Busy July

Greetings August! Just a little update on a very busy time. In July, I was delighted to be part of a brilliant panel (with the inspirational George Bastow and Pippa Hennessey) at Writing West Midlands National Writers Conference 2023, on all things supporting neurodiverse writers. It felt like the dream team and we really seemed to work in sync to get across everything we’d been discussing beforehand. The conference in general was brilliant (and I saw some lovely writer friends I’ve taught and mentored but who I’ve only previously met on Zoom!) A fab day and I left energised and inspired. Thanks to my fellow panellists, George and Pippa and to Jonathan Davidson and Emma Boniwell at WWM.

I so enjoyed running an odes masterclass for the mighty Arvon at the end of July. It’s been a long time dream of mine to teach for Arvon and despite me being unsure about the webinar format beforehand, I think it went pretty well. I got some lovely feedback that warmed my cockles!

Congratulations to poet Kathryn Bevis for her Forward shortlisting for the stunning ‘My body tells me that she’s filing for divorce’. Kathryn was kind enough to mention my work in her Forward interview (which is nuts because I’m her fangirl!) And to Hive spoken word poet and rapper, Dominic Heslop, who has been awarded a Churchill Fellowship that I was honoured to write a reference for. I’ve mentored Dom through his rocky younger years and am so proud to see the person he’s grown into and what he’s achieving through Slambarz.

And I’ve just got a copy of Obsessed with Pipework, hot off the press, with a few of my poems in. Anyway, I hope whatever you’re doing, the sun is out 🙂

Category: Blog

Poet | Editor | Mentor | Educator | Creative Practitioner

British/Welsh poet, editor & creative educator based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire (Neurodivergent, working class, passionate about developing young writers)