Stone Talks brings together poems and four essays by Alyson Hallett on the subject of stones, somatics and our relationship with our environment. It invites us to listen again to the world around us, reawakens a childlike curiosity, makes connections we had forgotten, and gives us permission to experience the world in an embodied, vibrant way.

I will be an avid reader of Stone Talks, and I’ll tell my friends to keep an eye out for it. I love the way you travel. Donna Haraway, author, ecofeminist & Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Dept. and Feminist Studies Dept. at the University of California, Santa Cruz; I am SO moved and filled with joy reading your work. I feel as if you’re restoring me to my faith, by which I mean faith in listening to feelings, hearing the instinctual voice. You write so simply and beautifully and authentically about your experiences and I admire your trueness of spirit. Paul Harris, Professor of English, LMU, Los Angeles; Oh I love this little book. I love it from beginning to end. It’s told with clarity and generosity and it’s full of treasures. It moves across my mind like an erratic. From the land of you to the land of me. Lynn Davidson, Poet

Alyson Hallett grew up in Street, Somerset. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and a practice-based PhD in poetry and geographical intimacy from St Mary’s University, Twickenham. She has published more than 14 books: sole-authored collections of poetry, short stories, artists’ books, Six Days in Iceland in collaboration with geographer Chris Caseldine and walking limping stumbling falling with walking artist Phil Smith. Her latest book, LZRD: Poems from the Lizard Peninsula, is co-authored with Penelope Shuttle and her recent pamphlet, Toots, was shortlisted for the Michael Marks and Callum Macdonald Memorial Awards. She has written an essay on chalk for Radio 3 and drama and an audio diary for Radio 4. Collaboration is at the heart of Alyson’s work. She has worked with dancers, musicians, visual artists and glass makers and received grants from Arts Council England. Her work with sculptor and letter carver Alec Peever has spanned two decades and includes a poem carved into Milsom Street pavement in Bath, poems carved into boulders on a housing estate in Kew, and the 5 migrating stones that make up the Migrations Habits of Stones international poetry and public art project. Alyson was the country’s first poet to be resident in a university Geography Department with a Leverhulme artist-in-residence award. She has been a poet-in-residence at Charles Causley’s house and the Small School, Hartland; writer-in-residence for the Arts Council’s Year of the Artist and the Endelienta Trust. Alyson is a visiting lecturer in poetry at the University of the West of England and on the MA Illustration in Falmouth. She also works part-time for the Royal Literary Fund as a Reading Round Lector. Ongoing collaborative work with movement artist Deborah Black involves an exploration of embodied writing and how the body and the written word come together and inform each other. Early in her career Alyson attended a summer school run by the performance group Goat Island. This, along with working as a housekeeper for the Iona Community on the Isle of Iona for a year and a half, blew her mind and heart wide open and formed the foundations from which she works and lives. Alyson has also worked as a post woman, bar person, cleaner and mental health worker. She lives in a village near Bath, loves to walk and play piano and is a Hawthornden Fellow.