Rentboys, boardrooms and hope

Book News:

I was very happy to see that the upcoming Rentboys Anthology from Riptide Publishing,  which includes my own story Where You Hurt The Most, was mentioned on Top 2 Bottom Reviews this week - very exciting indeed.

I've also just caught sight of the book cover for gay short story The Delaneys At Home (Delaneys *5), which will be available on 3 June and very happy I am with it too. Just the right amount of humour and cheekiness that I hope people get from the series, ho ho.

In the midst of all this, I've started a gay short story/novella set in a boardroom battle scenario which I'm hoping to submit to Riptide Publishing over the summer. Very early days at the moment and definitely no title as yet, but hopefully that will turn up at some point ...

Meanwhile, you can find an interview about me and gay short story The Heart's Greater Silence over at Blak Rayne's Blog, where you can discover my favourite colour, my favourite film and who I'd really like to be. Could be in for a surprise then ...

And at Vulpes Libris Reviews, I find myself a little disappointed with Ken N Kamoche's short story collection, A Fragile Hope. Rather more fragility than hope there, in my opinion, ah well.


This week's meditation poems are:


Meditation 640
Following the party
the riot –
it’s the way
after far too much wine.

So stick to the safety
of bread
and beware
the fruit of the vine.




Meditation 641
In the face of disaster
and a vast sea
of enemies and fear

it’s a powerful act
to step back and trust
that somehow God is near.




Meditation 642
Every word we say
and decision we take
are ripples on the pond
of the whole world

for we cannot measure
by tongue or hand
the secret influence
of our life unfurled.


Life News:

Fabulous news from work this week! We've been shortlisted for the second year running for the Times Higher Education Student Services Awards, which is really thrilling. I'm hoping we'll win this year as the awards ceremony takes place on my birthday, and of course because the University of Surrey Student Support team is obviously the best there is, by a long chalk. Wish us luck!

At home, we've now spotted goldfinches in the garden (hurrah!) and now K and I have both heard the first cuckoo of the year, well gosh. I did actually hear it a few days ago on 12 April, along with several other people in Elstead, so it's arrived earlier than last year when (in case you're interested ...) you might like to know that the first cuckoo in 2011 arrived in our parts on 17 April. So a week early this year - must be the call of the countryside.

Had a great time last night catching up with some friends from the company I used to work for during dinner and chat in Guildford (many thanks, J, M & A!) - though much amusement arose from the fact that somehow A and I managed to miss J & M in the restaurant/bar, and we were only united by the fact that J could hear my voice from a whole room and a dividing wall away and eventually realised it wasn't some kind of auditory nightmare, but was in fact me ... Well, who ever said I needed a phone? I just open the window and shout.

Tonight, K and I are out at the theatre to see Wife Begins At Forty. Which is rather curious as we originally booked tickets for Two Into One, also by the same playwright. So we've been bamboozled for a while as to which alternative universe we are currently in, but the theatre have rescued us from our displacement anomaly by explaining they couldn't get the actors for the original one so had to replace it. Apparently the letter telling us all manner of thing would be well in spite of us having the incorrect tickets never arrived, alas. Good job I looked it up then (I usually don't) though whether we would actually have noticed is anyone's guess. Well, one farce is much like another, isn't it? Hush my mouth.

Finally, I've been impressed by the NHS's First Steps for Emotional Wellbeing site, which has been set up to help us all with our wellbeing. Some interesting stuff there, and as I'm facing scaling down my antidepressants over the next month or two, then I'm sure it will come in very useful indeed.

Anne Brooke
Gay Reads UK
Gathandria Fantasy Trilogy
Biblical Fiction UK

Butterflies, Brits and bestsellers

Book News:

Sad to say, this weekend sees the end of British Fortnight at Brief Encounter Reviews, and what a fantastic fortnight it's been. I've learnt a heck of a lot about my fellow UK gay fiction writers and, if you missed my slot (as it were), you can find it on 22 March. Many thanks, Tam & Jen, for arranging it all, and thank you to everyone who took part.

Good news this week is that I've broken the 120,000 word marker in The Executioner's Cane, with only the last chapter to go, plus the epilogue. Lordy, but it's been a mammoth task and I was beginning to think I'd never reach this point. Once I've finally written "The End", I shall collapse for a month and not write a thing, and certainly not another trilogy, please God no. Though, hell, but I'm going to miss Simon and the Gathandrians, not to mention the mind-cane - they've been part of my ruddy life for so damn long, I can't think what I shall do without them ...

Also today, you can find an interview with me at The Accidental Author, where I discuss art, handbags and the vital importance of coffee. Many thanks to Jesse for arranging it and asking such great questions. Meanwhile, I'm happy to say that The Girl in the Painting is once more in the Untreed Reads bestsellers' list - for March it came in at Number 3, so I'm very pleased with that. I have no idea why that particular story continues to be quite so popular, but I'm glad it is! Thank you to everyone who's bought a copy, and I hope you enjoyed it.

At Amber Allure Press, all my books can be found at a 25% discount during April, so don't forget to treat yourself to a scintillating shopping experience for spring. You know you want to ...

Recent meditation poems are:




Meditation 512
The last thing he sees
is the royal garden

wrapped in night-time quiet,
the scent of daylight flowers

still hinted on the faint breeze
that lifts his hair

as the distant stars look down,
majestic and unaware.




Meditation 513
It’s a history
not of kings
or people
but of objects:

bronze columns and carts,
tanks, shovels, lamps,
sacrificial bowls and coals
and incense.

All the paraphernalia
of rich and poor
who in this, their story,
live no more.


The Sunday haiku is:

The duck stalks my bench:
expectation on her beak,
water off my back.


Life News:

The middle neighbours seem to be playing silly devils again, sigh, and this time not with us. They've apparently laid claim to both sheds and their contents in the garden, even though only one of them belongs to them, and the other one is the ground floor neighbours'. Also it appears that the new middle neighbour might (if he ever arrives ...) consider (from what he's been told by them) that all the garden belongs to him, when in fact he only has the rear section of the back garden and nothing whatsoever of the front. Another deep sigh, eh. The upshot is that I've advised the tenants of the ground floor to let the ground floor owners know this is happening, and of course we're prepared to help them hang onto what is theirs if we need to! Lordy, when will it all end? I do so wish I was out of here ...

On the up side, I enjoyed golf on Friday with Marian, and she beat me by one shot on the last hole, oh the shame of it! Still we were neck and neck up to that point so the crowds (should there ever be any) were going wild with excitement, hey ho. And The Mentalist was great in the evening so rounded off the week quite well. Not only that but I've started wearing earrings again - when I'm depressed I just can't bring myself to care enough to change them (I think I've actually worn the same fall-back pair for about two or three years now, which should really have told me something, if I'd bothered to listen ...), but yesterday and today I have put different pairs in. Maybe the anti-depressants are working? I do think they might be and I hope it continues, hurrah.

Yesterday, K and I had a lovely lunch out at and a walk round Wisley. The orchid display in the Greenhouse was particularly stunning and is well worth a visit if you have time - it last until the end of April. We also loved the sense of spring coming to the garden - with the camellias, rhododendrons and daffodils out in all their splendour, and huge amounts of butterflies. We saw in one half-hour a brimstone, an orange-tip, a tortoiseshell and a peacock butterfly. So many out so early in the year - it was astonishing really. Wisley also have a brand-new bird-hide and, though we didn't see many birds there, we did see a grass snake about two foot long (enormous!) swimming along the river. I've never seen any snake swim so that was a first for me. It stayed quite a time too which was wonderful. The yellow collar behind the head was very obvious.

Today, of course, it's Mothers Day - and Mother (Gawd bless 'er!) woke us at 8.45am when we were enjoying a much-needed lie-in to thank us for our presents. Still, I only have myself to blame for being a lazy stop-in-bed - as a farmer's daughter I should be ashamed of myself as my inheritance is that I should be up at 6am daily and working out in the fields. Dream on!... Anyway, Mother is off to London with her theatre group for a concert and I hope she has a fabulous day. Tonight, it's the joys of Lewis on TV, and I can't wait. It's got to be better than the new Midsomer Murders, that's for sure.

Anne Brooke

Oranges and poetry

Well, the combination just has to be good for you. And today oranges are the only fruit. Or at least they are in the Lord H/Brooke household, where the supply of apples and bananas has reached the vanishing point. And no chance of me getting to the shops before Wednesday. Ah well. I do have a small supply of dried apricots, so should still be able to keep scurvy at bay.

The usual Monday morning drag today. It was an effort being awake, let alone attempting to look like a competent administrator. I think it’s the same for everyone though, as we were all heads down and no talking. Or perhaps we were all actually asleep and the typing noise was simply everyone’s noses rebounding off the keyboard. Wouldn’t surprise me, but I couldn't be arsed to turn round and check.

Took the minutes for the Wellbeing Group at lunchtime. It was a bit fluid, but we do have some ideas - hurrah! One of which is the Students' Union coming up with the goods once more. They're organising a "Know Yourself" month during February and March, with a focus on mental wellbeing and self-awareness. Sounds great to me - luckily staff are included, so we won't have to chain ourselves to the door and beg to be let in to the fun stuff again. That'll make a change.

This afternoon, I found myself sinking into a slough of despond again, and only managed to drag two pages of the minutes out of my notes and up onto the screen - when really I could easily have got the whole lot done. Got quite tearful a couple of times, but I don't think my immediate colleagues noticed. Thank God. I do hate explanations which involve weeping. Mine, that is. Though Sally from Student Advice did pop in and had a lovely chat with me - I can always talk to her (thank you, Sally!) - and we've arranged to go for coffee when we're both free in a couple of weeks' time, so that will be nice. Apparently, this may not - for once! - be all my own fault though, as today is supposed to be the most depressed day of the year. Bloody hell - I didn't know there was a rule. Think we should have been warned! Still, at least Lord H sent virtual hugs through the email, which are always appreciated, as in: (((Anne))). He's a genius with the keyboard ...

Oh, and I made two important decisions last night – mainly for my own mental wellbeing, let alone anyone else’s. I’ve decided to stop putting “Maloney’s Law” in the marketplace and have offered it to the Goldenford (http://www.goldenford.co.uk) Gang. One reply is keen so far (thanks, Irene!), but no response from the others yet. But don’t get too excited if the answer is yes, as it’ll take its place in the queue along with everything else, so I imagine the back end of 2008, at the very earliest. But there's lots of other good Goldenford stuff coming before then, so don’t forget to save up for the best books in the south!

And I’ve decided to self-publish another poetry collection – my last one was in 2004, so it’s about time for another, I think. I’m not going to wait for any more small publishers not to respond (there’s really no point trying the main poetry publishers – unless you’re related to Hughes or Plath, they don’t even bother replying …), so I’ve sent an email to Poetry Monthly Press (http://www.poetrymonthly.com) to see if they’re interested in printing it. They run a small self-publishing facility for poets, and it would be nice to get something out there this year that I can at least control. And it’ll have some award-winning and magazine-published pieces in, so probably worth a couple of quid or so. And hey stop press on this - Martin Holroyd from PMP has asked me to send him a floppy disc of the collection, which I'm calling "A Stranger's Table" after one of the poems in it. So I've spent tonight getting it organised and copied to disc. It's now wrapped in an envelope within an envelope ready for posting tomorrow. I hope he agrees to let it go through his system, as I know he doesn't take everything.

Ooh, and the lovely Sue Haywood has decided to opt for playtime advertising of "Pink Champagne and Apple Juice", a picture of which you can see here: http://www.teafriendsandchocolate.com/sue/ - under her blog of today's date. Great picture, Sue! Thank you very much! Not sure what Health & Safety would say though ...

And Lord H (bless him!) has bought apples and bananas, to add to our orange supply - so they're not the only fruit after all ...

Today’s nice things:

1. Making two publication decisions
2. Getting through Monday - thank God!
3. Seeing the picture on Sue's site.

Anne Brooke
http://www.annebrooke.com