Simon Zonenblick - Writing and more

2026 has been an immensely busy year thus far, with a tremendous amount of time taken up travelling to and from places I have been writing about for ongoing and future projects.  South and East Yorkshire, Cumbria, and central England, not to mention my native stamping grounds in West Yorkshire, have  featured frequently, and in just a few hours' time I will be bouncing off to Brum for the umpteenth time.  Much news will be forthcoming in regard to all. I was delighted to be published for the second time in The Dalesman magazine in February, with an article profiling William Dutton, the innovative founder, artistic director and conductor of Cuore, Yorkshire's newest chamber orchestra, who I interviewed amid the illustrious confines of Harrogate's Royal Hall, the orchestra's main performing home.  Having attended Cuore's inaugural concert last May, it was a privilege to be able to help spread the word, and I am thrilled to say that the article has already secured fur...

I am delighted to announce the publication of my book Borderlands: Exploring The Yorkshire/Lancashire Boundary.    BORDERLANDS: EXPLORING THE YORKSHIRE/LANCASHIRE BOUNDARY By Simon Zonenblick The book, describing my journeys and encounters in the run-up to the 50th anniversary of county boundary changes, is priced at £14.50 for physical copies, or £6.50 for ebook/Word doc version.   It contains full colour photographs and many interviews and quotes. I will be selling copies at Sowerby Bridge's Foundry St Community Centre on 14th Dec, and at a special reading at Todmorden Library, 15th Dec, both 2pm, both free entry. Back cover: BORDERLANDS: EXPLORING THE YORKSHIRE / LANCASHIRE BOUNDARY By Simon Zonenblick   When Yorkshire born poet and nature writer Simon Zonenblick moved to Sowerby Bridge in 2012, he found himself not only exploring the dramatic countryside of the Calder Valley, but also, bit by bit, edging across the border into Lancashire, where he enjo...

 I was delighted to launch my nature diary The Wind Blows Thick Upon The Moor, recorded between September 2022-September 2023, at King Cross Library, Halifax, last month, along with the book's illustrator, Calderdale based artist Emily Howarth (pictured credit Helena Zhura) . The book is available to purchase from me directly at £12.50, or as a Word doc / PDF at £4.50. It will shortly be available to loan from Calderdale Libraries. I will be selling copies of this book, along with many others, at Sowerby Bridge Community Centre's Christmas Fayre, on 14th Dec 2025, 12-4pm.                                                                                                        

Working through some unpublished bird poems for future collections, I have chosen to share the following trio as they are quite apt for the time of year, and I happen to have a photograph appropriate for each. I hope you like them! BULLFINCH With a belly like a bottle of port this birch-basking,  blood-bibbed bird, nut-sucking connoiseur, struts poshly over hedges, plumply patrols herb gardens like a portly Justice-of-the-Peace. LONG TAILED TITS, EARLY MORNING AT THE STATION Notes of mousy music, you bounce the branches of deciduous staves, flip and float, trapezing trees in haphazard dances –   flighty types, brown clowns, impetuous imps, you jump and trick, skip twigs so quick, bob and hop and polka-dot the dawn. DUNNOCK Dusky dove, your pebbly breast a mist-bruised, ash, star-pimpled sky, you tilt a beak, as if fly-catching, slide-fly into a tunnel of tree, and merge into its woody kiss.

By nine or ten, the tensions seem to have eased, and the city seems lulled by a wave of collective relief, now that the voting is over, and the die is cast. There is a pervading sense of calm. Hopefully not the calm before the storm. I see and hear equal levels of support for either candidate, and these cut across all demographics. At Rockerfeller Plaza, the crowds and couples saunter in middle aged ease, well dressed and chipper, like the audience of a classical concert. On Broadway, families mingle. Without wishing to sound unduly mawkish or naive, even at Time Square there are both pro and anti Trump supporters talking civilly.  Someone in a huge bear costume - one half blue Democrat, the other Republican red - is offering "Hugs for Unity," which are keenly taken up.  There is a general sense that Harris is winning - though my optimism is cautious: this, after all, is not Florida or Alaska. This is New York. At Herald Square subway station, an elderly black man sings the s...

St Patrick's Cathedral offers a haven of peace amid the tension, but I'm soon out on the street again, edging my way through the throng towards Wall Street. Most New Yorkers are just going about their business at this early evening hour, though crowds are swelling in Time Square. As darkness falls, the Rockerfeller Centre is illuminated in flourescent red, white and blue.  People of every nationality, not to mention multitudinous Americans, are making it a carnival atmosphere. Skaters swerve to the sounds of Prince and Janet Jackson. The festive spirit is in marked contrast to what is happening a few blocks down. The anti-Israel march is swallowing up all in its path. Some of the posters and slogans are deeply antisemitic. Hard to say how far it relates to the election, as of course they hate both candidates equally. A man in a Captain America costume hogs the crossing, standing in the middle of the road and declaring through his microphone that "Donald J Trump" is ab...