No/rmal

Two thirds of the way through a painting degree with the Open College of the Arts, I needed some text to insert into a large painting/collage illustrating the idea of rifts. Previous pieces in this series have been geo-political, socio-political, and imagined; this one is about mental capacity and health. I’ve spent my professional life as a clinical psychologist working with adults with intellectual disabilities. When I began in the 1980s, they were still ‘mentally handicapped patients’ housed in huge, bleak, emotionally barren institutions. The classification was an improvement on previous terminology, much of which has found its way into … Continue reading No/rmal

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Not Being First Fish – second edition with illustrations and six new stories

I don’t have to launch my books, they just slip their moorings at dead of night and sneak off. This one, ostensibly by the elusive P Spencer Beck, made its escape yesterday. Described by one reader, who may or may not be a friend and who may or may not have been referring to letting it get loose at all, as ‘sheer lunacy’, this is a work of non-fiction. Little diary snippets reliant on the single perspective and grossly biased memory of the one observer so most likely of dubious veracity.  Not exactly fake news, more hake news, i.e a … Continue reading Not Being First Fish – second edition with illustrations and six new stories

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Unlocked: five more audio tracks of poems & short stories

All from the Let me Tell You a Story anthology. Here’s ‘Tantric Twister‘ by multi prize-winner Tracy Fells, who is also a very naughty girl! Lyn Jennings, who isn’t – here reading her poem ‘Heatwave’, and you know you need that as the nights draw in up here in the north! There’s Nguyen Phan Que Mai’s gentle poem, ‘Mrs Moreno’,  about grief and comfort, and Phillippa Yaa de Villiers’ insightful ‘Breastsummer‘, an awakening so many of us will recognise. Finally, a bit of sci fi; a tale of first contact but not as we know it, Jim. This is ‘When Gliese Met … Continue reading Unlocked: five more audio tracks of poems & short stories

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“Aliens on Your Sofa”

Today, we’re off to the Vet’s and it’s the turn of Ms Muppet and General Montgomery … Aiming for nonchalance, I set out the two carriers in a separate room.  These are minutely explored, inspected and then inhabited by every cat except my two targets so that guerrilla tactics have finally to be employed. Nabbing Ms Muppet, who is essentially a two-cat-cat-in-a-one-cat-pack, I go for the cooperative approach, pointing her at the entrance to the carrier and shoving gently from behind. So she does what cats uniquely do under those circumstances and morphs into a star shape, grabs the sides … Continue reading “Aliens on Your Sofa”

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