Looking forward to reading and talking about my poetry at the Scottish Writers’ Centre on 10 November.
Thanks to Ruby McCann for the invitation.
I’ll talk about the approach I take to my poetry and also about some of the collaborative work I’ve been involved in, most recently with musician Tom Dalzell and artist Graham Tristram.
Hope to see you there at 7 pm.
Callander Poetry Weekend is the annual poetry festival run by Sally Evans of Poetry Scotland and diehard hosted by Sally and Ian at their fantastic Bookshop, King’s in Calander’s Main Street. Excellent poetry, joyous company, always slim chance of rain, lots to enjoy.
Charlie Gracie read on Saturday, 5th September – the pre-lunch spot – with other lovely poets Neil Leadbeater, Nalini Paul and Evelyn Pye. It was a great event over the three days, with poets from many countries including Ireland, England, India and Wales.
The aftermath of Charlie Gracie reading at the MugStock Festival yesterday with Sally Evans, Morticia Crone and Elizabeth Rimmer was wonderful.Lots of music, great craic, very nice company and great food.
And, of course, beautiful poetry and prose in the amazing surroundings created in Mugdock Park by the festival. Thanks to all!
I’m looking forward to reading poetry at the inaugural MugStock Festival being held in Mugdock Country Park near Glasgow from 7-9 August.
See Charlie Gracie at MugStock reading live with Sally Evans, Elizabeth Rimmer, Morticia Crone and Anita Govan, all wonderful writers. Should be a blast.
Thanks to the organisers for putting on the reading in the appropriately named Charlie’s Theatre. Charlie was an elephant, by the way, and he lived there when Mugstock was a zoo back in the day.
I will be reading at the Callander Poetry Weekend on Saturday 7 September in the late morning session.
Follow the link for the full programme.
I judged the competition and found out recently who these anonymous writers were.
Sarah Evans won first prize with “Games in the Dark”. I really enjoyed the set up for this story and it was nicely carried through.
Helen MacKinven won second prize with the well written “Practice Makes Perfect” and David McConnell won third prize with “The Carer”.
Follow the link to the Alloa Writers website to read their press release.
Well done to all three prize winners and to the other shortlisted writers.
Charlie has been asked to judge the Roy Wood Memorial Short Story Competition.
Entries have now closed and Charlie is in the process of reading the short-listed entries. The winners will be announced by 21 June 2012.
The competition is run by Alloa Writers Group and is open to all 
(apart from current members of the Writers Group).
Charlie ran a poetry workshop with Alloa Writers Group on Monday 27 February 2012. There was some beautiful work created, ranging from humourous work to deep and thought-provoking poetry. And sometimes a combination.
Feedback included:
… the workshop has given me guidance and courage to continue my interest in poetry
… it helped to have some creative writing input from Charlie to give us the impetus to write within a group …
… I enjoyed the fluidity of the evening
The event was held at the Resonate Arts House, Alloa. The Alloa Writers Group work well with Angela Beardsley, sculptor and artist, who runs the project. Well worth a look.
The evening was supported by the Scottish Book Trust to whom thanks are extended.
In a kind of reprise of a support act from decades ago, Charlie had a walk-on part at Martin Stephenson and the Daintees gig at the Woodend in Anniesland just before Christmas. Not quite a reprise, but Martin tells me that he supported Charlie Gracie, the Philadelphia rockabilly star of the 1950’s when he was a laddie. What goes around very nearly not quite comes around …
Charlie read Marathon after an impromptu invitation to join the band on stage.
It was a great gig all round. Another of Alan Hendry’s Sounds in the Suburbs events; this one had Helen McCookerybook and then the Starlets supporting Martin Stephenson and the Daintees. (Learn more about Sounds in the Suburbs by adding yourself to his mailing list: [soundsinthesuburbs@hotmail.co.uk])
The paperback edition, published by diehard, is launched now.
You can buy a copy from the website directly or from a range of outlets.