An update. Well, actually, four updates.

Let me send you a teeny tiny book! Plus other news

Richard Dadd, “Come Unto These Yellow Sands”, named for one of Ariel’s speeches in The Tempest. This is kinda the vibe I’m hoping to create at my talk in Totnes in a few weeks. Come unto these yellow sands and book a ticket below.

Hi friends,

Happy May Day. Warning: don’t click that link if you don’t want a Cornish folk song stuck in your head for a full year, like it has been in mine.

I’ve been recording incomprehensible voice notes on my phone while driving, and filling pages of my notebook with scribbled half sentences connected by mad arrows—which is to say, I have an essay brewing, and I hope to send it next week.

Meanwhile, here are some snippets of news.

1. If you happen to be in or near Totnes, Devon, on Thursday 22nd May, come along to a talk I’m giving. It’s free, there will be a vegan dinner, and after I’ve talked we’ll all nerd out chatting together. I’ll also be announcing some workshops and other in-person events on the night. Reserve a ticket here.

   

2. Late last year, I had the pleasure of talking to Andy Cahill for his podcast The Wonder Dome, and the episode is out now. You can listen to it here. I remember that we talked about mystical experiences and the difference between fantasy and imagination, as well as stars and cosmology and, I believe, Beowulf. I also remember that I was quite sweaty and overexcited when I got off the call, which is usually a sign I’ve enjoyed a conversation. You know, just in case you were wondering about my personal perspiration tendencies. Big thanks to Andy for rolling with a curveball I threw him at the start of the episode.

3. The Blake deep-reading series I announced a little while ago has now come to an end. There was a lot of enthusiasm in the group for another series, and it seems likely that we’ll read The Tempest. All of the details are still tbd, and there will likely only be a few slots available as there’s so much interest from the original group. But if you’d like to register your preliminary interest to join us on this reading journey, and let Prospero work his magic on you, please drop me an email and I’ll keep you posted. A bit on what to expect: In these sessions, we read sloooooooowly, meeting a text with our whole bodies and letting the energies in it unfold and envelop us. I’m running these series with my teacher Valentin Gerlier, who held the reading session in which Blake sent me to the dark side of the moon a couple of years ago. (In case that means nothing to you, here’s what I’m on about.) Valentin happens to have written a book about Shakespeare that Rowan Williams described as “exceptionally sensitive and creative”, so, ya know, he’s no slouch.

4. I made a book! This teeny-tiny baby is a version of an essay I published on here last year, printed so you can throw it in your bag and read it beneath a tree. I can’t be the only person around here who absolutely loathes reading on a screen.

   Would you like a copy? I would like to send you one. I’m sending out ten free copies, postage paid, to the first ten people who reply to this post. (Most of you are in the US, so fret not about me mailing this there, or wherever you happen to be. I know what I’m signing up for. I just love the idea of these little things finding their way all over the world.) Drop a reply in the comments and I’ll be in touch.

That’s all from me for now. Until very soon,

xx Eleanor