And here we go into the new year. I’m excited but also a bit overwhelmed by it all.  The next three months are likely to be three of the craziest months I’ve had in a long time….and that’s saying a lot. January will see me getting back to work on promoting A Clash of Innocents and preparing to promote my new poetry collection.  That collection comes out in mid-February. It’s called Her Life Collected and consists of over 60 poems revealing the internal life of a woman during the three stages of womanhood.  But more on that later…lots more 🙂  And then on February 28 I leave for a month-long charity book tour of SE Asia — from Bangkok to Siem Reap and Phnom Penh in Cambodia, to Singapore.  Setting this tour up, organizing events, workshops and book shop orders has been a herculean effort.  Much more than either I, or I dare say my publisher, ever thought it would be when I first had this wild idea.  But thankfully, I’ve had many people’s help, including that of my Bangkok-based blogging friend, JJ at Tea Stains. I’m happy to say that Santa bought me a camcorder for Christmas just so I could bring you all along with me via short films on my blog.  I’ll have to learn how to use it over the next few weeks.  But once again, more on that later…much more.  But if anyone has any ideas of how I should keep a blog journal of this trip do leave a comment — how often should I blog (I don’t want to inundate you all)? Besides doing events, I’ll also be running workshops with kids and doing research for the next book.  Should I talk about all of that or keep it more focused? I’m always looking for new ways to keep my bog interesting.

But now, first things first — this week.  The big event this week is the London launch on Friday of Ward Wood’s first 2 poetry collections.  I’ll be there cheering my fellow WW’ers on and I urge anyone in London and free on Friday at 7 pm to come along as well to the Lumen Centre, 88 Tavistock Place WC1 near Russell Square.  There you will get to hear Ann Alexander read from her new collection, Too Close, and Mike Horwood from his book, Midas Touch.  Both collections are wonderful and I’m humbled to have my poetry published alongside theirs.  The event will be part of the series of readings which benefit the Cold Weather Shelters, and as usual with these readings, there will be ample time for floor spots and the chance to leave one of your poems to be considered in the Ward Wood competition being judged by Carol Ann Duffy.  If you can’t make it to the event on Friday evening, you can still enter the competition by following the guidelines here.  I urge you to do it.  The published anthology will be full of fantastic poems by well-known poets as well as newcomers, and again, it all goes to support the Cold Weather Shelter charity.

And what does next week have in store for me? Stay tuned.