Plus ça change....

....plus c'est la même chose.

It's still me. But a year (almost) since my last blog post. What excuse do I have? I just ran out of steam for blogging, I think, in the last of the three lovely years I spent in Lyon, France. The language became more familiar, so there was less bewilderment to write about. And then, suddenly, it was time to plan our departure, with all the ghastly logistics of moving.

I doubt there's anyone still out there at this point, but if there is, you may have noticed that the blog now has a very boring title, viz, my name. That's because I have no website and this is sort of instead of that.

Something exciting that's happened since I last posted is that a novel I wrote before going to France has now won an award and found a publisher. The book is called Inscription and it has won the Eludia Award. It will be published by Sowilo Press, an imprint of a foundation in Philadelphia called Hidden River Arts, which does wonderful work encouraging artists who are outside academia and the mainstream publishing world.

Since coming back to my home town I've attended two poetry events, and read a bit of my poetry at "open mic" sessions at both; which is coming full circle, in a way, as this is where I first read poetry aloud in public, as a member of the Young Arts Centre, when I was a teenager, eons ago.

But not a closed full circle; rather, a spiral. I hope to move outwards, onwards. And in this space I'd like to continue talking about words and language, but now to include books and writing and homecoming and Englishness and...well. Whatever, really.

Merci beaucoup for reading.