David Swann: The Privilege of Rain - Time Among The Sherwood Outlaws

As I've moaned more than once recently, I haven't been getting time to write the reviews that I'd like to for this blog. One of the books I've enjoyed a lot this year is David Swann's The Privilege of Rain - Time Among The Sherwood Outlaws (from the excellent Waterloo Press), so in the absence of any coherent thoughts from me about just why I like it, read Steve Spence's very positive review of it in Stride. I like the point he makes in the last paragraph about it being a book that keeps asking unanswerable questions - that's a mark not just of Swann's sympathetic approach, but also of his unassuming, modest style as a writer. It works superbly.

Clare Best nominated

I'm delighted to see that Clare Best's Excisions, from Waterloo Press, is on the shortlist for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for best first collection. It's a terrific book, and thoroughly deserves to be on there. I should get my act together and finish and post the review of it I've been writing.

Nice to see Waterloo getting some recognition on a shortlist, too - they've got a strong and varied stable of writers, and their books are beautifully produced.

More reasons to buy Morrison

Interesting review of Alan Morrison's Captive Dragons / The Shadow Thorns, over at Stride. It sounds like another in a growing list of fine collections from Waterloo Press - political engagement and an unflinching take on real life issues are fast becoming their hallmark, although never at the expense of musicality or readability. I can't help also being delighted that the book contains a poem referencing one of HP Lovecraft's stories - high time, too.