First Novel- Self Published

 

My first novel is finally published. Written nearly 30 years ago as an exercise in producing a Mills &Boon romantic page turner it morphed into something else....

The first agent I tried took it on but failed to interest a publisher and as I was then of a tender age and easily discouraged my characters languished in script in a shoebox for the next couple of decades. Hitting a Big Birthday, I won't say which one, I decided to shake the dust off it and try again. Hence the self publishing course I did last year. See my blog on this

 https://bake-a-yarn.blogspot.com/2024/10/self-publish.html

The story is set in Blackrock, Co Dublin some time between 1980 and 2005, my secondary school teaching era. It does travel as far as Lamb's Head, Caherdaniel, Co Kerry and the cover photograph was taken there by me on one of my sojourns. 

The plot follows the antics of three members of the teaching staff of Seapoint High, a fictitious school, and also the carry-on of some of the school kids, teenagers whose behaviour I was familiar with first hand! 

 The book is available to purchase on Amazon. Follow link and do leave a review if you decide to purchase.

Amazon-Don't Rule me Out

Skellig Michael taken from Lamb's Head Caherdaniel, Co Kerry

If I didn't have a dog

I probably wouldn't do it either

if I  didn't have a dog.

Instead I'd pump blood and pulse 

to the tune of rock beat

as I circumnavigate the park.

But I do have a dog,

and an ailing one at that,

so I stoop under branch

and trip over log

and taste meadow sweet

and rain in the air 

ponder death as bud turns

 to flower to leaf to fall

pity the wren in the beak 

of the sparrowhawk

and marvel the woodpigeon 

whose notes seem to end

half way through a bar

And yet

If I had no dog 

I too would be replete

with ear buds and smart watch

counting steps, not sheep,

as I circumnavigate the park.

Copyright 2025 Cathy Leonard

Finding poems in unlikely places

 

The Shopping List

They have a neat hand

I'll say that for them

and are very precise about their toilet paper,

it has to be 3 ply,

and the kitchen roll must be Blitz

and the pedal bin bags must be white,

I think they usually are anyway.

And at least at the start of the outing

they think in terms of categories,

each row of items signaling an aisle 

negotiated as if it were a bunny slope

in the grand piste that is our supermarket.

And they don't do indulgence,

apart from the crisps, not identified,

and the Miwadi, orange and pineapple.

The bread has to be McCambridge 

but the apples are left to chance, 

so much for Pink Ladies,

and the milk ditto-

can be any brand with any fat content.

The scallions must be large,

I didn't know we had a choice,

and there's a word that looks like bottle 

between the ham and the cinnamon

and here our shopper, perhaps inebriated 

at the prospect of a dram, veers off-piste

 

And the trolley begins to carve its way

from Frozen Goods to Household to Bakery,

shredding at speed over moguls

and black runs and fall lines

coming skilfully to a halt at -

the Steradent tablets, Active Plus

So someone with dentures

Someone of my vintage 

Someone who forgets to take their shopping list home

Whereas I forget to bring mine to the shops.

Copyright 2025 Cathy Leonard

Grace

 

The day you fell in love

the skies opened

shed a deluge over the treetops,

the long grass, the wildflower meadow,

over us as we walked beneath the trees' awning

steeped in grace.

The trees danced in the light of it.

The dog's coat gleamed like a seal's.

We stood for a while our feet rooted

in  a soil that was opening up -

to the beat of life on leaf

to the blessings it spoke of

to the love it bestowed -

and we felt at last release.

We had waited a long time for this day

Copyright 2025 Cathy Leonard

The Bird Table- a little tale of ruffled feathers

 

First light post dawn

a strike in the offing

My shoulder wing-shadowed

as I stock up supplies

Twigs crackle in hedgerow

Battalions line up on roof top

My retreat signals advance from both sides

Burst of crow from undergrowth

Blaze of pigeon from sky

rump to rump

wing to wing

feathers fly

Feral pigeons floor rival and comrade alike

In their surge for possession

supplies scatter to ground

where the wily and usurped

 take advantage

Meanwhile Kit, outnumbered

and outmanoeuvred

saves his reserves

 for another day.

Copyright 2025 Cathy Leonard All rights reserved

Writer's Block

An exercise I heard from a YouTube video to exorcise Writer's block.

Make a list of all the things you did yesterday starting backwards and see if you can develop a poem from one or two items on your list....

Well, my effort didn't exactly follow the plan but here goes....

It was an okay sort of day.

Going to the charity shops

and finding nothing.

Flicking through Netflix

and seeing nothing.

Getting a takeaway that wasn't bad.

Wasn't good.

Cleaning windows with vinegar

and buffing with newspaper

and ending up with streaks anyway.

Buying cushion covers for a friend

and deciding to keep them.

Buying a book for a child

and deciding to keep it too!

Crying at the denouement

corny as it was.

Bird App spotting

a black capped chickadee-

unlikely in  European skies. 

Reading a poem aloud 

to an empty room.

Listening to Billy Collins

on the subject of poetic endings

which should always surprise

and wondering where this one is even going.....

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR POEM!!

Copyright 2025 Cathy Leonard

Cordoba- The City of Flowers

 

Trying to capture a slice

of those narrow streets in Cordoba

the ones with the terra cotta geraniums

climbing the white washed walls

and potted balconies leaning drunkenly

towards each other

 in a labyrinth that used to be the Jewish Quarter

you jostle with like-intentioned devotees

whose cameras and i-phones are shuttering,

some on selfie sticks, others on stretched forearms,

and what you get are truncated heads, armpits and shoulders

dissecting the streetscape-

unless you tilt your lens upwards

above the arches and columns

towards the tower of the cathedral

that has tolled out the spirit of co-existence

and tolled in the Spanish Inquisition

splicing and dicing its way through history.

Maybe you could include those severed body parts after all...

Copyright 2025 Cathy Leonard