Saturday 28th April

Two good things are happening on Saturday 28th April (and they don't clash!):

J.S. has recently recorded an interview with Leigh Chambers of Bookmark on Cambridge 105 Radio regarding her new poetry pamphlet, "The Submerged Sea". She thoroughly enjoyed herself and you can listen to the interview when it is broadcast on Saturday, 28th April between 1300 and 1400.

http://cambridge105.co.uk/…/listen-to-cambridge-105-radio-…/

J.S. has a new poem, "Triptych", in the forthcoming issue 6 of The Fenland Reed. There will be a launch event at the Babylon Gallery in Ely at 7pm on the evening of 28th April, with readings from the magazine, including J.S.'s poem (which she will be reading personally). There are a limited number of tickets available: free with the purchase of a copy of issue 6 (£5.50) on the night. To book a place, please email thefenlandreed@gmail.com.

Guest edited by Elisabeth Sennitt Clough, the magazine includes the following poets:

Jill Abram, Jane Burn, Rachel Burns, Jim Conwell, Ananda-mayi dasi, Sarah Doyle, 

Chris Fields, Martin Figura, Donna J. Gelagotis Lee, Jonathan Greenhause, Hilary Hares, Keith Hutson, Joanna Ingham, Helen Ivory, Lisa Kelly, Rebecca Le Marchand, 

John Lyons, Roy Marshall, Eric A. Mecklenburg, Jill Munro, Joanna Nissel, 

Kate Noakes, Kathy Pimlott, Anna Saunders, George Szirtes, Claudine Toutoungi, 

Peter Wallis, J.S. Watts, Jane Wheeler

Reviews of the Submerged Sea

J.S.'s recent poetry pamphlet, "The Submerged Sea", which has been published less than a month, is collecting some wonderful four and five star reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. Here is a sample:

"This is a wonderfully-atmospheric poem built on the contrast between the night-time British sea and the daytime “changeable creature of moods and tantrums”. The fragmentary approach of the poem is intuited by the title reference to “notes” which via a collection of observations, descriptions and comparisons allows the reader to share the poet’s marvelling and eventual questioning of the subject."  - Roger Elkin on Night Notes on Sea (British Coast), now published in The Submerged Sea.

"Vivid, Descriptive, Evocative."  Tabitha Vohn 

"This is sensitive poetry of alliteration, of parallelism, and of mood... The liquidity of water in these poems is the flow of refrain, song, sleep, dream, moon-pull, life and finally submergence. The sea makes us think, forces us to contemplate time, or the flow of life, ... As she demonstrated in ‘Years Ago You Coloured Me’, Watts has an ability to take you from the physical world into other realms and bring you back again." - review excerpt

"The Submerged Sea is a small but satisfying collection" - Ellen Roberts Young (Goodreads)

"Her ocean-themed words carry a deluge of satisfying alliterative cadence, rich, intimate emotion and images" - Richard Sutton (Amazon)

"The Submerged Sea is a sublime little collection of poetry and I will go back now and then to dip my toes into it's waters." - Goodreads

Looking To The Future

Shoreline of Infinity 11½ is a special issue published by the magazine in partnership with the Edinburgh International Science Festival. It will be officially launched on 12th April at the magazine's Event Horizon at the Science Festival, but you can pre-order it here. The theme is sustainabilty, and there is a fine selection of stories and poems gathered together for the first time:

Can SciFi Save Us? – Jane Yolen
A Cure for Homesickness – Anne Charnock
Winter in the Vivarium – Tim Major
Charlie, A Projecting Prestidigitator –Megan Neumann
Charlie’s Ant – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Pigeon – Guy Stewart
Candlemaker Row – Jane Alexander
Now a ragged breeze – Jane Yolen
The Sky is Alive – Michael F Russell
Mémé – Juliana Rew
The Morlock's Arms – Ken MacLeod
South – Marge Simon
Monoliths – Paul McAuley
Goodnight New York, New York – Victoria Zelvin
A Distant Honk – Holly Schofield
The Day it All Ended – Charlie Jane Anders
Last of the Guerilla Gardeners – David L Clements
The Last Days of the Lotus Eaters – Leigh Harlen
We Have Magnetic Trees – Ian Hunter
“Working the High Steel” – Jennifer R Povey
Message in a Bottle – Davyne DeSye
Starscape – J.S. Watts
The Rest is Speculation – Eric Brown

Morpheus Tales Supplement - April 2018

The April issue of the Morpheus Tales Review Supplement is out and FREE to read (and yes, I realise it's still only March). It contains three reviews by J.S.Watts: Infinity Wars, Binary System and Quietus.

You can read the supplement by clicking here

The Submerged Sea Emerges

J.S.Watts’ new poetry pamphlet, “The Submerged Sea”, is published in March 2018.

The Submerged Sea is J.S.Watts’ sixth book and fourth poetry collection.

The Earth is the only known planet with seas of liquid water across its surface. It contains more water than land (approximately 71% of the planet is covered in water). Britain is an island surrounded by sea. There is every chance that humanity’s primitive ancestors first crawled out of the sea to become land dwellers. Over half of each one of us is water.

The sea birthed us, feeds us, entertains us, gives us our climate and geography. It may, some day, rise and kill us. And yet, mostly, we take it for granted.

The Submerged Sea is a metaphysical dip into the sea in all its incarnations: the real sea, the imagined sea, the sea as metaphor, the historical, the political, the ecological and the personal sea - the sea within us all.

"This is a wonderfully-atmospheric poem built on the contrast between the night-time British sea and the daytime “changeable creature of moods and tantrums”. The fragmentary approach of the poem is intuited by the title reference to “notes” which via a collection of observations, descriptions and comparisons allows the reader to share the poet’s marvelling and eventual questioning of the subject." - Roger Elkin on Night Notes on Sea (British Coast), now published in The Submerged Sea.


The Submerged Sea by J.S.Watts (ISBN 9781907435591) is published by Dempsey & Windle, rrp £6.00. It is available from selected bookstores and online from reputable outlets including:

Dempsey & Windle

Amazon UK The Submerged Sea

Sawbo Writers' April Workshop

The Seventh Quarry

Issue 27 of The Seventh Quarry is now available. It contains three new poems by J.S.Watts: Gull, Mossdale Scar and Year of Harvests. 

Gull will also feature in J.S.'s new pamphlet, The Submerged Sea (due out March/April). So if you want to get a feel for the pamphlet, check out The Seventh Quarry.