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

Kitty Trouble

 

A dedicated sun worshipper in the Costa del Sol,

our kit stretched out on the kitchen table,

normally his viewing platform -

his tail flicked into a frenzy

his throat issuing feral noises

while the flock of actual feral pigeons outside

bicker and joust, parry and lunge

pivot and strike, block and retreat,

flamboyant in their scattering of bird seed,

oblivious to his prying cries.

If you want a carefree breakfast

approach him from behind,

whispering sweet nothings in his ear

extracting him swiftly from his suntrap

before he reads your intentions.

Cover wrists with sleeve cuffs

and be prepared for the box in the ear,

yours this time,

that will probably ensue...

Copyright Cathy Leonard 2025

On Reading Billy Collins

 

Reading instils a sigh and then 

dropped shoulders, your back settling

into the back of the chair

your breath falling

into a poem about poetry-

an empty bridge over a cool stream on a clear day,

not a hint of drama or backstory to ripple the peace.

You fall into that peace 

and then beneath it

to the time before the bridge

to the time before the stream

contemplating nothing in particular

and everything at the same time.

The dog wants you to go into the other room

There's a tray of flapjacks to be baked

and that five minute upper arm workout to perform

But you're so far below the surface of the everyday

that it may be a while before you can emerge

even if you wanted to

look upwards and outwards towards a morning sun 

throwing shadows on gnarled branches 

and burgeoning leaves of lilac breaking through buds, 

and besides,

you still can't hold your arms out in flight mode

for five whole minutes.

Copyright 2025 Cathy Leonard

Billy Collins background

Does she mind him being at home all day?

 

Does she mind him being home all day?

 

 

He hasn’t deleted all of her from the den…yet.

Her stained glass mosaic of a woman holding the moon still leans against the window, her purple skirt caught in the throes of flamenco.

 

But her Michelin France Eyewitness Top Ten Collection, Berlitz Budapest and Pocket Malta have been removed from the corner book shelf and Dervla Murphy’s On a Shoestring in Coory and Muddling through Madagascar are precariously wedged between his Manual of Chess Victory and The Secret of Tactical Chess. Hopefully Dervla’s survival instincts will prevail.

 

The roll top of the desk beneath the book shelf no longer flutters and clicks, expanding and contracting like an accordion. He prefers it left open.

 

On the filing cabinet a stapler, a paper puncher and a calculator have supplanted her tin box collection, Farrah’s Original Harrogate,Valroble Extra Virgin, that used to waft out the aroma of nougat and olives and travel.

 

Her postcards of El Cordobes, bicycles arched over the Herengracht, laundry strung from balconies on a Venetian canal, posted to herself from European mini-breaks, no longer bolster the second hand filing cabinet’s gable wall- stripped back now to scratched metal and adhesive strips.

 

And the sky behind the mosaic woman-moon is cracked. The type of slit that could slice the top off unsuspecting flesh, and it’s a question of how long… before he decides that a brazen woman is the last thing he needs in his retirement.

 

Does she mind him being home all day?

Copyright 2017 Cathy Leonard

St Brigid's Day- February 1st

 

St Brigid's Day in Ireland is considered to be the first day of Spring....well maybe....

Since we were given a Bank holiday to celebrate, the country has risen to the occasion and festivals are sprouting up everywhere. Traditionally the only way I ever celebrated was to gather reeds and make Brigid's Crosses, see poem below. 

The Cross is meant to protect against fire in the home and every year we burnt last year's cross and made a new one. We kept it simple. 

But I learn now that, in Kerry, villages are awash with biddies wearing white outfits and sporting elaborate straw hats. They rove in droves from house to house singing and dancing into the wee small hours over a period of four nights. I had no idea that we were missing out....

St Brigid's Day in Ireland

At Imbolg

 

Stooped to the rhythm of sickle

we gathered rushes from the bog

or ,with our hands, pulled stems

that raised wheals and reddened palms.

We lay them in piles and folded

and turned and turned and folded

until we made a centre that would hold.

 

Not knowing then that she was daughter of Dagda

Celtic goddess, crone turned maiden each Spring.

That we were cutting deeper than bog

i mbolg, at imbolg.

Copyright  Cathy Leonard 2016

Signs of Spring

January Ease

Now that the Christmas rush is over

I have time to construct a rib where before 

a stocking or garter would suffice

and at this January pace watch 

blue tits flitting off twitching stems of Martin's Spurge

note shoots even now breaking through compost

admire flames of  dogwood in the flower bed 

where Winter Daphne presides 

and even raise a brow at our one eyed kitty

who has already this week caught two mice

and an unfortunate house sparrow.

I think this sock will be some time in the making.

Copyright Cathy Leonard 2025

The Trouble with knitting

 

Wrist warmers in the Scheepjes wool recycled from plastics. This wool, marked as aran weight requiring number 5 needles, tended to split a lot but I think these gloves will be as cosy as a fleece.

With all the Christmas knitting come to an end I'm beginning reluctantly to veer back towards the computer in the morning  instead of taking up residence in a knitting position by the stove. However with a few back jobs on the go the transition is slow...and knitting as an activity allows time for poems to wiggle their way in...

The Trouble with Knitting

Everything is fine.

The wrist warmers for my nth niece

are on the needles.

The feral pigeon has returned to the coop

turfing out its woodland cousin again

and though I am trying to avoid it

a  poem is trying to make its way into this weave,

the split wool, the dropped stitch

whispering of yarns I might like to engage,

the pauses between the knit and the purl,

the silences at the end of a set

begging for narrative.

Even as I briefly dip my hand

to the grate to adjust the coals

I know that the scent of peat and swamp

that clings to my fingertips

will join in the chorus

and clamour for a verse or two in its name.

Copyright Cathy Leonard 2025