Click here and select Friday's afternoon reading to listen to John's story from the Radio 4 Tent at the Latitude Festival in Suffolk, originally broadcast on Friday 25 July.

Note that this will be available only until Friday 1st August.

The Ropes: Poems To Hold On To
Guest edited by Sophie Hannah and John Hegley, this "anthology like no other", commissioned by Diamond Twig with the help of a grant from The Arts Council England, North East, addresses issues of particular relevance to teenagers. It will be available from 4 April following its launch at at Seven Stories, the Centre for Children's Books, in Newcastle's Ouseburn Valley.

See www.diamondtwig.co.uk/books/ropes.html for more details.

John's book Uncut Confetti has a strong autobiographical strand and a running thread of animal-related poems.

There is the usual abundance of splendid drawings accompanied by a photograph or two.

Find out more about the book.

Share your poems, ideas, comments, musings, questions, witty stories, ditties and other words on the word wild message board.

Now with state-of-the-art security measures to stop spamming - see John's contact page for more details.