Bread Pudding Days by Jan Moran Neil
20 year today this Valentine’s Day.

On soggy days
when the rain spits
my mother’s house is filled
with the warmth of cinnamon sticks,
rich dried fruit
and softly sifted sugar.
She folds and wraps our words:
– the bargain cost of my orange gloves
– the price we paid for our lost loves
– our woeful tales of wicked hate
– our splendid plans to be great.
All are measured, sieved, considered
for their mixed worth
baked into something sturdy,
crusty, spongy and deeply palatable.
And in that cooking fragrance
– the weight and varied textures
touching half remembered edges –
my mother’s syllables and smiles stretch on:
a balm against the greying bits,
a refuge against the rain which spits.

For Muriel – 10.6.22. – 14.2.01.

End of March deadline for submissions ‘When This is All Over …’ for the Rennie Grove Nurses. Poetry,fiction or non-fiction – linked or tenuously so to the pandemic. No more than 200 words. Send to info@janmoranneil.co.uk

Fridays – Zoom Creative Writing. £10 a head. Email me. 10.00 am until 11.30 am. This week’s theme: Doors.

Painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge … by Ms Paige Turner
‘The cupboards need cleaning out,’ I said to Mr Justin Case this week.
‘But you’ve only really just finished cleaning them out,’ he said.
Deep sigh. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘But once one finishes that job it’s time to start all over again,’ thinking that I began the task during first lockdown.
Mr Justin Case met my sigh with his. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Well, the project is so large, once the painting of the bridge is finished it’s time to start at the beginning and do it all over again.’
‘Mmm,’ I said. ‘Rather like the vaccine programme.’
I poured another glass of wine as deep as my sigh. For I had also just finished a day’s Zoom to Cape Town. (It’s tricky getting there just at the moment.) I was helping Cassandra and Pumeza clear all the cupboards for shipping home or to be distributed as our lovely Arbour we have had for over eighteen years is being sold.
Then I realised why I had set ‘Cupboards’ as a theme for this week’s Creative Ink Zoom session on Friday at 10.00 am until 11.30 am. We have a full house this week but do email me if you would like a place on any Friday. £10.
Let’s switch to drawers now. If you have any words at the proverbial bottom for the anthology ‘When This is All Over …’ for the Rennie Grove nurses then send them into info@janmoranneil.co.uk and let them work for you. Up to 200 words. Add a sentence or two about yourself, where you are from and any website links.

New Services Offered … by Ms Paige Turner
By request I am now offering:
Online Educational Creative Writing Support for Young People: £100 – three assignments set, proof read and with feedback plus a 40 minute Zoom. (Please email me: info@janmoranneil.co.uk and let me know if you have different needs.)
Creative Writing Sessions on Zoom. If you get a group together – £10 a head. 1 hour and a half. Free if you are doing the organising.
As always:
Editing – please see ‘Creative Ink for Writers’ on my website and hit on ‘Editing and Critique’ but always consult me with your details for a fee.
Or 50 minute Zoom consultation for adults – £50
Please send me words for the anthology ‘When This is All Over …’ up to 200 words (poetry, prose: fiction or creative non-fiction) to info@janmoranneil.co.uk for the Rennie Grove Nurses. Deadline: March 31st. All ages and nationalities welcome.

My play scripts are available on:
https://shop.stagescripts.com/pages/clients/moran-neil-jan.html

‘Online Educational Support in Creative Writing …’ by Ms Paige Turner
Needs must. I have started to give online Creative Writing support for young people. This will be tailor made for your young person with a number of assignments, feedback, proof reading and hand out sheets on Characters, Plot, Theme, Story Building etc. We can finish with a 40 minute Zoom meeting wherever you are. I have started to work with a few young people and places are limited. Contact me on info@janmoranneil.co.uk

They can also kick off their publishing career with writing for Creative Ink’s anthology ‘When This is All Over …’ Pieces submitted will be given feedback and ideas for re-writes free of charge. So pencils and laptops to the ready.
Anyone can submit to the anthology – up to 200 words – poetry, fiction or your personal story about the time in which we are living. This is in aid of the Rennie Grove Nurses.

No Pressure, 2021 by Ms Paige Turner
We all hope so much from the year. Happy New Year if that is not an oxymoron.
Here’s a billet-dure for the jogger on Forty Green Road, Beaconsfield who came up behind me and brushed my shoulder whilst I was on my morning walk: ‘I respect your right to jog and stay healthy. Respect mine to walk and stay healthy. I don’t want to take my life in my hands when I walk. Like you I want to exercise my legs. Jog. Don’t hog.’

Now we are mostly in Tier 4 and pretty still much under House Arrest – nasty euphemism I know – please send up to 200 words for the anthology ‘When This is All Over …’ Poems, fiction, creative non-fiction and in aid of the Rennie Grove Nurses. Send to:info@janmoranneil.co.uk
Deadline March 31st. Add a sentence or two about yourself and where you are from and if you have any word wares on offer.

A Pandemic Pantomime by Ms Paige Turner

If you can’t go to one, then write one for the family. That’s what I have done. Can’t bear the thought that the children won’t get to hiss and boo this year. I’ve been sending props (through Amazon) – I don’t go into shops – through to Maddie Moo, our granddaughter. Props, as all my actors will well know, are the life blood of plays. Here’s mine, published and available for performance from Stagescripts.

http://shop.stagescripts.com/categories/plays/one-act/drama/drama-a-m/a-president-in-waiting.html

http://shop.stagescripts.com/categories/plays/full-length/drama/drama-a-m/blackberry-promises.html

http://shop.stagescripts.com/categories/plays/full-length/black-comedy/brave-hearts-and-baggage.html

http://shop.stagescripts.com/categories/plays/one-act/black-comedy/the-deadly-factor.html

Extended deadline until March 31st for words (up to 200 prose or poetry) for the anthology ‘When This is All Over …’ for the Rennie Grove Nurses. Send to info@janmoranneil.co.uk

Calling for Submissions: Anthology ‘When This is All Over…’ by Jan Moran Neil from Creative Ink for Writers.
It was during one of those long April 2020 walks whilst dodging joggers and cyclists that the idea of a pandemic thoughts historical document occurred to me. It would have to be for a charitable cause so that contributors were passing their lockdown time in both a productive and helpful way.
Having been a founder editor of the writers’ anthology Rhyme & Reason which has raised over £60,000 for the Iain Rennie Hospice since 1991 and subsequently for Rennie Grove until the magazine’s demise in 2018, I thought I might have a shot at launching this idea. Although Creative Ink has raised thousands of pounds for various charities with various wordy and Thespian activities the choice of charity was, as Kevin Bacon might say, ‘a no-brainer’. Having worked alongside the Iain Rennie charity for nine years I passed the editorial reins over to a fresh hands at Christmas 2000. A few days later my mother fell ill and was taken to Stoke Mandeville Hospital right into the New Year of 2001. It was then that I made my call to Iain Rennie and ‘swifter than the wandering moon’, all was in place for my mother’s return home where she died on Valentine’s Day, in the sensitive hands of Rennie Nurse Anne Howard with whom to this Christmas I have exchanged cards. That sentence seems as long as the one we have had all year …
We have received over 300 submissions from Nottingham to New Zealand but are looking to Rennie Grove’s nurses, volunteers and staff to please submit up to 200 words. Contributions from anyone, any age also welcome. This could be prose or poetry. This could be your story or someone else’s story. It could be fiction or simply your thoughts about 2020 … and beyond. You don’t need to have called yourself a writer. Some of the best submissions have simply been written from the heart.
Send to info@janmoranneil.co.uk as a word attachment if possible. If not, I will cut and paste from the body of the email. Add a sentence or two about who you are and where you are from. If you have published a book we are happy to mention that too. Two restrictions: keep your submission under 200 words and don’t mention the word ‘unprecedented’!
You can find me on www.janmoranneil.co.uk and www.janmoranneil.co.uk/blog

‘A Room of One’s Own’ by Ms Paige Turner

My three year old granddaughter locked herself and a friend in the bathroom. My daughter tried all the tricks in the book to get her to open the door. When finally she said, ‘Right, Maddie. No books tonight!’

Open Sesame. (Reward for all those ‘Tiger who Came to Tea’ and other readings.)

In the light of events, the deadline is extended for another six months until March 31st, 2021. The key to this decision is, well – in the title.

The brief is: poems or prose (fiction or creative non-fiction) up to 200 words. Add a sentence or two about yourself and where you come from. (Do mention any of your word wares.) You can have published your piece elsewhere. An attached Word document is helpful with your name on the submission. And please spread the word.

We are particularly interested in knowing about what has happened in your geographical corner, your work or retirement. This will be a historical document and getting a true reflection of how we are dealing with the pandemic is where our light should shine. So even if you have already submitted, please keep doing so. It’s good to be in touch. Just avoid the word ‘unprecedented’ please.

‘If You are at a Loose End …’ by Ms Paige Turner
I am re-posting this blog bi-month for all but specifically for the Rennie Grove Nurses who have been given a link to my blog. Please send your words and your stories in to info@janmoranneil.co.uk.
If you are at a loose end – and aren’t we all one way or another? Then think about writing up to 200 words for the anthology with the working title ‘When This is All Over …’The deadline has been extended until March 31st. The reason is to be found in the title. It just goes on. I have been doing some proof reading on the 300 or so submissions that have come in so far. So here’s some themes:
This Planet and Others, Coffee, The Woe of Weddings, Losing Loved Ones, Hospitals, Theatres, Birthdays, Christmas, Shopping, Domestic Abuse, Being Stranded, Earrings, Dogs, Grandchildren, Being Educated (written by children) Being Alone, Hair, Cyclists and Joggers, Rainbows, Kissing, Bin Days, Key Workers and much much more.
I’ve had fictitious and factual prose, haiku, villanelles, sestinas and sonnets. (I love structured poetry – please have a go.)
I’ve received submissions from California, Mississippi, Scotland, Dublin, Spain, Cape Town, Amsterdam, Birmingham, Cardiff, Belfast, Manchester, Canada, France, New Zealand – almost as many as the collection of global dolls I collected as a child. And from 9-90 year olds. And from mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers, and from award winning script writers and actors and stage managers and nurses and doctors and my sister. I could go on. We are particularly interested to hear about your Covid story, as everyone has one. On that, there is no doubt.
So – in aid of the Rennie Grove Nurses, keep them coming. You don’t have to be a professional writer. Do add a sentence or two about yourself and where you are from. The piece can be published elsewhere and you can mention your word wares if you have them. Just avoid the word ‘unprecedented’.

Creative Ink helped start the anthology ‘Rhyme & Reason’ which raised over £60,000 for the Iain Rennie Hospice from 1991 and was actively helping to raise funds until the anthology’s demise in 2018. Through Creative Ink productions over £4000 has been raised for The British Heart Foundation, Brave Hearts & Souls, Cancer Research, Leukaemia Research, Educating Joy and working with youngsters in Cape Town townships. www.janmoranneil.co.uk

‘If You are at a Loose End …’ by Ms Paige Turner
If you are at a loose end – and aren’t we all one way or another? Then think about writing up to 200 words for the anthology with the working title ‘When This is All Over …’The deadline has been extended until March 31st. The reason is to be found in the title. It just goes on. I have been doing some proof reading on the 300 or so submissions that have come in so far. So here’s some themes:
This Planet and Others, Coffee, The Woe of Weddings, Losing Loved Ones, Hospitals, Theatres, Birthdays, Christmas, Shopping, Domestic Abuse, Being Stranded, Earrings, Dogs, Grandchildren, Being Educated (written by children) Being Alone, Hair, Cyclists and Joggers, Rainbows, Kissing, Bin Days, Key Workers and much much more.
I’ve had fictitious and factual prose, haiku, villanelles, sestinas and sonnets. (I love structured poetry – please have a go.)
I’ve received submissions from California, Mississippi, Scotland, Dublin, Spain, Cape Town, Amsterdam, Birmingham, Cardiff, Belfast, Manchester, Canada, France, New Zealand – almost as many as the collection of global dolls I collected as a child. And from 9-90 year olds. And from mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers, and from award winning script writers and actors and stage managers and nurses and doctors and my sister. I could go on. We are particularly interested to hear about your Covid story, as everyone has one. On that, there is no doubt.
So – in aid of the Rennie Grove Nurses, keep them coming. You don’t have to be a professional writer. Do add a sentence or two about yourself and where you are from. The piece can be published elsewhere and you can mention your word wares if you have them. Just avoid the word ‘unprecedented’.