A New Poem in The Tangerine Magazine

November 27, 2017

DQ2uFxLWAAA6kDyThe Tangerine Magazine is a great magazine of new writing based in Belfast, where I went to university and probably one of my favourite places in the world.
Edited by Tara McEvoy and her team, the publication is interested in work that looks at the drunkenness of ‘things being various’. I’m not quite sure what that line, taken from Louis MacNeice’s ‘Snow’, means (and that’s a good thing) but I think about and feel it a lot.

So, I’m over-the-moon to have a poem in its pages this winter. You can buy a copy here, if you like. You should. It’s beautiful and packed with great writing.

Open Mic with Danniel Schoonebeek

October 30, 2017

In addition to my PhD (writing poems, writing a critical thesis and panicking — a lot) I’m also director of Oxford Writers’ House, a hub in Oxford connecting writers across the city’s universities and local community. Last Thursday we had our first event of the new academic year, an open-mic led by the US poet Danniel Schoonebeek. It was honestly a brilliant night. We packed out the Albion Beatnik Bookshop and it was standing room only.

Oxford is a weird place. It’s brilliant but it is weird. It has all these … institutions but no shuttling between them. I find it especially weird as a working-class, poor woman who… went to private school and Oxford and is a poet?? Is that possible? Maybe I mean my parents are working class having left school at 15. Regardless, people in the centre think I’m like them but I live with a third of myself deep in imposter syndrome, a third in socialist outrage and a third desperately hoping to be liked. Or I did. I don’t really anymore. I’m too busy putting those tensions into the page instead of my life. And I have to skills and experience (thank the Lord and the 80s economy that brought my parents to the city) to help encourage a little movement between the different  republics. Or at least that’s what I’m trying to do. So here’s a photo of me at our first event persuading our audience to question their capital and buy books like Danniel’s that try to disrupt the centre and get a little movement going.

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The Society of Young Publishers – Oxford – 27.09.2017

September 29, 2017

DKv9B5-XoAUPdv_What a fantastic night talking about getting published with literary agent Antony Harwood and Michael Baskar from Canelo press.  We packed out the Living Room at Oxford’s Turl Street Kitchen and it was a pleasure to answer the audience’s questions.

One thing that shocked me was the lack of knowledge about how to submit work to agents, literary magazines and presses. The writers in the audience were unsure about so much– did they need a MA in creative writing to submit (no), would they get feedback (probably not), were emails okay (usually, yes!). It got me thinking about how much vital and interesting work might be sitting in a drawer in a desk because an author might not know how to get it out there.

So, I will be writing a series for Oxford Writers’ House on how to publish your work. I’ll be interviewing some agents, poetry press owners and editors of literary magazines to get some insider opinions.

Two New Poems

August 17, 2017

Very, very excited to break my publication drought with two poems in The Open Ear literary journal from my alma mater Queen’s University Belfast! The journal will launch later this year and hopefully, I’ll be able to head over to Belfast for the launch!