Runaway Bunnies

It has been a busy summer, considering I’ve mainly been at home. Cate’s back in nursery two days a week but my son hasn’t been at school since mid-March. I’ve spent a lot of my time overthinking elaborate schemes to entertain and educate him: this week we’ve been boating and blackberrying, are studying Japan as our country of the week (eating sushi, writing haiku, doing kawaii draw-a-longs on youtube), and are running an elaborate world cup of animals on twitter (#Gruffscreaturecup if you’re interested – we’re heading for an Octopus vs. Otter final).

In my working hours, there has been lots going on at Modern Poetry in Translation – our new Czech issue is out; we’re running a fundraiser for a collaboration with the brilliant Dead [Women] Poets team (very cool totes and badges still available); I chaired a digital Spanish ‘duel’ at Ledbury Poetry Festival, with Juana Adcock and Martha Sprackland both translating a poem by Venezuelan poet Gladys Mendía (the digital pamphlet is here), and we currently have the Korean translator So J. Lee as writer-in-residence – their workshop on Lee Jenny’s poem ‘SPACE BOY WEARING SKIRT’ is live if you would like to have a go.

In my own work, it was a very nice surprise to be listed as one of 10 writers shaping the UK’s future (!) in a National Centre for Writing and British Council promotion.

The paperback of Fierce Bad Rabbits is also out today with Penguin! It’s kind of amazing to actually see that little penguin in the corner of one of my books. If you haven’t read it yet do consider buying a copy from your local bookshop or ordering from Hive. And thankyou so much to everyone who has reviewed it, it really does make a difference. It’s nice to have so many quotes from the press on the paperback (‘Stunning. Packed with revelations. Pollard writes with a joy that is luminous. Essential reading for anyone with a child, or whoever was a child’ – Marianne Levy in i, is my personal favourite), but it has also been lovely over the last year to read the reviews on Goodreads or Amazon and feel the book has made a connection with people, which is all you really want as a writer.

Here’s a rabbit by Clement Hurd (from his collaboration with Margaret Wise Brown on the stunning The Runaway Bunny) to celebrate my own (paperback) Fierce Bad Rabbits now flying out into the world…