A New Blog is Born - Southampton Then and Now

I have today set up a new blog for my book, Southampton Then and Now.  In the process I found that the name had been changed on Amazon to reflect the name change from its former title, Southampton Past and Present.  This is a good move, as I have had one or two puzzled people ask me about it!

I am still working on this book, so if anyone has any old photographs of any aspect of Southampton, which may be suitable to be re-photographed to present a then and now pairing, I would very much like to hear of them.  I am particularly looking for a photograph of the old pier and more photographs showing people at their place of work.

In the meantime, this book comes out at the beginning of October.

Penny Legg in Writers' Forum magazine!

I see that Dina La Vardera's article on 'How not to behave at a writing workshop' has been published in the March edition of Writers' Forum. I am especially pleased to see this article as Dina came to me for assistance with it and I was able to give her an insight into workshops from a tutor's point of view. The article is humorous and interesting and is, I think, thought provoking. It is good to see it given a double page spread and it was kind of Dina to mention my forthcoming book, Folklore of Hampshire, which arrives in the shops in July.

Penny Legg at the Southampton Writers' Circle

I was a guest at the Southampton Writers' Circle recently, where I gave an illustrated talk, 'Writing Articles Can Be Fun!' to a predominantly fiction writing audience. I had been specifically asked to give that talk, as many of the group were in the dark about what constituted an article, and the subject was thought of as dry and dusty. No one actually wants to write articles and actually enjoys doing so, do they?

Well, I think by the end of the talk, which was followed by a short workshop on gathering article ideas, using market handbooks for suitable publications to sell the idea to and working on an outline for the article, the writers present had changed their minds. There can be some fun in writing articles! Of course, I told them a little about some of the things I have got up to when working on magazine pieces, some of which are in the archives of this blog. I have been fortunate in some of the opportunities I have been offered and this has led to some fun adventures. I hope that my talk gave a boost to those who had toyed with the idea of article writing but did not really know how to go about it. I look forward to hearing on the grapevine that articles are now being written in the group and that members will be reporting publishing successes soon.

Many thanks to the Southampton Writers' Circle for having me.

Penny Legg's 'Southampton Then and Now'

Well, I had a nice surprise today. I knew that my publisher (The History Press) had been working on the front cover for my next book, Southampton Then and Now and today the first draft of it came through by email. It is not quite what we both want, as it does look a little bare in places, but it is nice to see the mock-up and my name on it. I think we will be looking at this again next week.

I will shortly be launching a blog for each of Folklore of Hampshire and Southampton Then and Now, so watch this space!

Southampton Then and Now

So far February is proving quite interesting. I have been busy working on my next book, which has had a name change from Southampton Past and Present, to Southampton Then and Now, although it is still on Amazon in its former name. The book is a photographic history of the city, using archive images and up to date colour photographs to chart the changes over time.

I met a super motorcycle policeman at Southampton City Police Station, who was very happy to wheel out his BMW 1200 cc bike and pose in front of the station building for me, while I took photographs of him looking off into the distance. My thanks to PC Holland, who entered into the spirit of the occasion with gusto.

I was driving past the Old Farm House public house the other day and noticed its extreme age, so pulled up and popped in. The building dates from 1611 and the present landlords, Barrie and Jo, were happy to help me with archive images. They and their staff also posed for 21st century shots, so I was a very happy Penny and my thanks go to them too.

Over the weekend I was to be spotted at several locations in the city peering over walls or looking up from the depths with a camera, ably assisted by my long suffering husband. I have a little way to go yet, the book is not going to be ready for the publisher for another seven or so weeks, but it is coming together nicely. It is due for publication at the beginning of October.