OK, so I’ve been very bad at blogging here lately, and I’ve been busy doing a great many things, not least of which is just getting on with all the things in life that prevent one from doing things like blogging about writing, and other similar indulgences… but. It’s nearly the end of 2016, and I haven’t posted for months, and it’s about time I did, so here I am.

Writing about writing has taken a back seat, but I have been just plain old writing, oddly enough – I even managed to help raise £3,500 for refugee charity PAFRAS by reading at the Goth City Festival in Leeds, UK, alongside the wonderful Rosie Garland et al (details here, post hoc, because I’m too useless to promote it beforehand). Anyway. It was great, and we rasied money for charity, and I got a good photo out of it too, wherein I resemble a human for once.

NJR reading, by Gareth Pedrick 2016

So, what’s next? I seem to be going to Iceland. There’s a writers’ retreat in Reykjavik each year, going by the name of Iceland Writers Retreat, and I somehow won a place, no doubt through my dashing good looks and fiendish wit. Or my writing. Or luck. Whichever. Anyway, I am extremely grateful for this, and am very excited to be going! I’ll be spending a bit of time wandering around posing on rocks, reciting poetry about ice, or similar. Who wouldn’t?

This blog was never meant to be much more than a calling card, with a few links to things and very occasional news, but perhaps the retreat will spur me into engaging more. Maybe people will even read it. O the heady prospects!