This is me…
Teika Marija Smits
When I’m not busy with my children, I’m busy writing, drawing, painting, or running my small press (which I do so under my married name, Teika Bellamy). My work is rather eclectic and it has appeared in a wide-ranging variety of publications. I write poetry, flash fiction, short stories, children’s stories, parenting articles, reviews and essays. Though, currently, I am trying to be more focussed and so am concentrating more on writing science fiction, fantasy and fairy tales. I love drawing and painting too, and again, stylistically, my work is pretty eclectic! I love to read and would happily spend hours engrossed in a book if I had the opportunity. I live in the U.K., near Nottingham, but would like to be that bit closer to the sea.
I blog approximately once a month – I am very much into ‘slow blogging’ – so that I have enough time for all the other things I need to do to keep my Wild Woman from grumbling at me.
Thanks for stopping by 🙂 and feel free to connect with me via Twitter or Facebook if you want to chat about books, writing, poetry, parenting or art. I can also be contacted at: marija.smits@googlemail.com if you have any queries about my writing or art.
Teika Marija Smits 
Teika, please may I have the details of the books you had in your childhood and which are in the photograph above, thank you
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Hi Anne, thanks for your comment, though I’m not entirely sure which photo you mean. Is it the one from my ‘Art of Faerie’ blog post? https://marijasmits.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/the-art-of-faerie/ Let me know when you have a moment. 🙂
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Hi there Marija ~ I’m nominating you for the Blue Sky Tag :)) I found it really fun to do, myself, and I’m looking forward to your insights! Come by my Journal of Dawn blog and check it out. Will be putting my post up with all the info soon :))
No pressure in answering all the questions, but I sure look forward to your answers, and your list of questions, too !!! Dawn
https://journalofdawn.wordpress.com/
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Hi Dawn, many thanks for the nomination. 😀 That’s much appreciated. I will check it out! All the best. xx
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Great :)) We’re having our 4th of July holiday here today — going horseback riding :)) Hurray !!! Enjoy your day :))
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[…] About me […]
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[…] Marija Smits “poetess, book lover, chemist, writer, mother, artist… wild woman”. Her website […]
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Hello! Found your blog via #whatimwriting and couldn’t stop reading your work!! Congrats on turning 40 – have you seen post40bloggers.com? It’s a great place where bloggers on the less-hung-up side of 40 get to connect and share their posts. Have a look and register and submit!
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Hello Mamaelsie, and thanks for stopping by and mentioning post40bloggers.com – and of course thank you for your kind words re: my wriitng. 🙂 I’ll go and check out the website and see if I have something to submit. Best wishes, Marija.
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Your poems are super duper good, really enjoyed reading some of them! I was just wondering what inspired you to start writing and at what age?
Im a student from Victoria, and was doing a project on researching a ballad. Your ballad titled The Ballad of the Beach was awesome
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Hi Ella! Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read my poems. I’m glad you enjoyed them 🙂
I’ve been writing on and off all my life (I’m 38 now). The first poem I wrote was when I was about 7 or 8, and it was about my mum. Her name is Ludmila and I wanted it to rhyme – although Ludmila doesn’t really rhyme with anything! But in the UK we have a product called ‘Polyfilla’ (it’s basically a type of filler for cracks in walls!) so I rhymed her name with that. Neat, huh? Probably not my most skilled poem, but I enjoyed writing it all the same.
I’ve been ‘seriously’ writing poems for the past three years.
If you want to know more about ‘The Ballad of the Beach’ feel free to ask away, I can talk endlessly about poetry!
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Thanks so much!
1 other question, what was your main inspiration to start writing poems and what inspired you to write ‘the ballad of the beach’ ?
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You’re welcome!
My main inspiration to start writing poems was to express (or make sense of) my feelings on: my loved ones, beauty, mothering, the natural world, life, death and other powerful events, concepts and ideas… This inspiration is ongoing. Fitting them into the (what some may call ‘rigid’) confines of formal poetry is an intellectual puzzle for me (rather like doing a crossword!) and I receive great satisfaction from this puzzle.
The ‘Ballad of the Beach’ was first published in Musings on Mothering (Mother’s Milk Books 2012) and I wrote about its beginnings here, in this guest post:
http://lisahassanscott.co.uk/?p=532
You’ll notice that it has the set metre (some use the spelling meter) of a ballad: a line of iambic tetrameter and then a line of iambic trimeter. I thought the form of the ballad was a good way to capture the in and out of the waves breaking on the beach.
I hope that answers your questions, and if you do quote the poem, or any extracts from my prose I would appreciate appropriate credit being assigned to my writings. Thank you, and good luck with your project!
And do let me know when your project is finished so that I can congratulate you!
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The most important “2 things“ we can do for our children is to love them and pray for them! May REAL, PURE LOVE fill your heart and mine!
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Thank you Mariana for sharing your thoughts here. Best wishes to you.
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