life’ (Observer) and ‘a gripping addition to the authorship debate’ (The Times).  It has also been hailed as ‘surprisingly accessible’ (Time Out) and ‘as excitingly plotted as any holiday thriller… The Marlowe Papers thunders along like an episode of some Elizabethan 24’ (Literary Review).

Ros herself is renowned for the entertaining and powerful quality of her live readings.  Come and hear Ros read from, and talk about, The Marlowe Papers at the Dylan Thomas Festival 2012 in Swansea on Wednesday 7  November at 7.30 pm.  Questions on the research behind the novel (e.g. Elizabethan spy networks) and the process of getting a verse novel published by a mainstream publisher are very welcome.   You can hear an extract of Ros reading The Marlowe Papers, and download a free mp3 audio of the opening chapter, at www.rosbarber.com.
The Marlowe Papers was joint winner of the Hoffmann Prize in 2011. It was published by Sceptre (Hodder & Stoughton) in May 2012 and will be published in the US by St Martin’s Press (Macmillan) in January 2013.

Full Price: £6 Concessions: £4.20 Swansea PTL: £2.40

You can buy tickets online (a small booking fee applies) for Dylan Thomas Festival events or ring  01792 463980.

Reading in Nayland, Suffolk

Ros Barber
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Signed copies of The Marlowe Papers will be sale here The Marlowe Papers near Colchester

Ros is returning to her old stomping ground to read from The Marlowe Papers at Stoke By Nayland on Thursday 20 September. The Independent said of her book this month:

“Treason, heresy, espionage, counterfeiting, brawling and some lusty but distinctly illegal ménages à trois are all thrown into the mix, with a spritz of gallows humour.

Themes of identity and self-esteem, of truth and loyalty, give substance to Barber’s enthralling plot in a work that combines historical erudition with a sharply satisfying read. Marlowe’s passion infects the page; Barber’s skill draws the fever.”

– The Independent, Sept 11 2012

Ros will be reading from The Marlowe Papers, answering questions about it, and generally catching up with old pals at this charming establishment of David Charleston’s:

The Open Road Bookshop
Park Street
Stoke-by-Nayland
Suffolk
CO6 4SE

on Thursday 20 September 2012
7pm – 8pm

FREE

Do come along if you’re in the vicinity.

Crap Writing in Public Art Projects

Ros Barber
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crap writing in public art projectsIf you’ve been to the British Library recently, you’ll notice there are new words on the walls in the cafe and restaurant. These words are the result of the ‘Writing London’ project.  They were produced by young people aged 18-21 supported by the Foyer Foundation, who worked with a writer, artist and photographer to respond to their environment.  The project was funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.  Nothing I’m about to write is intended as a criticism of the young people or the poet involved. I completely understand the well-meaning intentions of public art projects of this sort, having been involved in similar projects myself over the years.  It is a Good Thing to engage young people in a creative process and to help them feel more empowered in their own expression.  Everyone has to start somewhere. However, I can’t agree with the increased tendency of such projects to plaster the words of absolute beginners onto public spaces.

No-one dares speak up about this. We live in an age where competitive sports are avoided in primary schools, where everyone gets a certificate for taking part but no-one comes first, where We Are All Winners.  But if the very first thing one ever writes is deemed good enough to adorn the public spaces of the British Library, why bother ever writing anything else?  You have achieved a writing pinnacle.  You’ve proved to yourself is that this writing thing is piss-easy; so easy that it has no value.

Let me give you some examples of the phrases that filled my heart with despair.  This runs along the wall of the cafe:

Read more →