POET CAROL ANN DUFFY STEPS DOWN - NEW POET LAUREATE

Gosh - that decade sped by (check out my blog post for 8 October 2009)! Now we have a new poet laureate. I've met most of the living PLs from my interviewing days plus numerous other published poets at our SWWJ and ALCS events over the last couple of dozen years at various writers' events. However, I know very little about this newly installed poet laureate Simon Armitage, a former prison officer who succeeds Carol Ann Duffy. She has been the only female PL, although one of our very earliest SWWJ members, Alice Meynell was in the running to don the mantle. 

The poet SWWJ member Alice Meynell

I write about her in one of my books THE WOMAN WRITER page 7 details below.  You will discover why, in 1913, she was turned down, yet Alfred Lord Tennyson, Rudyard Kipling and G K Chesterton were all rooting for her. You could say these were 'bloggers of their day'. 

We are proud of the poets in our Society of Women Writers and Journalists, so do take a look at our website - see below.

One of my books which is currently undergoing reprinting and available soon is THE WOMAN WRITER published by The History Press  ISBN 978-0-7524-5159-6. Part of my research covers the most momentous years of our international Society when the wonderful Joyce Grenfell was our president, followed by a succession of famous names such as Clemence Dane, Vera Brittain, Elizabeth Longford, Shirley Williams,Nina Bawden,Victoria Wood and now the lovely Floella, Lady Benjamin. You can order this history via the SWWJ website: www.swwj.co.uk