Loving the life I live.... a personal record
I trained as a fine artist at the Central School of Art in London (UK) and earned a living for over thirty years as an art teacher in secondary schools, with a break of 9 years in the 1980's when I went abroad to Brunei and Bangladesh as an expat wife, then became a mother.
When I retired from teaching, I continued to paint and also became interested in writing blogs and poetry. As Jan Windle, for three years after separating from my then husband, I went to southern Italy as often as I could, drawing and painting in Sorrento and on the Amalfi Coast.
In the summer of 2006 I painted and sold my pictures in Positano and in 2007 drove north to explore Tuscany, Umbria, Rimini and the area around Ravenna. As a memoir for myself of my visits to Italy, I've added pages from a now defunct blog to this site, part of a journal I wrote as Jan Windle in 2006–8. (Links in 'BLASTS FROM THE PAST' above)
In 2008, meeting Dónall Dempsey, the poet and spoken word performer, changed my life again. We married in 2016. We are a strong, loving partnership, publishing poetry pamphlets and collections and hosting monthly spoken word events and book launches, mostly online since the pandemic in 2019.
Our publishing website is dempseyandwindle.com. Between 2016 and 2023 we've published well over 100 books by more than 100 poets, and organised ten poetry competitions. We're now publishing under a new imprint: VOLE Books.
Still publishing books of poetry by others, and running at least one poetry competition annually, we're reducing the number of publications we take on each year, so that I can enjoy the other things that I love to do: spending time with Dónall; drawing and painting; growing vegetables and flowers in our small garden; reading; writing my own poems and with Dónall publishing our weekly newsletter about poetry and poets, and writing reviews of local theatre in Guildford. And, of course, updating our websites.
When I retired from teaching, I continued to paint and also became interested in writing blogs and poetry. As Jan Windle, for three years after separating from my then husband, I went to southern Italy as often as I could, drawing and painting in Sorrento and on the Amalfi Coast.
In the summer of 2006 I painted and sold my pictures in Positano and in 2007 drove north to explore Tuscany, Umbria, Rimini and the area around Ravenna. As a memoir for myself of my visits to Italy, I've added pages from a now defunct blog to this site, part of a journal I wrote as Jan Windle in 2006–8. (Links in 'BLASTS FROM THE PAST' above)
In 2008, meeting Dónall Dempsey, the poet and spoken word performer, changed my life again. We married in 2016. We are a strong, loving partnership, publishing poetry pamphlets and collections and hosting monthly spoken word events and book launches, mostly online since the pandemic in 2019.
Our publishing website is dempseyandwindle.com. Between 2016 and 2023 we've published well over 100 books by more than 100 poets, and organised ten poetry competitions. We're now publishing under a new imprint: VOLE Books.
Still publishing books of poetry by others, and running at least one poetry competition annually, we're reducing the number of publications we take on each year, so that I can enjoy the other things that I love to do: spending time with Dónall; drawing and painting; growing vegetables and flowers in our small garden; reading; writing my own poems and with Dónall publishing our weekly newsletter about poetry and poets, and writing reviews of local theatre in Guildford. And, of course, updating our websites.
- What is this site for?
- There may occasionally be poems by me.
- What will not appear on this site?
- There will be no articles on politics. Politics are important to me but this is not a place where I shall discuss them.
Janice Dempsey
28th July 2023
28th July 2023