Emily and Christian are moving back to Australia to the goat farm in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland where they used to live. Their shack of tree trunks and potato sacks is now a wooden house and they will be making Emily’s next album there before returning to tour the UK again in 2020. If you want Emily to keep you in touch and let you know when she is coming back, please join her mailing list.
Emily was interviewed and performed her song ‘Start Over Again’ (from her album ‘Believer‘) live on ‘Front Row’ on BBC Radio 4 last night. You can listen again here (scroll to 19:58). Book tickets for Emily’s poetry & song tour which starts tonight.
I’m very much looking forward to the start of my poetry & song tour in Taunton tomorrow night, celebrating the publication of my new book ‘Meditation Mind’.
The venues are mainly bookshops where I’ll be playing acoustic guitar and my husband Christian will play double-bass and we’ll be performing some rarely-heard songs from my old albums plus a brand new song I played for the first time at Gaunts House the other night. I’ll read some poems from ‘Meditation Mind’ and there will be a chance for questions at the end.
On Saturday we’re doing one of these poetry & song gigs in Oxford as a fundraiser for the wonderful mental health charity Restore, of which I’m a patron. They are a fantastic charity helping people recover from mental illness and transform their lives. All support very welcome.
I was so delighted to get the award for public service and advocacy from the International Society For Bipolar Disorder. They do such good work raising awareness of this illness and supporting the people who have it.
Now I’m off to the BBC in London to perform on Radio 4’s ‘Front Row’ tonight…
Hope all’s well in your world.
xx
The International Society For Bipolar Disorder (ISBD) has awarded Emily the 2019 Mogens Schou Award For Public Service and Advocacy for her work in mental health. Since publishing her autobiographical book ‘Start Over Again’ back in 2010, Emily has done many gigs for mental health hospitals and groups across the UK and been interviewed many times on BBC Radio talking about her own lived experience in the hope of combating the stigma of mental illness.
The ISBD says, “The ISBD Awards committee seeks to identify candidates for the Mogens Schou Award whose contributions, commitment and passion honor the legacy of Prof. Schou. We first became aware of your music and background through Ms. Marylou Selo, a past recipient of this Award, and after visiting your website, learning more about how your lived experience of bipolar disorder informs your art, and how you have made a point to leverage that to provide hope for those living with mental illness, it is clear that you embody the spirit of the Mogens Schou Award for Public Service and Advocacy.”
Emily will travel to the ISBD annual conference in Sydney, Australia in March to collect her award. For more information about Emily’s work in mental health and her campaign to promote music for mental health, please visit www.musicformentalhealth.net.
One week to go until the start of Emily’s book tour to promote her new book of Buddhist poetry ‘Meditation Mind’. These very intimate gigs in bookshops and Buddhist centres will be a mix of poetry readings and acoustic songs with Emily on guitar and her husband Christian Dunham on double-bass. The hour-long set will include songs from Emily’s old albums that have rarely been performed plus a brand new song. Emily will hold a short Q&A at the end of each performance. She is touring Taunton, Oxford, Bridport, Cardiff, Manchester, Haslemere, Coventry, Frome, Bath, London and Bristol. Book tickets
You can now watch videos of me reading from my new book ‘Meditation Mind’ at https://emilymaguire.com/videos/. I’ll post more videos of poetry readings on social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) over the coming weeks. All these poems were stream-of-consciousness compositions written after meditating, and completely unedited. I have no memory of writing any of them. ‘Meditation Mind’ is available to order from my website or from Amazon (or you can order it in all good UK bookshops).
I’m really looking forward to my ‘Meditation Mind’ book tour starting next month. I’ll be performing a special set of acoustic songs and poetry readings in Taunton (8 Nov), Oxford (10 Nov), Bridport (12 Nov), Cardiff (16 Nov), Manchester (17 Nov), Haslemere (22 Nov), Coventry (24 Nov), Frome (29 Nov), Bath (30 Nov), London (6 Dec) and Bristol (8 Dec). Click here for details and tickets.
Hope all’s well in your world.
xx
As it’s World Mental Health Day, I’ve just posted a video talking about music for mental health, a cause very close to my heart. You can see an article I wrote earlier this year about it here. Find out more at www.emilymaguire.com/music-for-mental-health.
We’ve just posted some videos of Emily reading poems from her new book ‘Meditation Mind’. Emily will be touring the UK in November and December playing very intimate gigs in bookshops and Buddhist centres, reading poems and singing acoustic songs with a short Q&A at the end. Dates and details of these gigs are here. Places are limited so please book early and please spread the word if you have friends or family in any of these places you think might like to come. More videos will be posted on Emily’s social media over the coming weeks – you can follow her on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
I’ve recorded some video clips of me reading poems from my new book ‘Meditation Mind’. I’m posting these on social media. Follow me on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to see them. I’ll be reading these poems and singing acoustic songs at bookshops and Buddhist centres across the UK in November and December. Dates and details are on my gigs page.
