Greetings from the day after the party

We’ve just returned from a writing retreat in Marrakesh, hosted by the poet Clara-Læïla Laudette and first of many – stay tuned and follow Clara-Læïla for information on any happening in the future.

 The retreat was tutored by Karen McCarthy Woolf, whose latest collection, Unsafe, ‘tests – in fragmented yet freeflowing verse – the bounds of both thought and terrain’ as she moves through what she describes as a ‘corporate pastoral’ America. It’s out now.

 During the retreat, we soaked up poetry and sunshine, argan oil and harissa, the sight of show-off rooftop bats and nonchalant cats. Noticing smoke on the rooftop of the riad, we learned about Marrakesh’s communal bread oven, where inhabitants can take their dough to be baked into bread or cakes in a shared furnace. Fewer and fewer families make these baking bread now, but it’s moving to know such practices are still in place.

To all who submitted – thank you for bringing your dough over to the Wet Grain furnace. We will get back to you shortly. Our first subscriber-only sheaf is also now in the oven, and we’re planning our first workshop of the year at Aye-Aye Books in Broadside Gallery, Glasgow – save 29th March in your diaries, and we’ll be back with more information in our next newsletter. Subscribers will be guaranteed a free spot at the workshop alongside the sheaf and editorial feedback on their poem.

Sending sun and snow overseen on the Atlas Mountains,

Nasim and Patrick