How exciting it is to announce to the world that a poetry book has just been published (absolutely yesterday) and especially this one: Alison Hill’s Sisters in Spitfires which appears on the Featured Writer page. Such a fantastic and intriguing subject is bound to be a wow of a best-seller and in Alison’s hands it is indeed a fire-cracker. Sisters in Spitfires celebrates the women who flew with the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) during the Second World War. They flew Anything to Anywhere – from Tiger Moths to Wellingtons and four-engine bombers – but shared a particular love of the iconic Spitfire. There were 164 women of the 1,246 ATA aircrew, including four female engineers, from over 25 countries. Pilots had no instruments or radios and were at the mercy of the British weather and enemy aircraft, often ferrying several planes each day.
And here’s what the reviewers have already said about it:
“Alison’s beautiful poetry helps us share the myriad of emotions these wonderful women went through in the most testing of times.” Pauline Vahey, British Women Pilots’ Association
“Alison Hill has really captured my mother’s spirit of adventure, her joy of flying, her love of nature, life and her sense of fun.” Candida Adkins, daughter of ATA pilot Jackie Moggridge
“Alison Hill captures the fire and spirit of ‘sisters’ called from an everyday ‘women’s world’ to display courage and determination on chilly airfields, in soaring Spitfires; their insouciance and unflappability shine through these portraits of heroines whose poetic stories are now taking off in style.” Anne-Marie Fyfe
Thursday 5 November – Launch Event
Sisters in Spitfires at the Landmark Arts Centre, Teddington
Alison will be reading from her new collection from Indigo Dreams, Sisters in Spitfires, accompanied by the close vocal harmony trio, The Spitfire Sisters. This is a special 1940s inspired evening – with a prize for the best dressed couple!
Tickets: £12 / £11 concessions / £10 LAC Members – book online at http://www.wegottickets.com/location/1611
Getting there: http://www.landmarkartscentre.org/visiting-us.html
Also as part of Southampton’s brand new literary festival So: To Speak, Matthew West is launching a pamphlet of specially commissioned Spitfire poems, Seagulls & Spitfires.
The evening also features music from the Spitfire Sisters, a talk about the iconic plane and Alison will be reading some poems from Sisters in Spitfires – all of this at the Solent Sky Museum in Southampton.
Booking details at http://www.sotospeakfestival.org/thursday-29/seagulls-and-spitfires/
Solent Sky Museum, Albert Rd S, SO14 3FR
7.00 – 9.00pm
Thursday 29 October
Price: £10.00 plus booking fee
Rebecca Gethin 
Wishing Alison a big congratulations on her exciting project and bringing the stories of these brave people to the world. So glad to be able to read a taster of the poems at the featured Writers page here. Thank you.
Thanks, Elly… I got my copy yesterday and it is great reading!
Reblogged this on Carolyn O' Connell.