oonahIn 2006 I left teaching after 28 years.  I didn’t retire, I left.  I couldn’t work with those people any more (and I’m not talking about the children).  So a few months later, when I’d stopped crying, I found myself sitting in front of the T.V. screen at 11am watching a load of sh**.

 

I really wanted to go out but I was scared to.  Alarm bells rang.  I’ve never been one for watching a lot of T.V. ever since my mother got rid of the set to make me concentrate on my school work (wise woman, my mother). At that point I thought back to the little girl who wanted to be a poet. Whatever happened to her?

 

In Feb 2007, my husband and I went on a holiday to the Costa del Sol and took a day trip to Tangier and visited The Alhambra.  When I got back I started writing, joined www.writewords.org.uk and I haven’t stopped writing since.  

 

My first feedback on WW pointed out that my dialogue was ‘crap’.  It was!  I worked on that piece for months.  ‘A Trip to Tangier’ is one of my favourite pieces and it is the archive at Bewildering Stories.  The Shine Journal published my poem ‘Take Time’ about the Alhambra.  I was hooked.

 

After a few more poems, Pamela invited me to be a judge in The Shine Poetry Contest 2008 and that experience was one I enjoyed so much that I answered the call for an editorial position at EDP when it came.  And that has been a steep learning curve for a technophobe with low self esteem like me but scared and intimidated as I was, I’ve done it.  

 

Now I’ve had way over 100 pieces published, won two great prizes, been printed in 3 anthologies, selected for the past 6 BwS Quarterly Reviews and been in every EDF Issue for 18 months.  It what you’d call a start. In reality it’s more than I ever expected.

 

What am I most proud of?  I’m most proud that I didn’t let them destroy me.  I didn’t just curl up and die.

 

 

Oonah is a regular contributor to Every Day Fiction and managing editor of Every Day Poets.  You can see examples of Oonah’s poetry in Twisted Tongue Issues 8 and 9, The Ranfurly Review, The Shine Journal, Static Movement and Bewildering Stories.

Website: http://www.writewords.org.uk/oonah
Blog: Oonahverse