Writing Prize & YouTube video goes live!

It’s official! The 2014 Mother’s Milk Books Writing Prize is now open and accepting entries. For more details about the prizes, who the judges are and how to enter please click here.

Also… as I’m writing this post, two of my authors, the wonderful Angela Topping and Cathy Bryant, are getting ready for their poetry gig at 8th Day in Manchester tonight. They will be joined by the poets Rosie Garland and Sarah Miller. Due to family reasons I can’t be there unfortunately, but hopefully this video of Cathy reading her poem ‘Look At All The Women’ will be *almost* as good as being there in person! Please do have a watch and share it if you enjoy it.

‘Look At All The Women’ by Cathy Bryant

Wonderful reviews for Look At All The Women keep popping up. The reviewer in the summer issue of Mslexia thought it “wickedly funny” and Zion Lights – writer, journalist, mama – recently wrote on Twitter that she was “Blown away by Cathy Bryant’s poetry in Look At All The Women“. Stephanie Siviter, who won a copy of Cathy’s book in the Story of Mum Twitter party giveaway, commented: “Delighted to win a copy. Shed tears reading it & laughed too.” She also added that “it has inspired me to start writing poetry again. A woman definitely to aspire to.”

I don’t think you can ask much more from a poetry collection can you?!

If you’d like to get inspired by Cathy or Angela’s poetry collections why not pop on over to The Mother’s Milk Bookshop and buy yourself a book or two – they’re NOW ON SALE! Every purchase made provides the buyer with one paid entry ‘fee’ to our Writing Prize…. I hope that that is inspiration enough to GET WRITING and GET ENTERING!

Latest news and dates for your diary

Things may seem quiet around here, but actually I’m busier than usual. I’ve been putting together not one, not two, not three but FOUR contracts (and unusually this isn’t for just 4 authors but 5. Hmm… intrigued? Hopefully you will be!). More about the contracts and authors another time, when everything has been signed, sealed and delivered.

In other news I’m putting together the first ever Mother’s Milk Books Writing Prize Anthology. It should, fingers-crossed, be out mid-September, and I’ve also been looking ahead to the start of the next Writing Prize (beginning 28th August, to coincide with Cathy & Angela’s upcoming poetry performance). I’ve been in discussion with the wonderful judges and putting together flyers and adverts. I’m delighted to be able to announce that Cathy Bryant is going to be the sole adjudicator of the poetry category and Milli Hill is going to be judging the prose category. Many thanks to Cathy and Milli for taking on these tasks.

So come on wonderful writers, I dare you to make their job good and challenging by sending in some fab poems and prose pieces on the theme “The Story of Us”. Intrigued…? Details will be online in another week or two.

The Mother’s Milk Books authors (and past and present judges Angela Topping and Cathy Bryant) are also extra, extra busy as they are going to be performing some of their poems from Letting Go and Look At All The Women at the 8th Day Café in Manchester on 28th August 7 – 9.30 p.m. Rosie Garland and Sarah Miller will be joining them to make it a really fab (& feminine) event.

If Manchester’s just that bit too far, why not buy Look At All The Women and see if, unlike the reviewer at WriteOutLoud, you can read it and avoid getting sunburnt! Lowdham’s The Bookcase is the latest independent bookshop to stock our growing list of books (along with The Melton Bookshop in Melton Mowbray and Five Leaves Bookshop in Nottingham) so if you’re local to Lowdham, or passing through, you can always buy a copy of one of our books there.

Lastly… the ever-enthusiastic and energetic Pippa at Story of Mum is hosting a Twitter Party Make Date on 13th August from 8.30 – 10 p.m. UK time. Party-goers will be sharing where their eyes have lingered and celebrating what they see (both the bad and the good) in their day-to-day lives. One lucky party guest will be winning themselves some neat goodies – a paperback copy of Look At All The Women being one of them.

Enjoy the rest of August, and when I come out from under my mountain (well, okay, small pile) of contracts I’ll be blogging more about the anthology and the Writing Prize. Yay!

The Lowdham Book Festival 2014

On Saturday 28th June Mother’s Milk Books (aka me, my husband and our two children!) set off early in order to set up our stall at the Lowdham Book Festival. This was the first year we’d attended, so obviously, we were a bit unsure of what to expect. However, as soon as we discovered there was a playground right next to the village hall where the stallholders were (and lots of interesting tents outside full of activities for children) we knew that everything was going to be okay… I admit it was a long day (especially for a highly sensitive person such as myself who likes nothing better than to stay at home all day) but it was a very rewarding day. I met with lots of readers and local writers – Paula Rawsthorne and Megan Taylor were wonderful to chat to – as well as other publishers and the wonderful folk (such as those involved with Nottingham Writers’ Studio, Writing East Midlands, Five Leaves Bookshop and of course Lowdham’s The Bookcase) who all help writers and publishers get their books ‘out there’. I also particularly enjoyed listening to the song ‘The Box of Delights’ (written to celebrate 15 years of the Lowdham Book Festival) when it was sung on stage – it was performed with real enthusiasm and is incredibly catchy!

My three assistants – husband, daughter and son – had fun doing a treasure hunt, playing Pooh sticks at a nearby stream and of course, eating plenty of snacks (!) and browsing the stalls. I bought our daughter a skirt and matching headband that was handmade locally – and my husband bought ‘The Old Woman and her Pig’ from a secondhand book stall for our son. It was a book that I’d owned as a child, and it was really wonderful seeing it again – the illustrations had really implanted themselves in my memory! My daughter also had a go at a real letter press (run by Nick Birchall of Cleeve Press) and was delighted with her own hand printed creation.

Our cards and prints were popular with those who showed interest in the Mother’s Milk Books stall (which also included a selection of books published by Lonely Scribe) and our book covers, as well as handbound books, met with many compliments. We didn’t sell as many books as we’d have liked, but we covered our costs and made some over, which was good because sales in the last part of June have been (expectedly) quieter.

There’s no doubt about it – book selling is hard. Particularly in these difficult economic times it can be hard to justify spending money on books when there are so many other much more ‘practical’ things that need to be bought. And I know that as much as I love buying books myself I also find it hard to give myself permission to simply read for pleasure.

But, but, but…! I am in the ‘business’ of publishing and selling books. Although I sometimes wonder why I decided to walk this sometimes challenging path, deep down I do know why. It’s because I’m in love with stories. I love being gripped by a story so page turning, so thought-provoking that it keeps my everyday worries – about accounts, website management, dirty carpets and overflowing laundry baskets – at bay. A good story will take me to another world, and yet it will also teach me something new about myself. Yes, publishing is not easy, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing else quite as magical that I’d rather be doing.

So fingers-crossed (and as long as the wonderful stories keep appearing in my email inbox) we will be at Lowdham Book Festival next year with more wonderful books!

Guest post: Cathy Bryant on ‘Fantasy, love and oddity’

Welcome to the ‘Look At All The Women’ Carnival: Week 1 – ‘The Lovers’

This post was written especially for inclusion in the three-week-long ‘Look At All The Women’ carnival, hosted by Mother’s Milk Books, to celebrate the launch of Cathy Bryant’s new book ‘Look At All The Women’. This week our participants share their thoughts on the theme ‘The Lovers’ (the first chapter in Cathy’s poetry collection).

Please read to the end of the post for a full list of carnival participants.

***

I’m delighted to be taking part in the Mother’s Milk Books Blog Carnival that is taking place to celebrate the launch of my new book, Look at All the Women. This first week of the Carnival is dedicated to the theme ‘The Lovers’, so here are two poems from that particular section of my new book. The first is very Me, I think – elements of fantasy, love and oddity, with my ever-present love for the sea. Who would have thought that Bridlington in December could be so beautiful?

Brid, December

Bold gemini moon full on
and the waves fly up to meet it.
The sea stirs; every last creature
swims or wriggles up to drink
the light, taste the moon’s essence.

A streetlamp bravely does its best.
Oi! Look at me! Regard! I shine too!
It gets in the way, spoiling photos.
Vampires and tourists slink off in disgust.

Lovers ignore it. The moon, the sea,
each other – there’s nothing else
but warm, clean-sheeted beds.
Light is light, isn’t it?

No. You could skim the silver
from the waves with one hand,
and make your face holy with it,
immortal.

***

The second poem is addressed to the poet William Carlos Williams and is a response to his poem ‘This is Just to Say’: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/245576. I love his poetry and I can see how important it is – but I wouldn’t have wanted to live next door to him. You wouldn’t be able to put the bins out without him staring in wonder, lost in the moment due to the colour of your nail varnish or petunias. So I wrote this tongue-in-cheek reply:

Dear William

It’s not just the plums.
You are so plainly
a selfish man

living in the moment,
the personal moment
all for yourself.

The divorce papers
are in the post.
This feels so sweet
and deliciously cold.

***

Happy loving everyone, and see you next week!
Cathy x

Look At All The Women, by Cathy Bryant

Look At All The Women is now available to buy from:

The Mother’s Milk Bookshop (as a paperback and PDF) – we can ship books around the world!

and as a paperback from Amazon.co.uk.

It can also be ordered via your local bookshop.

If you’d like to know more about the ‘Look At All The Women’ carnival please find more details about it here.

Please take the time to read and comment on the following fab posts submitted by some wonderful women:

‘Fantasy, love and oddity.’ — Cathy Bryant, guest posting at Mother’s Milk Books, shares two of her favourite poems about lovers from her second collection of poetry, Look At All The Women.

‘The Walnut Hearts’Marija Smits shares some ‘nutty’ poetry about love and reflects on the role good communication has on a harmonious relationship.

Georgie St Clair shares her feelings on why we should indulge our passions as lovers in her lighthearted post — ‘Creative Lovers: Not Tonight Darling’.

‘The Lovers – Or What I Don’t Know About Love’ — Kimberly Jamison posts to her blog The Book Word what she has learnt about love from story books, people watching and her own life and wonders if she actually knows anything at all.

‘Explicit v Implicit’ — Ana Salote at Colouring Outside the Lines considers literature’s role in teaching children about relationships.

Carnival time! And images still needed…

We’re getting ever closer to the publication of Cathy’s new book (eek!) and I really want to release it with a noisy, multi-coloured send-off, so if you think you can help me do that, please do get involved!

If you’re a writer, artist or blogger who’d like to showcase your own creativity, why not take part in our blogging carnival? All the details can be found here:

https://mothersmilkbooks.com/carnival-2/

Also…

We’ve had some lovely images of mothers, daughters and babies breastfeeding sent in for the YouTube video but we still need more images of women. If you think you’ve got an image that may well fit Cathy’s great poem ‘Look At All The Women’, please do email me them. My email address is: [email protected]

Thanks for considering getting involved; I will look forward to seeing more of your wonderful creations!

Dear glorious women, we need your images!

I’m (obviously) very excited about publishing Cathy Bryant’s new book Look At All The Women and want as many people as possible to read her accessible – yet thought-provoking – poetry, so with that in mind I’m going to be producing a YouTube video called ‘Look At All The Women’. Cathy’s already provided me with the sound – her reading of the glorious poem ‘Look At All The Women’ – but now I need some glorious images of women to accompany the poem. So if you have a good quality and high-resolution image that would fit with ANY of the themes of the poem, please do email: teika [at] mothersmilkbooks.com with the image as a jpeg. I would welcome either photographs or artwork but please only send me images for which you own the copyright to and have permission to use. Every kind person who sends me a suitable image that ends up in the video will get a goodie: a free e-version of Cathy’s book (a PDF) when it is released on 28th May, as well as mine and Cathy’s eternal thanks! (Deadline for submission of images is Tuesday 20th May.)

I’m also *fingers-crossed* going to be organizing a blog carnival in the run-up to the release of the book so do stay tuned if you want to be involved with sharing even more glorious womanly creativity! (And p.s. Cathy’s book is now available for pre-order from The Mother’s Milk Bookshop – you get £2 off the RRP of £8.99 if you order before 28th May).

Look At All The Women

Look at that woman breastfeeding in public!
I think it’s absolutely disgusting

the way people give her a hard time.

Look at that lass in a minidress!
Whore! Slag! Bitch! Slut!

are just some of the things she’ll be called
by prejudiced strangers.

Look at that grandmother!
A lot of support is needed

from her for all her friends and relatives,
but she still finds time to lead a vibrant, balanced life.

Look at that campaigner!
She should get to the kitchen,

have a glass of wine and put her feet up,
later on, after standing up for us all.

Look at that woman writer!
It’ll be all flowers, dresses and chocolates

at her many literary award ceremonies.

Look at that sister!
She’s arguing with her siblings again

which, done with affection and a willingness
to compromise, is a really useful life skill.

Look at that stay-at-home mother!
She doesn’t work, of course

apart from 24 hours a day, seven days a week
doing one of the most important jobs there is.

Look at that woman scientist!
She’s outside her natural environment

analysing soil samples from the planet Mars.

Look at me!
Ill and unable to work again

but still making people laugh, and still giving
the best hugs in Manchester.

Look at that cleaner!
The lowest of the low

will sneer at her, as she makes our lives pleasanter
for a pittance.

Look at that daughter!
Disappointing, really

that she still has so much sexism to face.

Look at that lesbian!
You can tell what she needs

— equality, and recognition of
her voice that enriches us all.

Look at that schoolgirl!
They shouldn’t be educated

differently from boys.

Look at all the women!
What a waste of time

life would be without them.



CATHY BRYANT


Lots of news!

I have lots of lovely news to share right now, and I’m really excited about where Mother’s Milk Books is going!

It gives me great pleasure to announce that the next book we’re going to publish is a poetry collection entitled Look At All The Women by Cathy Bryant. I’ve long been a fan of Cathy’s poetry so I’m really pleased that I get to be the publisher who produces her second book of poetry. Cathy is also an accomplished performance poet, and also happens to be a lovely (and very funny) lady so it’s been great to work with her on this collection.

One of my favourite areas of book production is cover design. I can’t quite reveal the cover of Look At All The Women, but I can say that I’ve been working with an amazing mama-artist who has created something simply stunning. We’ll be revealing the final design very soon!

Reviews for Musings and Mothering and Letting Go, by Angela Topping, keep on coming in with Saffia Farr, editor of Juno, recently writing:

“Letting Go is a wonderful anthology of poems reflecting on family life through the generations. They are funny, perceptive and sad. ‘Last Gifts’, about a mother dying, is desperately poignant, with strong emotions portrayed through simple words and phrases. Reading this book reminded me, again, to treasure and enjoy my family as they are now.”

Musings on Mothering continues to get glowing reviews (with 8 out of 10 reviews being ‘5 starred’ on Amazon.co.uk). Lucy Pearce from Dreaming Aloud also recently reviewed the book saying:

“This book is a celebration of motherhood, attachment parenting and breastfeeding. An impressive collection of writing, poetry and art on the theme of motherhood. The talent of the contributors was humbling, and much of the poetry and art truly breathtaking, each expressing in their own unique way the ineffable nature of motherhood. Sensitive, reflective and beautifully compiled – it brought me to tears many times.”

You can read her full review here (which also includes reviews of lots of other wonderful books on mothering).

I also had Diane Wiessinger, co-author of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, contact me recently to say some very complimentary things about Musings on Mothering (which makes me grin from ear to ear since Diane is one of my favourite writers, and of course The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding is one of my favourite books!).

It’s incredibly heartening to be getting these fab reviews, so I hope they encourage you to stop over at a certain store… (that’s The Mother’s Milk Bookshop, by the way (!) where these books are currently on offer) or to visit any one of our fab stockists.

In addition to all this loveliness I’ve been interviewed twice in the past month: over at WriteWords (which is chock-full of useful resources and encouraging words for writers – if you’re an aspiring writer go check them out!) and: Beautiful Misbehaviour. I was delighted to have been asked by Stephanie Arsoska of Beautiful Misbehaviour to take part in her series of interviews on ‘creativity and motherhood’ (other interviewees have been author Carolyn Jess-Cooke and Holly McNish –  so I’m in good company!) and you can read the full interview here.

I’ve been inundated with many great submissions so far (the fairy tale book is almost full now – although there’s still time to submit a short story if you think you have something suitable) and I really hope to be able to make 2014 the year that I publish more than one book! It’s all very exciting, and if you want to be a part of it, do keep tuning in to the blog or say hello on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you again for all your support.

Writing Prize, books and submissions

Thank you again to all those who entered the inaugural Mother’s Milk Books Writing Prize. It’s been great to collect (and have a sneaky read!) of all the great entries, and I’m probably just as keen as the entrants to hear who the winners will be! We will have to wait patiently though as the judges, Angela Topping and Susan Last read and read and read… and then make their final decisions. I’m certainly looking forward to it.

As well as receiving a cash prize and a year’s worth of Juno magazines, the winner of the poetry competition will receive a limited edition hand bound hardback of Letting Go by Angela Topping. This book has been hand bound with such care and attention to detail – it is simply beautiful – and I’m sure the winner will appreciate the beauty of the words within and the beauty of the book craft too.

If you’re not sure about your chances of winning (!) or perhaps didn’t get around to entering the writing prize this year there is another way to get hold of this lovely book… We now have 2 copies for sale in The Mother’s Milk Bookshop, so if you’re looking ahead to Mothers’ Day and want a special something this could well be it! (With the JANSALE code you can also get 20% off your entire basket too.) The sale ends 31st January though, so if you’d like to stock up on breastfeeding-friendly books, mothering/new baby or general greetings cards, or art/poetry prints now is a great time. (Susan Last’s book Breastfeeding: Stories to inspire and inform is also available in the store. The prose winner will get a signed copy of this fab book, but again, if you’re not too sure that’s going to be you, you can get hold of a copy here!)

Thank you again for all your support and if you’re just as keen as me to find out who the winners will be, WATCH THIS SPACE!

p.s. we are also now open for submissions, so do check out our guidelines if you think your writing may well suit our publishing interests.

Happy 2014! and The Latest News

Our big news so far is that there are only 4 days to go until the Writing Prize comes to a close. We’ve received some great poetry and prose submissions so far but would always appreciate more! We also really need more contributions from children; this category is free to enter and any amount of lines on the theme of parenting (silly, funny, serious or sweet!) would be very welcome.

We also have our January sale now on, which means that you can get 20% off your shopping basket when you use the code JANSALE at The Mother’s Milk Bookshop (a good chance perhaps to get some early Mothers’ Day gifts in?).

We’re also now open to submissions, hooray! If you’re interested in submitting your work please do read the submissions guidelines carefully and email me if you have any queries.

Thank you so much for all the support and encouragement you’ve given me over the past year, and I wish you all a very healthy and happy 2014, with a good dollop of soul-enriching creativity thrown in!

Best wishes from Teika x