News 2026

August 1 and 2, FISHERMEN will be on sale and is quoted in the GANSEY SHORE exhibition at Wells’ Maltings, organized by Sara Phillips. It features knitting, both now and in the past.

Eastern Daily Press, Monday 15 June, has a double-page spread about Windsong sailing boats. Along with pictures of Max and John Owles, Sally is pictured outside Overy Boathouse. The text includes a stanza of her poem about the boats’ creation.

On Monday 29 June, thanks to reporter Chris Bishop, Sally was on BBC Look East, reading this verse inside the boathouse.

Sally’s recently featured work includes:

Order now!
Meeting Places
£10.00
Meeting Places, Sally Festing
Paperback
978-1-869848-41-5
229 x 152 mm 70 pp. 20 May 2025
Available on back-order

Navel

Vitruvius fits man in a circle and a square,
Leonardo shows how this was done.
You could swing me on my navel
like Catherine wheels our father spun
on Guy Fawkes night. I waved a sparkler
orbiting the world inside my mind.

An umbilical cord is compass point,
bull’s eye, propeller’s spin. A way in
I thought, proud mine wasn’t the button kind.
I’d settle for the knotty hollow, pinned
when I was born. The space could be
a lair for all I might become.

from Obsessed with Pipework

Feeder

Sharpening geriatric eyes
he focuses binoculars through the glass

on the feeder dangling a dream-filled stocking
with hearts of sunflower seed.

Each blackbird has its own technique.
Their babies so big and still being fed.

Has the goldfinch gone?
Keep still, it’ll come again.

Tits plan their picnic – they trap seed beneath a foot,
swallow bits into their crop and return to the nest to share.

Robins, finches, swing the swaying cylinder.
It’s where trajectories begin.

Look! a male starling. Online, it says they’re smart.
He laughs. Starlings get more than what’s fair.

A squall of wings, the feeder swings.
They hold fast. Such parenting!

from Obsessed with Pipework