Lions and Redheads

Don't trust either is what I say ... As you can see though, I now have some glorious cover art for Dancing with Lions, my next short story from Untreed Reads. Which is due out on 1 March, if not earlier. Thanks, Jay! You can also read an extract from the beginning of it here. Enjoy! I've completed a book trailer for it and will upload that nearer the time. Good news indeed.

Keeping briefly to matters Godly (ho ho), my review of Lucy Winkett's Our Sound is Our Wound is now up at Vulpes Libris, in the 17 February slot, ie yesterday. It's a fabulous book and Winkett is one of the few church people I take note of. Being one of the few who makes sense. Besides, how can anyone resist a woman who trained as a professional singer yet sets such great store by silence?

And I've now received my contract for GLBT short story, The Delaneys and Me, for Amber Allure, so have signed that and will get it sent back to them soonest. It's due out on 18 April.

I haven't been deserting the poetry though - here's this week's poetry course offering, which takes a personal view of my own special people:

Redheads

are fragile
like onions.
You can peel us
down to the heart
if you know how
though we won’t let you
see us cry.

We always carry suncream –
factor 50 – even in winter
but no need for you
to draw our attention
to this:
we already know it.

No, our hair
doesn’t come from a bottle
and yes it is real.
Please don’t pull it.
That applies to the hair
down below too. Why ever
would you expect it not to?

No and, again, no,
we really aren’t ill.
We’re always this pale.
It’s a matter of suncream

and onions.


I was also scribbling around last night with some free writing and came up with this one, in honour of the lovely day we had yesterday:

Aroma

The first good day
of the year:

bright skies
and somewhere

the almost scent
of blossom.


Off to London tonight to catch up with Jane W (hello, Jane!) and celebrate our good working news. Jane's got a lovely new job (hurrah!) and I now have the grand title of Executive Assistant to the Director of Student Care. Well, gosh - you'd better all start minding your manners. I'm important, at last!

Anne's website - proving you can't put a good redhead down
The Prayer Seeker's Journal - proving there's life in religion after all