Delivery for Ms Furber

Out of the hundreds of thousands of books published in the UK and Ireland each year, last year only 1020 of them were poetry and only ‘a very few hundred’ of those were new stuff apparently. I’m honoured to be in this year’s crop and the courier who delivered copies of Sweet Seventeens yesterday through snow and ice got a big welcome. The books look and feel just beautiful.

As I took copies in to Greenwich Waterstone’s today – it felt like introducing my new baby to some best friends – what did I see on the shelves upstairs but You’re Nicked, written by moi in 2007! It’s sold enough to be on sale in every Waterstone’s, whoop! So, once the Greenwich branch finds a way to help Sweet Seventeens through their system, there’ll be THREE books of mine for sale there. Thank you, Greenwich Waterstone’s, you’re wonderful.

SWEET 17s coming on Tuesday

On Tuesday I’ll hold my Lapwing pamphlet SWEET SEVENTEENS in my hands for the first time. So exciting! Dennis Greig of Lapwing (the only other person who’s seen them so far) says they’re ‘very refreshing … very unusual to see so many big issues treated so neatly and humorously’. Please click here to ORDER COPIES FROM LAPWING. No amazon for this I’m afraid, Dennis explains why here. Happy shopping – may all your Christmases be sweet x

Sweet 17s

You can pre-order my collection of SWEET 17s here already and on Tuesday next week I’ll actually hold copies in my hand. So exciting!

The morning after the Del Aziz…

I’m typing through my first hangover in ages so this will be short. What an excellent evening that was! Prize-winning writer Patrick Neate is moving against the flow in that he’s swapping Hammersmith for Zimbabwe soon as his permanent home, to allow his wife to be closer to her family and their baby to be brought up there. Fresh back from visiting them in Zimbabwe, he gave a wonderfully challenging talk about what it’s really like to live there. The chat moved from the book shop on to the Del Aziz next door and as the wine came and went, the main gist seemed to be that the most poisonous inheritance we have from the 19th century is a white tendency to patronise Africa and all its people, even while being aware that we shouldn’t. Excellent stuff, arising from Patrick’s books which pull off the almost impossible trick of being well informed, beautifully written, tragic, hilarious and impeccably cool. Thank you to everybody who made the journey, it was wonderful to see you.

Pictures are here – thanks, Fran.

Patrick Neate at Woolfson & Tay, 7pm on Tues 23rd

On Tues 23 Nov at 7pm I’ll be interviewing Patrick Neate at Bermondsey Square’s new book shop Woolfson & Tay. Patrick won the Whitbread (now Costa prize) for Twelve Bar Blues in 2001 and has kept the prizes and renown flowing ever since. When they were both 18 he fell in love with a Zimbabwean girl and they are now married with a baby. When people seem to be leaving Zimbabwe in droves, they are planning to go and live over there very soon. Before he goes, Patrick’s going to talk with me about Zimbabwe in particular and Africa in general. What is the healthiest way for Africa to tackle its problems? Does Western aid get it right? Should Africa be ‘rebranded’ in the Western mind before we can really be of any help? Please come and join in, it promises to be a lively ride. £5 includes wine and a book discount, and you get the chance to explore this fantastic new shop. Please book through the website, it’ll help the shop manage the evening for us. Thank you, it’ll be great to see you.

Sweet Seventeens coming soon

Jean O’Brien has just won first prize in the Arvon International for her poem ‘Merman’. Congratulations to her. In 1992 Lapwing’s third pamphlet was of her work and they published her again in 2004 with ‘Reach’. My own wee pamphlet Sweet Seventeens is all set for publication by Lapwing now and copies should be in my hands in about a fortnight. It’s been a joy to have Dennis edit my words, I’m amazed by his speed and could not be more chuffed to be a Lapwing poet. In time for Christmas too!

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

My father’s reminded me of the scene in Life on Mars where one of the team gets injured in an explosion and has come back to work. The John Simms character is worried that it might be too early, the guy might be suffering from PTSD. ‘A bellow from Glenister’, my father says, ‘the man’s a bloody hero and you’re telling me he has the clap!’

The drunkenness of things being various

Variety. It’s the zest and spice of everything that’s nice, and I’m still reeling from a week of what MacNiece called the drunkenness of things being various. On Tuesday Bermondsey’s new bookshop Woolfson & Tay hosted my Evening With the BBC foreign correspondent Jill McGivering where we discussed women on the front line in Helmand province – pictures here, scroll down and you’ll find them – and last Saturday they invited me back to scare the wits out of some children and their parents. I love reading to children, they’re the best audience in the world once you whisper and get them to notice that you’re there. The whole of Bermondsey Square was having a Halloween frightfest, so in an empty few minutes I toddled off and had my Tarot cards read, the gist of which was that if I keep breathing, I could live for a nice long time. Variety, I said, you’d like more? OK, how about this? I’ll write anything and a few years ago I was writing books of daft court cases designed to while away the time in the smallest room. (Not just mine, anybody’s.) Well, last week I woke up to an email from a wonderful Belfast publisher who wants to publish a pamphlet of some little poems I’ve been writing. They’re very little poems, 17 syllables each in fact. Lapwing Poetry are fantastic and I’m thrilled to bits. From bog books to poetry, who’d have thought it? Will keep you posted.

If you remember the 70s, were you really there?

Good old Churchill college! Three Nobel prizes out of the latest batch. They’ve invited me to join their Alumni Association’s committee as the 70s rep, by the way. If you were at Churchill in the 70s and would like to be back in touch, I’m on rosemaryfurber@googlemail.com

Witness the Night

Kishwar Desai’s grandmother ‘buried six daughters’ believing that daughters were nothing but a burden. So Kishwar herself might not have been born. Her novel WITNESS THE NIGHT tackles infanticide and foeticide of baby girls in Asian society across the world and she and I will be discussing it at Woolfson & Tay in Bermondsey Square THIS THURSDAY AT 7PM. You’re very welcome to join us.

And if you missed it, here are some pics.