I’m Skilbey. I moved to beautiful Pembrokeshire in 2001, where I have recently finished writing my first novel which I am now editing.

Here a few random things about me to you:

Two books I wouldn’t mind falling off my shelf and into your hands, for getting by in life – so long as I could get them back, please: Blink, and Eeyore’s Little Book of Gloom, (actually the latter is in my bag), and really, armed with those two, I’m good to go. Eeyore’s temperament can’t help but make me endeavour to be Pollyanna-itically correct, and with a dash of Desiderata thrown in, then I hope, at least, to continue challenging  a perception held by some people that, ‘‘anyone displaying cheerfulness before ten o’clock in the morning, is not to be trusted.’’

A song track and a film I wouldn’t mind falling off my shelf and into your hands -same arrangement as last, ta: Jennifer Holliday sings “And I’m Telling You” and Imitation Of Life First, listen and weep, replenish your tissues supply then watch and weep. Go on. Take the challenge and let me know what you think.

Two  literary books that haunt me: Beloved and Perfume 

A book full of residual wit: The Big Over Easy

A book that is contemporary, prismatic and as real as it gets: White teeth

A poem I rather like: The Quiet World

Though, all of the above could change by tomorrow.

I don’t drink tea or coffee or hot water with a slice of lemon or some shaved bark from the ‘whatever’ tree that has been eaten and digested through the four chambers of a tri-colour beetle.
I do worship chocolate and I will devour any cake. See one of my poems to just that, in Other Writerly Things  Eating ice cream makes me feel irritable, as does hard toffee. In fact, it makes me cross. But I simply fall into a relaxing stupor at the sound of someone delicately unwrapping a sweetie in say, a library or a cinema. Have I just raised your bird-like winged eyebrow?

I’m so in love with whispered plosives and fricatives. Plosive consonants. Softly received, sometimes in the ear. If ASMR had a church, I would be a member of its congregation. Read my page http://www.skilbey.com/asmr-whats-it-about/what is it and why.

It goes without saying then though I will, I love the snap of a raw carrot, copious amounts of crunching- within the back of the mouth, (cereal), the bristles of a brush being raked, the bite into a crisp apple and the sound of someone chewing gum. I know.

If you like the apple, then the other sounds I enjoy are just a little further along that road. On soporific Street.

I am shy and loud. Critically, when I need to be, I’m not, and I am not when I need to. Timing is everything.

I love goats– used to have two- and I find a giraffe’s walk simply relaxing to watch.

I should also mention that if I close my right eye, I see the world mostly in a size eight font.

I can be a little saucy. Have a look at my ‘Found’ poem in  http://www.skilbey.com/poetry-my-other-writerly-things/

Did I mention chocolate? And giggling?

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