Five new Write With Me sessions starting this Friday

 Forty-five minutes of shared, silent writing time on Zoom. Check them out at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/jen-hadfield-rogue-seeds

The Pregnant Pause: a gentle creative writing workshop for mothers – Wed 10.4.24 – 11am til 1pm – ZOOM – £25

In pregnancy, language failed me: I hardly wrote at all. I was astonished, too, by silences I hadn't noticed before around the experiences of pregnancy and birth, and by how much I didn't know. Please join me to explore the mystery in which we become mothers, in a gentle, supportive creative writing workshop. Babies and toddlers are welcome, and if you need to step out for a long or short moment, that's all fine. This session will be recorded only with the consent of the participants and shared only within our private group. 

For mothers and expectant mothers.  Book here.

Shetland poetry workshop with Jen Hadfield

Standing Stone

maybe a compass

maybe a gnomon

maybe a signpost

for bee-eaters, swifts

Short poems can be like a meditation: helping us focus on where we're at right now, and on what's going on around us. They also make good Christmas cards!

We'll spend the afternoon reading, listening, looking and playing with words in a focussed but informal atmosphere. New and more confident poets all welcome. Bring outdoor gear for optional landscape writing.

2-5.30, Saturday 5th December

venue t.b.c (probably Burra)

16-yrs and up, 12 max.

£20 for the afternoon

jenhadfield@btinternet.com

This is what is in the ocean 15/11/15

Tonnes of bladderwrack washed up onto my local beach after Storm Abigail, full of smithereened plastic. In 40mph winds, I struggled along to another beach to watch the waves. I found the carcass of a young swan, a seal, and an unidentified marine mammal, perhaps a porpoise. Its skin was flensed away, and the blubber beneath was a mosaic of little chips of broken plastic. It's almost impossible to get your head around how much of this stuff is out there, chugging around the gyres like a great oceanic washing machine. We've got to sort this.

New Shop on Etsy

The 'Dominant Species' limpets are now available to buy in my Etsy shop.

These ceramic limpet sculptures come from my exhibition 'The Dominant Species' in the Shetland Museum and Archives. Shape, thickness and density vary as the limpets are all made by hand using a thumb-pot method. Each limpet comes with a rudimentary LED light. Contact me for images of individual limpets so you can handpick your colony of glowing marine gastropods. They're keen to colonise new territory!

https://www.facebook.com/TheDominantSpecies

Alex Salmond's Farewell Speech

'When Scotland was alive with ideas and debate, all Labour could demonstrate was timidity and fear'. Regardless of your feelings about Salmond, it's worth watching at least the first 9 minutes of his farewell speech. Imagine, a politician whose own party aren't mortified by him. Actually, anyone who's sick of Westminster should watch or listen to the whole thing. Any of the folk who couldn't understand why Scots might even WANT to become independent should watch the whole thing.

Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship

I'm really grateful to have been appointed the 2014 Dr Gavin Wallace Fellow hosted by Moniack Mhor. All the information about the fellowship and my planned project is here, but expect some posts about flotsam and jetsam. I start in December. Can't wait.