I am travelling down to Huddersfield today. No, not for an appointment, but because I am a finalist in the Huddersfield Literature festival Poetry is Courage competition! As I am a finalist my poem will be made in to a poster and displayed at thirty venues around Huddersfield. I wrote a poem on the theme of Anxiety. I wouldn’t say that I’m an anxious person at all – but I, as everyone, have my moments. The other day, for example, when I was out with my mum on my scooter, I crashed into the door of a lift and couldn’t free myself and then the doors kept on starting to shut and people were staring and arghh! I then talked to a friend who suffers with really awful anxiety and watched some videos on YouTube about anxiety. As my poem details, people may feel they have to rebuild themselves every night in order to go out again the next morning.

On Saturday I went along to the Spotlight young writers try out at Carnforth Railway station. I performed a selection of my more recent poems, and got such a lovey response from Ron and Sarah. I am so excited that I will be working alongside them in two workshops, and then performing at Lancaster Spotlight on the 17th of March. I have my pre-op a week or so before the Spotlight performance, so for once I am hoping there isn’t a swift turn around after pre op… we shall see anyway. It’s an amazing opportunity and I am very pleased to be a part of it.

It has been half term this last week, so I have been reading a few books really quickly. I can’t actually tell you what books I am reading as they are part of the Spellbinding shortlist for 2017. Spellbinding is a reading challenge which is run by Cumbria Libraries. There is a shortlist of books for primary and secondary schools. As a library official at school I am helping to run our club this year. I have read four of them now. There has only been one so far which I haven’t enjoyed – and considering these books are aiming to please young people of different ages, genders and walks of life I think that is very impressive!