I’ve gone back to school! I’m writing this from the back  of an unusual lecture hall — the Hawk’s Well Theatre in Sligo, after a very fine lecture, “The Epiphanic Yeats” by Dr Matthew Campbell, Professor of English at the University of York. Epiphanic talk, Matt, thank you! Yes, I’m here in Sligo, Ireland, attending various lectures at the Yeats International Summer School, learning lots, making new friends and, next Monday, launching my special edition book Secret Rose at Yeats House. The summer school runs alongside the “Tread Softly” festival, a two-week extravaganza of all things Yeatsian. Highlights for me, will be: Workwise: My…

Althea Gyles, the artist and writer who designed the cover of WB Yeats’s The Secret Rose (which I have reproduced on my special edition book), and many other masterpieces of the 1890s, has been variously described: the “genius who invented a symbolic personality for Yeats” (Warwick Gould) the “fey and slightly manic Irish artist” (Roy Foster) the “wild, red-headed Irish poet” (Jerome Reilly) the “woman who dumped Aleister Crowley” (Simon Jester) For me she was a fascinating and tragic woman (one of many such in Yeats’s circle), whose life was defined by art, the occult and the sort of self-destructive sexual behaviour and choice of men —…

Thank you to all who supported my Crowdfunder. With your help, I made it! 103% funded as I write, on the last day, with funds still coming in. I’m overwhelmed and so very grateful for your support — and now really looking forward to making this very special book. THANK YOU! AND: As I’m finding myself with a little extra money in hand, I’d like to give some back. All those who entered the crowdfunder will now receive a copy of special print book. And if I can make a tiny bit more, I’ll have enough to also sponsor somebody to…

Here are five reasons to support Secret Rose, my crowdfunding project. 1) You’ll be reviving WB Yeats as a writer of fiction.  These stories have been neglected and underestimated by the critics. In the introduction to the book, I explain why these dramatic stories of national and personal vision, that have the flavour of folklore, deserve to be resuscitated. (I believe they are as important to world literature as Grimm’s Fairy Tales).  2) You’ll be supporting an indie author’s crazy passion project.  Making a beautiful artefact like this is unbelievably expensive these days. The paper alone is hard to source and use in modern machinery. In this, Yeats 150th…