Well.
Am I the keenest, or simply the most willing to avoid the mountain of work this morning by saying hello to strangers? Who knows. But, here I am.
I'm a writer and storyteller, based in south Devon in the UK. I write poetry and I teach poetry-writing, and publish poetry via Feral Angels Press. I also run wilderness fasts here in the UK. I've two sons - they're 9 and 5. The oldest is a deep thinker, a pattern-seer. If he was a character in Riddley Walker, he'd be a Connection Man in the making. My youngest came through from a wild realm. It's like spending time with Puck.
About 12 years ago, I wrote a poem that ended up changing my life and apparently saving a few others (metaphorically and, in a few cases, literally.) I've been a travelling storyteller (living in a vintage truck that Rima Staines, my sons’ mum, and I turned into a travelling theatre, Hedgespoken), a leatherworker, a community acupuncturist and a web geek. I once studied Theoretical Physics, but dropped out (twice) when I realised that my dream of working at CERN would involve sitting in front of a computer in an underground room and that I loved trees just a bit too much to settle for that. I lived in Scotland for about twenty years, but I've been back in England for almost fifteen. I'm still adjusting. The English (or Southern English, or the [subdivide as you like]-English) are a weird bunch, tbh. I tried to teach myself Mandarin with a dictionary and a copy of the Tao Te Ching when I was 18. It didn't work very well.
Locally, I co-run a fortnightly morning techno/psytrance leap-about with my partner, Rozi Hilton, and I haven’t left the UK for over ten years.
I value good craic, laughter, deep seeing, the arrival of duende, and kindness above all. Poetry is my religion, but hospitality is my core practice. I’m usually up for a riddle or rhyme-game.
I’ve got about 7 collections of poetry on the go (I’m avoiding sending the latest - The Queen of Heaven - to the printers for a final proof this morning) and a number of novels. One’s basically a cyberpunk sequel to the Bhagavad Gita and another is about a boy who gives half is soul to a Peregrine Falcon. I’ve just started a book about the metaphysics of Wildness, for want of a better phrase, and what a genuine practice of existential Wildness might be, as well as looking at some of the Shadow of what-we-claim-as-Wild. It’s going to be better than it sounds, really it is!
That’s basically the kind of person I am, or at least who I believe myself to be.
I’m very much looking forward to hanging out with you all, although I suspect you’re all much cleverer than me. I’m fascinated to see what the meta-being of us-all-in-one-place looks/feels/thinks/dances like. I’m also looking forward to some sunshine. It’s been raining in Devon for about 500 years since last summer.
You can find out a bit more about me on my website (where you can also read a bunch of my poetry and prose) and - though I’ve just left social media as part of a vital bargain - via my instagram and facebook pages.
Massive thanks to Ros and Reanne for hatching this creature. The subtle fibres hum and sing. Good work, both of you.
See you all in a few weeks.
Tom
ps if you like old stories, you can hear some of the ones I (used to) tell here: https://www.youtube.com/@HedgespokenTheatre/streams