All 4 entries tagged Horizon Review

Happy Birthday!

It's my birthday tomorrow. 21 again!

In celebration of this fact, I shall be spending the day either lounging on the sofa listening to some CDs I've just bought - pure nostalgia, various greatest hits from REM/Suede/The Police/Texas/The Smiths - or floating about coffee shops with my writing notebook, which is currently packed with indecipherable scribbles towards my newest sequence. A "wild" version of Gawain, no less!

During the last year:

I was Warwick Poet Laureate.

I published no fewer than THREE books of poetry.

I launched a new online arts magazine, Horizon Review, with myself at the helm as editor.

I began my BA course at Warwick and have managed not to drop out yet or have a nervous breakdown.

During 2009, what will I do?

Carry on with Horizon, heading swiftly towards its second issue. Continue writing poetry (see above). Perhaps find a literary agent for my teen novel which is still enthusiastically doing the rounds. No time for sleep, no time to slow down. Not dead yet, thank goodness, though I would never discount that as a possibility - hence my precipitous pace of life.

So, potentially another bumper year ahead. I feel it in my water. Or my bones. Or somewhere, anyway. As you read this, wish me many happy returns.

: 16 Nov 2008 20:28 |  Tags: Birthday Horizon Review Jane Holland Poetry |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Stephen Spender Translation Awards

Well, I'm going to brave the inclement weather and dash down to London tonight for the Stephen Spender Translation Awards. I've had a bad chest for the past week, so it's been touch and go whether I could take up the invitation to attend, as editor of Horizon Review, but I've finally decided that I will make the attempt.

Stephen Spender, of course, was not only a great English poet of the last century, but was also one of the founders of the original Horizon, back in the 1940s. And I'm interested in the translation awards, not least because I was intending to enter for the Awards this year but didn't manage to finish my translation in time for the deadline.

So I'm naturally very keen to go tonight and get a feel for the standard, because there's always next year ... !

Definitely a good night to take an umbrella though.

: 10 Nov 2008 13:32 |  Tags: Horizon Review London Poetry Poets |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Start the Week, Radio 4

Just to let you know I'll be talking about my new arts magazine Horizon Review on "Start the Week" this Monday morning, 20th October - 9am, if you're ever up that early on a Monday! (My train into London is at 06.04, so I'll certainly be awake by then. Or if not, I'll be in serious trouble, ahem.)

For those who don't know, "Start the Week" is a high-profile arts programme on BBC Radio 4.

The other guests with me this Monday are Rupert Goold, theatre director - who's currently directing Pete Postlethwaite in King Lear, along with Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Audience at the Gielgud Theatre, Pinter at the Duke of York AND Oliver! at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane - also Duncan Wu, writer and biographer (his most recent work is a biography of William Hazlitt) and Jackie Wullschlager, chief art critic for the Financial Times, who's just written a comprehensive tome on the Russian emigré artist Chagall.

If you miss it on Monday, the programme should be available for about a week using the Listen Again facility on the BBC Radio 4 website.

I'll be visiting the Poetry Library at the South Bank afterwards, having lunch with poet, critic and Warwick-based creative writing tutor George Ttoouli at the Poetry Society, and generally swanning about London in search of lattés and good poetry.

Ah, the life of a literary editor ... !

: 18 Oct 2008 09:51 |  Tags: Creative Writing Egotism George Ttoouli Horizon Review Mow20089 Poetry Radio Reviews Start The Week Writing |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Horizon makes the TLS

Woke up yesterday to some very welcome news.

The first ever issue of the magazine I'm editing for Salt Publishing - an online arts review called HORIZON - has made the "NB" column on the back of the Times Literary Supplement.

Okay, so I was flagged up for being a colourful character with an intriguing past, and the actual content of the magazine was barely mentioned except to raise an eyebrow at literary agent Luigi Bonomi's slick piece "How to Get a Literary Agent - in 60 Seconds!" but hell, all publicity is good publicity.

Yes?

Now I just have to do it all over again in issue two.

: 26 Sep 2008 12:12 |  Tags: Egotism Horizon Review |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem