Diana Mitchener
Diana Mitchener recently celebrated her 75th birthday in New Zealand where her numerous birthday treats included a birthday party thrown by sheep-farming hosts, an overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound and flights over Mount Cook and Mount Aspiring.
Am I enjoying retirement? Yes! Partly to adjust from full time tutoring/lecturing in Education I took an MA in Creative Writing with colleagues at University College, Chichester, graduating in 2000. Since then I have filled a one metre shelf with files of prose and poetry. Promising poetry is admitted to a ‘First Forty’ file, oddments dumped in a file named ‘Gerbil Droppings’.
A sprinkling of winning poems in competitions keeps me hopeful of fulfilling an ambition of publishing a volume of poetry. To this end I value the monthly Slipstream Workshops. The opportunities to explore the work of previously unfamiliar poets and experiment with different styles and techniques have made me a much bolder poet. I also enjoy the challenge of instant creative response.