Author: My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett)

Poetry Review: “Uprooted – A Season of Grief” by Mary Ann Burrows

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Rating:5 stars

Headline: Written with skill and depth – for a book so short, there is so much to take away

Review:

Uprooted – A Season of Grief is the new poetry collection from author Ann Burrows. Living near Vancouver, Burrows turns her pen towards a reflective collection that centres around themes of grief and grief survivorship. Spanning 108 pages, Uprooted bases itself around the four seasons, from Autumn to Summer. The collection is bookended with a foreword from Rick Diamond, a personal friend of Burrows, and an epilogue penned by the author.

Uprooted is focused purely on grief and Burrows’ handling of it following the tragic loss of her father. While there are occasional glimpses of optimism and joy, the focus on loss is very much present throughout. Regardless of the “season”, Burrows raw emotion and determination is evident throughout. Personal highlights include the poems “0 Avenue”, “Letting Go”, and “The World Needs Poets”. In one touching poem, “Sorrow is a Stone”, Burrows manages to capture the essence of grief in one succinct stanza:

Grief is a cold draft—
howling through lava rock walls,
then gone, its echo lingering,
sprinkled on the ground like rain,
woven through the air like lemon eucalyptus.

Where a multitude of poets and authors struggled to convey grief, Burrows only needs five lines to distil an entire emotion. And the above comes from a poem located early in the collection, it is not even the final flourish. Instead, it calmly sets the scene for the exploratory works that follow, varying from the superficial to the abstract. In addition to this, there has to be a small, but notable, mention to the artwork which features on both the cover design and transferred over into black and white for each “season” heading. There are few words to say, it’s a beautiful piece of design.

Crafted using a combination of traditional and unorthodox poetry structures, Uprooted is an emotionally charged ride, start to finish. For a book so short, there is so much to take away.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Uprooted – A Season of Grief” by Mary Ann Burrows

Purchase Link: “Uprooted – A Season of Grief” by Mary Ann Burrows (Amazon)

Author Website: https://maryannburrows.com/uprooted-2/

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“Life is a Tube” (Notes from Creative Writing)

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From my writing class scribbles, a quick 10 minute starter activity penned in response to the prompt “write a metaphor poem”. Enjoy.

Life is a Tube

Life is a Tube station,

It fills and falls in seconds,

Iconic to some, disgusting to others

At least the rats are dry.

A unifier of rich and poor, old and young,

Souls who loiter in dust and sweat,

The heat builds higher, a screech grows louder,

And yet only a dim light beckons.

(From personal notebook, initial draft penned 23/04/25)

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Book Review: “Celebrity Word Scramble: Famous Names in Music” by Bill Maier

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Rating: 2 stars

Headline: This puzzle book left me scratching my head more than scratching my chin

Review:

Celebrity Word Scramble: Famous Names in Music by Bill Maier is a puzzle book, filled with over a hundred unique challenges to test knowledge of famous singers both past and present. As Maier himself proclaims, “Celebrity Word Scramble is intended to interest a wide scope of puzzle lovers with puzzle books on sports, entertainment, history, and literature.” This would imply that Maier intends to release subsequent versions of this book, although at the time of reviewing publication dates were to be confirmed.

The puzzles follow the same approach, scrambled words where the reader has to select the right letters. Over the course of several iterations, with clues to help, the reader is able to piece together an answer to discover the hidden name of the celebrity. An appendix is also included to compare answers to.

While to all intents and purposes this could be a fun little book, I found myself falling down at the first hurdle. No matter how many times I stared at the worked through example on the opening page, I could not work out how the author was able to piece together the word “tunnel” out of the jumble of letters that make up “becrha”. With my brow becoming increasingly furrowed over what was meant to be a simple example, you can imagine how I got on with the actual word puzzles. After staring at the first three for five long minutes with little joy, I simply gave up.

With puzzle books it is hard to be truly unbiased. I fully accept that to a seasoned puzzle goer the nature of this book could be very straightforward but equally I have to reflect on this book being advertised as suitable for a wide range of readers, including those looking for a quick pick-up. In this case it is not something I can readily recommend; the questions themselves were just too complicated for me to grasp.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Celebrity Word Scramble: Famous Names in Music” by Bill Maier

Purchase Link: “Celebrity Word Scramble: Famous Names in Music” (Amazon)

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My Housemate’s a Mermaid – THE PODCAST

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) #blog, adult, British, Coffee, comedy, Coronavirus, Cotswolds, Culture, Dating, Economy, Europe, Event, family, fashion, Film, Finance, First Time Buyer, food, Friends, Gym, History, Holiday, House, How To, Humor, Humour, job, Literature, London, love, Medicine, Mellennial, Mental Health, Mermaid, News, Nonfiction, Pets, Podcast, Review, Social Media, Swindon, Tourist, Travel, Uncategorized, University, Wheelie Bins, Work, Young Professional , , ,

Another one from deep within the MHAM draft posts that never made it to air…until now.

Back in 2021…

I was thinking to myself the other day “you know what? There aren’t enough podcasts in the world. And golly, there sure as heck aren’t enough opinions being shared around. I should do something to rectify this immediately!”

Or, alternatively, I saw an advert for the free podcasting creator, Anchor, and thought I’d give it a shot.

Several coffees later and some playing about with low-budget graphics and ta-da! A podcast was born:

(Before you say anything, I really cannot stress the low budget-ness of this production. Low budget in the sense there is none.)

Who knows what will become of this, but basically it’s me talking to myself for up to half an hour and in episode one I talk about what lead me to start writing a blog. If you enjoy the concept of a one-woman natter then you’re in for a right royal treat.

I honestly could not be selling this venture harder if I tried. It’s just something I’m giving a go at for a bit of fun.

“My Housemate’s a Mermaid – The Podcast” available on Spotify

Jumping back to 2025…

Surprise, surprise, it didn’t catch on and after forcing myself through four recordings I stopped podcasting and went back to pure writing. I think as much as anything it was the realisation that podcasting with free software is difficult (in that I found the free to use software incredibly limiting and of overall poor production value).

I’m currently in the process of getting the original recordings saved (would you believe it, the platform appears to give podcast owners no access to downloading their own work once published).

For now, enjoy the bittersweet car crash that was the MHAM podcast and who knows, maybe I’ll revive it one day on better terms.

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Book Review: “Marketing Launchpad: The Ultimate, No-Fluff Marketing Book for Women in Business” by Racquel Collard

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Rating: 4 stars

Headline: The essential marketing guide for anyone striving to become an earth-shaker in business

Review:

Marketing Launchpad: The Ultimate, No-Fluff Marketing Book for Women in Business (hereafter Marketing Launchpad) by Racquel Collard is billed as its title suggests, a direct and essential guide for women who want to take their marketing strategy (and thereby their business) to the next level. Split into three parts; “focus”, “clarity” and “bringing it all together”, Collard’s writing approach is to simplify the needless complexities of the business world and empower women to not only fight for their fair share of the market but also realise their full potential by removing imposter syndrome out of the equation.

The writing structure in this book is balanced and varied to optimise engagement, providing a number of hypothetical and real world examples (although the latter tends to be more focused on the well trodden, big name players such as branding heavyweight Apple). The book also includes colourful and attention-grabbing imagery, exercises and worksheets, as defined by the heading “time to take action”. These worksheets appear at the end of chapters and compliment the preceding content in a way that makes the tasks easy to complete and not cumbersome for readers.

Central to this book is what Collard refers to as “the marketing funnel”, an essential awareness behind every successful entrepreneur of the customer journey, from a potential client to a loyal and repeat customer. Later on in this book this simple model is applied to other aspects of marketing business, including types and purpose of a product and how these elements align with customer interest and sentiment.

Marketing Launchpad makes for a good read as something that would suit pretty much anyone going into business (despite its title, I would argue there is nothing contained here to particularly excludes a male readership). That said, using positive imagery to promote women is certainly no bad thing and in a market dominated by generic business guides with vague titles Collard has set herself from the pack by singling out a female market. It is a book that gives two fingers to the term imposter syndrome and for that alone it is a book to be likened.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Marketing Launchpad…” by Racquel Collard

Purchase Link: “Marketing Launchpad…” by Racquel Collard (Amazon)

Author Website: https://www.marketinglaunchpad.com.au/

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Performing at Swindon Festival of Literature

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Ticking something off the Swindon bucket list, I can now say I’ve experienced the delight of reading/performing my fiction to a live audience at the Swindon Festival of Literature.

A piece of self-penned fiction, my story had the added “challenge” of needing to be performed in three minutes and in a way that kept the audience begging for more. I loved every second of it.

No performer is worth half of their talent without their trusty roadies. Ben did a brilliant job at suggesting revisions to my piece during the drafting stage, watching my performance in living room rehearsals and, most importantly, pumping me full of sugar and positivity on the night itself. (He’s also a dab hand at a camera.)

Thank you to the organisers of this event for helping to promote fresh voices and giving authors the platform to engage with new audiences.

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Poetry Review: “This Is Wisdom: By Understanding My Poetry” by Ronnell Beaty

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Rating: 2 stars

Headline: “This is Wisdom”: a poetry collection driven by passion but executed in a way that feels somewhat lacking

Review:

This is Wisdom: By Understanding My Poetry, is a collection of poems penned by author Ronnell Beaty.

Spanning 244 pages, the poetry collection itself covers around 200 pages. Topics of Beaty’s writing includes the spiritual and physical, as the reader transverses the inner workings of the poet’s deepest thoughts.
Most of the poems in Beaty’s collection are constructed as one line stanzas, with key words or phrases formatted in a bold typeface for added emphasis. This often results in a tone of voice that is either very punchy, or symbolic of the monotony of mundane human thoughts, witnessed strongly in the poem “I Be The First To Listen – And The Last To Speak!”. In this poem, Beaty transports readers into the head space of someone stripped of their voice. The deployment of repetition in this poem strikes out acutely across the stanzas, including the lines, “I don’t, // Even speak. // I just: // Listen… // I just: // Listen…” Used in this way Beaty’s words showcase an individual reduced to boredom, or even submission itself.

While there are some respectable elements of this collection, Beaty’s overuse of the same poetic style is repetitive and dry. There is a lack of variety to demonstrate the artistic merit of the author and, by keeping the tone of voice monotonous, it does tend to inspire feelings of boredom within the readership Beaty strives to inspire.


In additional to this, and despite the book presenting itself as quick read, the number of poems in this monosyllabic style becomes hard to overlook. It is what prevents This is Wisdom from inspiring much beyond a stifled yawn. There is talent in Beaty, so potentially the collection would have benefitted from being split into two distinctive books, done so to include more variety of poetic deployments.

A poetry collection driven by passion, This Is Wisdom is executed in a way that sadly feels somewhat lacking.


AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “This Is Wisdom: By Understanding My Poetry” by Ronnell Beaty

Purchase Link: “This Is Wisdom: By Understanding My Poetry” by Ronnell Beaty (Amazon)

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What do you have in common with tacos?

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What do you have in common with tacos? You’re both awesome, that’s what.

Image credit goes to Wonder Doodles for creating this slice of delight.

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Book Review: “Lost in Beirut: A True Story of Love, Loss and War” by Ashe and Magdalena Stevens

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Rating: 4 stars

Headline: This darkly beautiful memoir yanks you in by the collar and refuses to let go

Review:

‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there’” were the words of L.P. Hartley, a quote strikingly applicable to the Middle East experiences of Ashe Stevens during 2006, while working in the Lebanese capital city of Beirut.

Jointly written with Magdalena, Ashe Stevens’ memoir Lost in Beirut starts as two business partners trying to orchestrate a concert for the rapper 50 Cent. A first time traveller to the region, Ashe is thrown headfirst into a strikingly different culture to his American roots. A place where economies halt five times a day for prayers and family reputation is everything. Ashe quickly discovers the latter for himself when he starts dating Aleyna, a woman who hails from a high-profile family in the Hezbollah district of Beirut.

Unknown to the city’s bustling residents, while the stage is being prepared for a career-defining concert, a bigger threat is brewing across the boarder in nearby Israel. In the days that follow, society is flipped from prosperity and glamour into a landscape where money means nothing and an American accent is enough to have you killed on sight. With the airport bombed and all roads out the country destroyed, Ashe must fight a new battle of his own and find an escape from within the rubble of Beirut.

Lost in Beirut is a highly likeable book, packed with beautiful imagery of a thriving city both before and after the months of bombing attacks. Written in first person present, it does take a few chapters to adapt to the tone of voice and tense (memoirs generally being written in past tense which makes for a more reflective style, whereas this feels more reactive). Once you get past this though the story yanks you in by the collar and refuses to let go, really coming into its own in the final third of the book where you get a sense of society falling apart. The world-building is more apocalyptic in this section, you can feel the raw panic of the mega rich on discovering their money is worthless, their expansive villas levelled flat in minutes. You would believe it to be a work of pure fiction, if it were not for the sadness that these events are true and actually happened. People died in this conflict.

A touching and, at points, quite graphic memoir, I come back to Hartley’s quote. With well over a decade having transpired between the 2006 Lebanese war and now, can we still claim the past to be a wholly foreign country? Or maybe we have to move on, embracing acceptance with the scars that are left.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Lost in Beirut…” by Ashe and Magdalena Stevens

Purchase Link: “Lost in Beirut: A True Story of Love, Loss and War” by Ashe and Magdalena Stevens (Amazon)

Author Website: https://lostinbeirut.com/

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Volunteering on Young Enterprise’s “Learn to Earn”

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Last week I was incredibly fortunate to spend a day volunteering in a local secondary (high) school, helping to deliver one of Young Enterprise’s educational programmes, “Learn to Earn”.

The programme involves helping younger students (aged 12-13) get to grips with the basics of goal-setting and budgeting (e.g. establish the difference between “needs” and “wants”). During the day I was also able to present to the full year group of 180 students, sharing my career journey from History degree, to delivering a spectrum of digital change at my current employer. I also got to meet other professionals from outside my employment sector, which was a fun and fascinating networking experience by itself!

Overall, it was a great day and I’m very thankful to The Dorcan Academy and Young Enterprise for giving me the opportunity to be involved.

To find out more about Young Enterprise and volunteering opportunities in your area, click here.

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