Below is a list of all the contributors to our inaugural issue, launched 21st August 2022. Contributors appear in the order they feature in the book.
Charity McArdle
Charity McArdle trained in London in the early 90s but lost touch with making her own work in the melee of starting a career in teaching, raising a family and moving to Scotland. She rediscovered her practice in 2015 when she decided to have a year of ‘making rubbish’ and focusing on ‘quantity, not quality’. This gave her the freedom to engage in the process without fear of judgment. In 2016, Charity began a series of commissioned and personal portraits, including two for the NHS portraits for heroes initiative and the coyly provovative ‘Caledonian Buddha’. In 2018 Charity began working more seriously on Seascapes and landscapes finding them to be an excellent vehicle for connecting ‘soul to brush, brush to canvas
Follow Charity at https://www.charitymcardlefineart.com/
Sarah Terkaoui
Sarah Terkaoui is Irish/ Syrian and lives in London. After twenty years working in the arts, she is studying for an MA in Writing Poetry (Newcastle University/ Poetry School) and working on her first collection. She was commended in the Hippocrates Poetry Prize 2021 and longlisted for the Live Canon international poetry Prize 2021. Her work appears in both anthologies and in Green Ink ‘Tempest’ and the August ’21 issues of ‘Dreich’ and ‘Wee Dreich’
Karen Mooney
Karen Mooney started penning her thoughts when her father passed away in 2016. Since then, she has shared them in fund-raising pamphlets and been published in the UK, USA and Ireland. She has enjoyed hosting local writers on radio and community television and has organised literary events, collaborating with the National Trust. More recently, she has been involved in judging the Waterways Storymaking Festival. She co-wrote ‘Penned In’ with Gaynor Kane, published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press in 2020, who recently published her debut pamphlet ‘Missing Pieces’.
Follow Karen on Twitter at https://twitter.com/1karenmooney
Sue Finch
Sue Finch’s debut collection, ‘Magnifying Glass’, was published in 2020. Her work has also appeared in a number of online magazines. She lives with her wife in North Wales. She loves the coast, peculiar things and the scent of ice-cream freezers.
Follow Sue on Twitter at https://twitter.com/soopoftheday
Marie Studer
Marie Studer is a past winter of the Trocáire Poetry Ireland Competition, twice winner of the Bangor Ekphrastic Poetry Challenge and shortlisted in the Northwest Words Poetry Competition. Her poetry has been published in the Stony Thursday Book, The Waxed Lemon, Drawn to the Light Press, Dreich, Bangor Literary Magazine, Visual Verse, Spilling Cocoa Over Martin Amis and local anthologies. Work forthcoming in the Not the Time To Be Silent Anthology.
Follow Marie on twitter at https://twitter.com/StudiMarie
Anne Walsh Donnelly
Anne Walsh Donnelly lives in Mayo, Ireland. She is the Poet Laureate for the town of Belmullet. She writes prose, poetry and plays. Her poetry collections, “The Woman With An Owl Tattoo” and “Odd As F*ck”, are both published by Fly on the Wall Poetry Press.
Follow Anne on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AnneWDonnelly
Kevin Higgins
Kevin Higgins was described in 2016 by The Stinging Fly magazine as “likely the most read living poet in Ireland. His poems have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Times (London), Hot Press, The Daily Mirror and on The Vincent Browne Show, and read aloud by film director Ken Loach at a political meeting in London. His sixth full collection of poems was called Ecstatic. Kevin Higgins 1967 – 2023 RIP
Georgia Hilton
Georgia Hilton is an Irish poet and fiction writer living in Winchester, England. Her work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, such as The Rialto, Prole Magazine,192 Magazine, and Perhappened. Georgia has a pamphlet, I went up the lane quite cheerful (2018) and a collection, Swing (2020), both published by Dempsey and Windle. Most recently, her collaborative pamphlet Sea Between Us (2022) was published by Nine Pens Press. Georgia’s poem, Dark-Haired Hilda Replies to Patrick Kavanagh, won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize (2018) and her short poem The Lost Art of Staring into Fires was a runner-up in the Briefly Write Poetry Prize (2021). Georgia lives with her husband and three children.
Follow Georgia on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GGeorgiahilton
Geraldine Mitchell
Geraldine Mitchell is a Dublin-born poet and writer who has been living on the Co Mayo coast for several years. Her fourth collection of poems, Mute/Unmute, was published in 2020. Geraldine is a Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award winner and last year was runner-up in the Troubadour International Poetry Competition. Her previous collections are World Without Maps (2011), Of Birds and Bones (2014) and Mountains for Breakfast (2017). She is published by Arlen House. Geraldine has also written two novels for 9 to 12-year-olds and a biography.
Follow Geraldine in Twitter at https://twitter.com/gmitchellpoet
Ellie J McMaster
Ellie J McMaster is a Scottish photographer who grew up in the West Coast of Scotland and now lives in Edinburgh. Ellie specialises in candid photography, using the juxtaposition of light and shade to create photos inspired by the paintings of the Dutch Golden Age. In 2020, her work made the Richard Cowan Scottish Portrait Award Photography Long List 2020. In 2021, she exhibited in Iceland as part of the Two Places by the Sea (Portobello-Akureyri) project. Ellie’s work has also featured in Abridged Magazine and in a number of publications relating to Art Walk Porty projects in Edinburgh.
Follow Ellie on Instagram @elliejmcmaster
Charlotte Oliver
Charlotte Oliver is a writer who lives in Yorkshire. She has had poetry commissions from the BBC and Scarborough’s South Cliff Gardens, and has been published widely including with iambapoet, Dream Catcher, Green Teeth, Ice Floe, Black Bough, Cape, Spelt and Fevers of the Mind. She is BBC Radio York’s Saturday Poet Laureate and has been a guest on Eat The Storms. Her debut pamphlet is How To Be A Dressing Gown (Dreich) and her first radio ballad, The Dark Store (funded by the Arts Council England) premieres in June 2022.
Follow Charlotte on Twitter at https://twitter.com/CharlotteOlivr
Patricia M Osborne
Patricia M Osborne is married with grown-up children and grandchildren. In 2019 she graduated with an MA in Creative Writing (University of Brighton). She is a published novelist, poet and short fiction writer. Patricia has been published in various literary magazines and anthologies. Her poetry pamphlets, Taxus Baccata, The Montefiore Bride and Sherry & Sparkly were published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press. She has a successful blog at Whitewingsbooks.com featuring other writers. When Patricia isn’t working on her own writing, she enjoys sharing her knowledge, acting as a mentor to fellow writers.
Follow Patricia at https://whitewingsbooks.com/
Lynda Tavakoli
Lynda Tavakoli is a poet, novelist and freelance journalist from County Down. She has been winner of both poetry and short story prizes in Listowel, The Westival International Poetry Prize and runner-up in The Blackwater International Poetry Competition and Roscommon Poetry Competition. Her poems have been published in The Irish Times ‘New Irish Writing’ and broadcast on the ‘Words Lightly Spoken’ podcast, and she has been a guest poet on RTE 1 The Poetry Programme. Lynda’s debut poetry collection, ‘The Boiling Point for Jam’ is published by Arlen House.
Follow Lynda on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/lynda.tavakoli
Mark Ward
Mark Ward is the author of the chapbooks, Circumference (Finishing Line Press, 2018), Carcass (Seven Kitchens Press, 2020), the prose/haiku hybrid HIKE (Bear Creek Press, 2022) and the Choose Your Own Adventure sonnet Faultlines (Voidspace, 2022) and a full-length collection, Nightlight (Salmon Poetry, 2023). He is the founding editor of Impossible Archetype, an international journal of LGBTQ+ poetry.
Follow Mark on Twitter at https://twitter.com/dogwithoutlegs
Kris Spencer
Kris Spencer is a British poet. His poems have been published in journals in the UK, US, Europe and SE Asia. Previous to his life as a poet, he wrote Geography textbooks, most published by Oxford University Press. Some won awards. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. The RGS is a grand institution that celebrates explorers. Kris is a Headteacher living and working in West London. He encourages pupils, teachers and parents to see the poetry in things.
Follow Kris on Twitter at https://twitter.com/KrisSpencerHead
Susan Richardson
Susan Richardson is an award winning, internationally published poet. She is the author of “Things My Mother Left Behind”, from Potter’s Grove Press , and also writes the blog, “Stories from the Edge of Blindness”.
Follow Susan on Twitter at https://twitter.com/floweringink
John D. Kelly
John D. Kelly lives in Co. Fermanagh. His work has appeared in various literary publications including Poetry Ireland Review, Magma, Southword, Cyphers, Skylight 47, Boyne Berries, Crannog, The Honest Ulsterman, O’ Bheal Five Words, The Stony Thursday Book, Poetry NI. among others. In 2020 he won the Listowel Short Poetry Collection Award and the Desmond O’Grady International Poetry Competition. His manuscript was highly commended in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award 2016. He achieved Silver Medal in the International Dermot Healy Poetry Competition in both 2015 and 2014. His first collection The Loss Of Yellowhammers (Summer Palace Press) was published in 2020.
Samantha Carr
Samantha Carr is based in Plymouth where she completed an MA in Creative Writing. Her work has been published in Acumen and Quill and Parchment magazines and she was a highly commended runner up for the 2020 Causley International Poetry Prize. In her spare time she enjoys wild swimming.
Follow Samantha on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sam_c4rr
Matt Hohner
Matt Hohner’s recent publications include Live Canon Anthology, New Contrast, takahē, Bealtaine, and Prairie Schooner. An editor on Loch Raven Review, Hohner’s collection Thresholds and Other Poems (Apprentice House) was published in 2018. At the Edge of a Thousand Years, his second book, won the 2023 Jacar Press
Follow Matt at https://matthohner.wordpress.com/
Jessamine O’Connor
Jessamine O’Connor’s latest collection Silver Spoon is published by Salmon Poetry. She is the Ireland editor with Drunk Muse Press, and on the panel of The Poet’s Republic and Scrimshaw. Over the years her poems have been published widely, and in 2021 she won the Dermot Healy writing award for her fiction and poetry.
Follow Jessamine at https://www.jessamineoconnor.com/
Valerie Bence
Following a Poetry MA at MMU in 2017, Valerie Bence’s first pamphlet Falling in love with a dead man (based on Rembrandt artworks) was published in 2019 (Cinnamon Press). Her second pamphlet Overlap (the Emma Press 2022) is quite different, being a meditation on the speed she seems to have travelled from granddaughter to grandmother – and the myriad similarities that astonish her daily. Published in Arachne Press, Commonword and Poetry School anthologies (Indigo Dreams forthcoming) she was longlisted for Gingko (2019), Fish Poetry (2019) and shortlisted for Poetry School Primers in 2018. She’s worked on poetry projects with the British Museum, Chelsea Fringe and the Scott Polar Research Institute.
Follow Valerie on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BenceValerie
Alison J Barton
Alison J Barton is an Australian poet and a descendant of the Wiradjuri people. Themes of race relations, Australian history, gender and psychoanalysis are central to her work. Alison has been (or is to be) published in Australian and international poetry/literary journals, including Australian Poetry Journal, Otoliths, Rabbit, Westerly, Poethead, Pratik Magazine, Crowstep Journal and The Night Heron Barks (US). Alison was shortlisted for the Ethel Webb Blundell Poetry Prize in 2022 and the Pratik (Fire and Rain edition) prize 2022. She also works as a Social Worker.
Follow Alison on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AlisonJBarton1
Patrick Wright
Patrick Wright has a poetry collection, Full Sight Of Her, published by Eyewear (2020). He has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at the Open University. He is also currently finishing a PhD in Creative Writing, on the ekphrasis of modern and contemporary art, supervised by Jane Yeh and Siobhan Campbell.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at https://twitter.com/saturnineone
Amy Abdullah Barry
Amy Abdullah Barry writes poems and short stories. She is published globally including Cyphers, Southword, The Sunday Tribune, The Poet’s Republic, Paris Lit Up, Live Encounters. Her poems have been translated into many languages including Italian, Turkish, Spanish, Azerbaijani and Persian. Featured in the RTE Radio One Extra in Reverberations Series 2. Her poems have been Shortlisted, Longlisted, Highly Commended, as well as winning local & international awards. Nominated for the Pushcart 2021 Poetry Prize. Her love of travel has enriched her work with a wide knowledge of cultures, pastimes and beliefs. She has been awarded Literature bursaries from The Arts Council Ireland and Words Ireland. Awardee of the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series 2022. Amy has performed her work in Ireland & internationally.
Follow Amy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AmyBarry12
Anne McDonald
Anne McDonald is a Irish based artist, spoken word poet, and creative writing teacher. Through her art, she explores our connection and sometimes disconnect with nature, and the effect mankind has on nature. She has had artwork featured in anthologies and online journals, and on cover work for musical collaborations and will have art published in the Fall Issue of The Banyan Review 2022. Her artwork features on the cover of her debut poetry collection “Crows’ Books” published in March 2021.
Follow Anne on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scarecrowbooks
Julian Matthews
Julian Matthews is a former journalist from Malaysia who is published in The American Journal of Poetry, Beltway Poetry Quarterly and Borderless Journal, among others. He stumbled onto poetry by accident five years ago. That happy accident has turned into a rabid compulsion. He is still extricating himself from the crash. Welcome to his recovery.
Follow Julian on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trinetizen
Sarah Connor
Sarah Connor is a Pushcart nominated poet writing in Devon, England. Her poetry and CNF has featured in many collections, recent publications including Black Bough, Irisi and Spelt Magazine She is a winner of the Angels and Dogs Poetry Project, and has been a Silver Branch featured poet. Sarah is a regular host at dversepoets.com.
Follow Sarah at https://fmmewritespoems.wordpress.com/
Liberty Price
Liberty Price is a first-year Creative Writing student at the University of Lincoln. She enjoys exploring nature, cycling; but most of all, reading and writing (in equal measure!) She reads voraciously, enjoys looking up the meanings of long words and is currently thinking of a new short story plot.
Follow Liberty on Twitter at https://twitter.com/LibertyPrice15
S Reeson
S Reeson is 55 and an ‘early’ career multidisciplined artist who has suffered with anxiety since childhood. They are married, have two children, and came out as bisexual during the 2010s.Work has been previously published by The Poetry Society, Bloomsbury/One World and Black Bough Poetry, plus their poems have appeared in the Flights / Quarterly ejournal, Green Ink Poetry, Fevers of the Mind, Acropolis Journal and the Selcouth Station Blog. In 2022 they have been physically published by Dreich and Flapjack Press. When not starting conversations online, they can found lifting heavy weights or on a static bike.
Follow S on Twitter at https://twitter.com/InternetofWords
Alice Stainer is a lecturer in English Literature on a visiting student programme in Oxford, as well as a musician and dancer. This intersection of arts is at the heart of her creative life. She is a little shy about sharing her work, but you can find some of it online at Green Ink Poetry, The Phare, 192 Magazine, Atrium, The Dirigible Balloon and Corvid Queen, and in print at Marble Poetry and The Dawntreader, amongst other places. She won the Gloucestershire Poetry Competition in 2020/21 and is gradually putting together her first pamphlet, with great trepidation.
Follow Alice on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AliceStainer
Michelle Walshe is from Dublin. She has been published in The Irish Times, The Examiner, The Sunday Independent, The Gloss, Púca, Ellipsis Zine, Loft Books, and several anthologies. In 2021 she was awarded an Emerging Artist Grant by Dun Laoghaire County Council, supported by the Arts Council of Ireland. She has won bursaries and scholarships most recently to the Iceland Writers Retreat.
Follow Michelle on Twitter at https://twitter.com/thesparklyshell
Renee Liang is a poet, playwright and essayist from Aotearoa New Zealand. She has toured eight plays and collaborates on visual arts works, dance, film, opera, community events and music. Some poetry and short fiction are anthologised. A memoir of motherhood, When We Remember to Breathe, with Michele Powles, appeared in 2019. In 2018 she was appointed a Member of the NZ Order of Merit for services to the arts.
Follow Renee on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ReneeLiang
Fiona McKay lives beside the sea in Dublin, Ireland with her husband and daughter. She is a flash fiction writer and is also revising a novel. Writes with Writers’HQ. Her Novella-in-Flash Longlisted in the 2022 Bath, and Reflex Novella competitions. Words in various places, including: Reflex Fiction, Janus Literary, Scrawl Place, EllipsisZine, The Waxed Lemon, The Birdseed, Twin Pies, Bath Flash, Lumiere Review, Books Ireland. Nominated for Best Microfiction 2021. Supported by Arts Council Ireland Agility Award.
Follow Fiona on Twitter at https://twitter.com/fionaemckayryan
Helen Jenks (she/her) is a poet from Dublin, bumbling history student, and avid knitter who writes of memory and myth, among other things. Her work has been published in various journals across Ireland, the UK, and the US, and she acts as the editor of The Madrigal, an Irish poetry publication focused on work that is emotive, sincere, and familiar.
Follow Helen on Twitter at https://twitter.com/rosemaryandwool
Jean O’Brien’s sixth Poetry collection Stars Burn Regardless was published by Salmon Poetry this Spring. She is an award winning poet, having won the prestigious Arvon International, the Fish International, been highly commended in the Forward Prize and placed in many others. Her work is widely published and broadcast. She was the Poet in Residence for October/November in the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris in 2021 and was awarded a Kavanagh fellowship in 2018. She holds an M.Phil in creative writing/poetry from Trinity College, Dublin and tutors regularly in the Irish Writers Centre and at post-graduate level.
Follow Jean at http://www.jeanobrienpoet.ie/
Lisa Rea Currie is a new writer from Northern Ireland. In her day job she works in heritage and themes of place and the past often appear in her writing. In her spare time, when not being ‘gently’ encouraged by her writing group to submit work, she can be found dragging her children round old graveyards and ruins which she is sure they will appreciate when they are older.
Follow Lisa on Twitter at https://twitter.com/LisRea
Mark Bauch / artist name Sugar de Santo has a B.A. in Art History, works as a poet and visual artist in Berlin. De Santo works mainly with paper / collages.
Follow Mark on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sugar_de
Marius Grose studied fine art at Bristol Polytechnic graduating in 1981 with a BA Hons degree in sculpture. He then made a career shift into broadcast television, becoming a freelance editor. Marius has worked on factual and entertainment shows, documentaries and feature films. Always interested in writing and storytelling Marius has written screenplays for film and television. Since 2016 has been writing poetry and reading his work at open mic nights and latterly online. He has had poems published in the literary arts journal Dream Catcher,192 Ezine, Allegro Poetry, The Ekphrastic Review and Dreich Magazine.
Follow Marius at http://photography.mariusgrose.co.uk/
Michael Durack lives in Ballina, Co. Tipperary. His poems have appeared in publications such as The Blue Nib, Skylight 47, The Cafe Review, Live Encounters, The Poetry Bus, The Stony Thursday Bookc, The Honest Ulsterman and Poetry Ireland Review. With his brother Austin he has recorded two albums of poetry and guitar music, The Secret Chord (2013) and Going Gone (2015). He is the author of a memoir in prose and poems, Saved to Memory: Lost to View (Limerick Writers Centre 2016) and two poetry collections, Where It Began (2017) and Flip Sides (2020) published by Revival Press.
Follow Michael on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/michael.durack
Aisling Keogh is a writer and psychotherapist, who lives in County Galway. Her work has been published with The Honest Ulsterman, The Irish Independent, Crannog Magazine, Wordlegs, Ropes, Bangor Literary Journal, A New Ulster, and various anthologies. Her first published short story, “How to Save a Life,” was shortlisted for the Hennessy Irish Literary Awards 2011. She is currently writing her second novel. In her free time Aisling likes to write and sing.
Follow Aisling on Twitter at https://twitter.com/aislingtkeogh
Simon Alderwick is originally from England but has spent most of the last eight years in the Philippines. His poetry has appeared in Magma, Eye Flash, Ink Sweat & Tears, Acid Bath, Broken Spine, Acropolis, Impractical Things and Anthropocene, among others.
Follow Simon on Twitter at https://twitter.com/SimonAlderwick
Luke Morgan’s second collection, “Beast”, is published by Arlen House 2022. His debut, “Honest Walls”, was published in 2016. He has published work in Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, the Irish Independent among others. As well as poetry, he is also an award-winning filmmaker and theatre director. He lives in Galway.
Follow Luke on Twitter at https://twitter.com/LukeMorganPoet
Oz Hardwick is a European poet, photographer, occasional musician, and accidental academic, whose work has been published in countless journals worldwide and who has read and held residencies in the UK, Europe, the United States and Australia. He has published nine full collections and chapbooks, including Learning to Have Lost (IPSI/Recent Work, 2018) which won the 2019 Rubery International Book Award for poetry, and most recently the prose poetry sequence Wolf Planet (Hedgehog, 2020). His next full collection, A Census of Preconceptions, will be published by SurVision Books in late 2022.
Follow Oz at https://ozhardwick.co.uk/
Michelle Moloney King (she/her) is a poet, asemic poet, editor of Beir Bua Press and works as a primary teacher. Moloney King is inspired by family life in flux, signifier and signified, plurality of time, and the surreal absurdism of life. She is published in Abridged Magazine, M58, 3 AM Magazine, Streetcake, Babel amongst others, Collections: Another Word For Mother with SurVision Books, 2022, Womxn Heatwave Mama by Beir Bua Press, 2021, and Shapes of Motherhood by ABP, 2020.
Follow Michelle at https://michellemoloneyking.com/
Margaret Royall has published five books of poetry and a memoir. She has appeared widely in print, online and in poetry anthologies, has won or been short-listed in several competitions and her collection ‘Where Flora Sings’, published by Hedgehog Press Nov 2020, was nominated for the Laurel Prize.First of all Her latest collection, ‘Immersed in Blue’ was published in January 2022 by Impspired Press. She leads a women’s poetry group in Nottinghamshire and takes part in open mic sessions online and in person. She is currently working on a third poetry collection.
Follow Margaret at https://margaretroyall.com/
Matthew McGuirk teaches and lives with his family in New Hampshire. BOTN 2021 nominee and regular contributor for Fevers of the Mind with words in 50+ lit mags, 100+ published pieces and a debut collection with Alien Buddha Press called Daydreams, Obsessions, Realities on Amazon.
Follow Matthew on Twitter at https://twitter.com/McguirkMatthew
Koss (they/them/she) is a queer writer and artist with an MFA from SAIC. They have work in or forthcoming in Diode Poetry, Five Points, Hobart, Cincinnati Review, Lunch Ticket, Gone Lawn, Scissors and Spackle, Bending Genres, Anti-Heroin Chic, Prelude, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Chiron Review, North Dakota Quarterly, South Florida Poetry Journal, Spillway, San Pedro River Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Rogue Agent, Rat’s Ass Review, Boats Against the Current, Alien Buddha, Westchester Review, Kissing Dynamite, Schuylkill Valley, Amethyst Review, and many others. They were also included in Best Small Fictions 2020 and won the 2021 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Award. Koss received BOTN nominations in 2021 for fiction (Bending Genres) and poetry (Kissing Dynamite).
Follow Koss at https://koss-works.com/
Ankh Spice is a queer poet from Aotearoa (New Zealand). His poetry has been widely published over the last three years, eight-times nominated for the Pushcart Prize and/or Best of the Net. He was joint winner of The Poetry Archive’s WorldView2020 competition. Ankh co-edits at IceFloe Press, and is a poetry contributing editor at Barren Magazine. His debut collection, ‘The Water Engine’ (Femme Salvé Books) is available from http://www.ankhspice-seagoatscreamspoetry.com.
Follow Ankh at https://www.ankhspice-seagoatscreamspoetry.com/
Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon lives near Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and writes short stories and poetry. She is widely published in online magazines and in print anthologies. Her first chapbook was published in July 2019: ‘Cerddi Bach’ [Little Poems], Hedgehog Press. She is a Pushcart Prize and Forward Prize nominee. She is developing practice as a participatory arts facilitator and believes everyone’s voice counts, even when their stories are hard to hear.
Follow Ceinwen on Twitter at https://twitter.com/CeinwenHaydon
Gillian Craig is from Scotland, but has spent almost half her life teaching and living in the Middle East, South East Asia and East Asia. She has had poems published by New Writing Scotland, Far Off Places, The Adriatic, Orbis, Dreich and 192 magazine among numerous other journals and anthologies. She is also a children’s author and poet, writing under the name Gillian Spiller. She is currently living in the UK with her family.
Follow Gillian on Twitter at https://twitter.com/gillian_spiller
Fokkina McDonnell recently moved back to The Netherlands. Her poems have been widely anthologised, broadcast, published online and in magazines, and commended and placed in competitions. She blogs weekly on http://www.acaciapublications.co.uk where she also showcases other poets. She has two collections: Another life (Oversteps Books Ltd, 2016) and Nothing serious, nothing dangerous (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2019) and a pamphlet A Stolen Hour (Grey Hen Press, 2020). Fokkina received a Northern Writers’ Award for poetry from New Writing North in 2020 and the collection Remembering / Disease will be published by Broken Sleep Books in October 2022.
Follow Fokkina on Twitter at https://twitter.com/FokkinaM
Winning a Hennessy Literary Award for her poetry in 2018 led to Louise G Cole having a Dublin pub renamed (temporarily) in her honour, and Carol Ann Duffy (then UK Poet Laureate) choosing her for publication. Louise has twice had poetry pamphlets commended in Munster Literature Centre’s annual Fool for Poetry Competition, the first of which, Under the Influence, was published by Hedgehog Poetry Press in February 2022. She insists on the ‘G’ in her name to avoid unnecessary confusion with an underwear model.
Follow Louise at https://louisegcolewriter.com/
Darren J Beaney is one half of Flight of the Dragonfly, who host a regular spoken word evening on Zoom, produce FLIGHTS a poetry, prose and flash e-journal and are about to entry the world of print as a publishing press. He hosts two online poetry clubs for Home-stage and was recently a guest editor for Sledgehammer Lit. He has had poems published in several journals and anthologies and has two pamphlets published by the Hedgehog Poetry Press – Honey Dew and The Machinery of Life. He lives by the West Sussex coast.
Follow Darren at https://djbeaney.wordpress.com/
Sinéad Griffin lives in Dublin, her poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Channel Magazine, The Honest Ulsterman, Skylight 47, The Waxed Lemon, Poems from the Heron Clan VIII and The Irish Times Hennessy New Irish Writing. Category winner Trócaire Poetry Ireland Competition 2021, she has previously participated in Eat the Storm poetry podcast.
Follow Sinead on Twitter at https://twitter.com/SineadGrif
Claire HM is a working-class writer from Birmingham, who writes about the possibility of magic in the mundane. Her poetry has appeared in Tears in the Fence, streetcake, Cape Magazine and Coven Poetry., amongst others, and she was shortlisted for the streetcake experimental writing prize in 2021. Her novella ‘How to Bring Him Back’ (Fly on the Wall Press) is set in 90s Brum indie subculture, and is a story framed by a spell to let go of the past. It has also been shortlisted in the Saboteur Awards 2022.
Follow Claire at https://clairehm.com/
Catherine Ann Cullen was the inaugural Poet in Residence at Poetry Ireland 2019-21. She is an award-winning poet, children’s writer and songwriter, and recipient of a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in 2018. She is a scholar of broadside ballads and has a PhD in Creative Writing from Middlesex University. Her third poetry collection, The Other Now: New and Selected Poems was published by Dedalus Press in 2016, and her seventh book, The Song of Brigid’s Cloak, is due from Beehive Books in October 2022.
Follow Catherine at https://catherineanncullen.wordpress.com/
Matthew M. C. Smith is published with Poetry Wales, Finished Creatures and Barren Magazine. He is ‘Best of the Net’ nominated and is the editor of Black Bough Poetry, TopTweetTuesday and the Silver Branch project.
Follow Matthew on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MatthewMCSmith
Jen Feroze lives by the sea in Essex with her husband and two small sleep thieves. Her work has recently appeared in Dust, Atrium, Ink Sweat & Tears and The Madrigal, among others, and her first collection, The Colour of Hope, was published in 2020. She loves sudden glowering clouds, rainfall on skylights, classic Disney and cheese you can eat with a spoon.
Follow Jen on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jenlareine
Michael Powell is a former U.S. Army military officer and government foreign policy analyst who rediscovered his passion for photography ten years ago as he began his glide path toward retirement. Now fully retired, he focuses much of his energy on capturing the beauty that he encounters, primarily in wildlife refuges and nature preserves in the Washington D.C. area. He features his photos, observations, and musings in a daily blog at michaelqpowell.com. An avid traveller, Mike looks forward soon to spending more time wandering the world and sharing its beauty with others.
Follow Michael Powell at https://michaelqpowell.com/
Julie Stevens writes poems that cover many themes, but often engages with the problems of disability. Her poems have recently been published in Fly on the Wall Press, Ink Sweat & Tears and Black Nore Review. Her Stickleback pamphlet Balancing Act was published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press (June 2021) and her chapbook Quicksand by Dreich (Sept 2020). Her next collection Step into the Dark will be published this year by The Hedgehog Poetry Press.
Follow Julie on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JulesJumping
Daniel Hinds lives in Newcastle. He won the Poetry Society’s Timothy Corsellis Young Critics Prize. His poetry was commended in the National Centre for Writing’s UEA New Forms Award and has been published, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The New European, Wild Court, Stand, Southword, Poetry Salzburg Review, Blackbox Manifold, The Honest Ulsterman, The Poetry Bus, Abridged, Poetry Birmingham, Prairie Fire, Finished Creatures, Perverse, anthologies by Acid Bath Publishing, and elsewhere. His poetic sequence The Stone Men of Newcastle was broadcast on BBC Introducing Arts with Huw Stephens on BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Sounds.
Follow Daniel on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DanielGHinds
Sarah Dixon has recently been published in The Journal, The Rialto and Prole. She has several poems on podcasts and had a poem published on a beer-mat. Sarah’s books are The sky is cracked (2017, Half Moon Books), Adding wax patterns to Wednesday (2018, Three Drops Press) and Aardvark Wisdom (2021, Kazvina Press).
Follow Sarah on Twitter at https://twitter.com/QuietCompereMcr
Colin Bancroft is currently working on a PhD on the Ecopoetics of Robert Frost. His pamphlet ‘Impermanence’ was released with Maytree Press in 2020 and ‘Kayfabe’ with Broken Sleep|Legitimate Snack in 2021. His pamphlet ‘Knife Edge’ was released in April 2022 with Broken Sleep. He won the Poets and Players Prize in 2016, and was joint winner of the Picador Shore to Shore and Manchester Cathedral Poetry Competitions (2021) respectively. He is editor at Nine Pens Press.
Follow Colin on Twitter at https://twitter.com/colin_bancroft
Jude Marr (they, them) is a Pushcart-nominated nonbinary poet. Jude’s full-length collection, We Know Each Other By Our Wounds, came out from Animal Heart Press in 2020. Their work has appeared in many journals in the US, the UK, and beyond. A native Scot, Jude recently returned to live in the UK after 10 years of teaching, writing, and learning in the US. The transatlantic connection remains strong, though. Jude is currently on the masthead at SWWIM Miami and Poetry is Currency, and they also now tweet for Animal Heart.
Follow Jude at https://judemarr.com/
Robert McCarthy is a writer living in New York City. He prefers to use formal means to achieve lyric ends. Robert has published poetry in The Alchemy Spoon and Dreich Magazine. His work has also appeared in Yours, Poetically and Neologism Poetry Journal; as well as in Words & Whispers, Celestite Poetry, Fahmidan Journal, Version(9), Madrigal, and Ice Floe Press.
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Andy Breckenridge lives in Brighton but is originally from Oban. He writes mainly about self imposed exile, relationships, and memory. He is also an honorary member of East Kilbride rock group, The Moes. He has work in several print and online journals such as Dreich, Green Ink, Southlight, Take Flight, Acid Bath and Eat the Storms He is currently filleting his first collection, The Fish Inside, and has been a featured reader on Flight of the Dragonfly Spoken Word, Eat The Storms, and reads regularly at the Northern Poets Society.
Follow Andy on Twitter at @drbafc
Born in Newport, South Wales, Adele Cordner’s pamphlet The Kitchen Sink Chronicles was published by Hedgehog Poetry Press in 2021 and her new collection Tea & Toast will be published in 2022. Her poems have been placed in competitions including The Plough Poetry Prize, Poetry On The Lake and The Welsh Poetry Competition and appear in anthologies and magazines including Red Poets, Poems For Grenfell Tower and Pandemic Poetry.
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Aoife Dowd is a Conamara based artist. She grew up in the Gaeltacht area of Carna, Co Galway. This area of Conamara has a huge influence on her artistic work. Aoife works mainly through the medium of oil paint. The richness and depth of colour is a fundamental part of her creative expression. Inspiration comes from her surroundings, Connemara, the ever changing moods, colours, light and vibrancy. Endeavouring to capture more than just a scene, but to draw the viewer in through a vibrant use of colour and textures.
Follow Aoife at https://www.aoifedowdartist.com/
Jaden Pierce is a young emerging poet from the DC area.
Follow Jaden on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jadenpierce01
Ellie Rees is an internationally-minded, award-winning writer who writes across many genres including poetry, creative non-fiction and memoir. Her work is widely published in various journals including: New Welsh Review, Poetry Wales, Cabinet of Heed, The Lonely Crowd, The Broken Spine and Black Bough Poetry. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Swansea University. Ellie’s first collection of poetry, Ticking won the Hedgehog Poetry Press ‘Selected or Neglected’ Book Collection Competition in 2020 and was published by them in January 2022.
Follow Ellie on twitter at https://twitter.com/ellierees23
Attracta Fahy, Psychotherapist, MAW NUIG ‘17. Winner of Trócaire Poetry Ireland Poetry Competition 2021. Irish Times; New Irish Writing 2019, Pushcart & Best of Web nominee, shortlisted for: Fish International Poetry Competition, OTE 2018 New Writer, Allingham Poetry competition both 2019 &’20, Write By The Sea Writing Competition 2021, Dedalus Press Mentoring Programme 2021. Her poems have been published in many magazines and anthologies at home and abroad. Fly on the Wall Poetry published her best selling debut chapbook collection Dinner in the Fields, in March’20. She is presently working towards a full collection.
Follow Attracta on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AttractaFahy
Gerry Stewart is a poet, creative writing tutor and editor based in Finland. Her poetry collection Post-Holiday Blues was published by Flambard Press, UK. Totems is to be published by Hedgehog Poetry Press in 2022.
Follow Gerry at http://thistlewren.blogspot.com/
A few years ago Roger Hare, now retired, rediscovered a love for poetry. He writes primarily from a love of being diverted by an idea, something overheard, an observation, a fascination, insight or emotion and particularly enjoys the stimulation offered by works of art. He’s grateful to have been published in several online and in-print projects and journals, been a prizewinner or shortlisted in a couple of recent competitions and Pushcart nominated in 2021.
Follow Roger on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RogerHare6
Róisín Ní Neachtain is an emerging writer and artist based in Kildare. Her art is held in international private collections and her work has featured both online and in print, most recently in The Honest Ulsterman and in Footprints, a Broken Sleep Books ecopoetry anthology. She won second place at the Red Line Book Festival Poetry Competition in 2021 and was recently awarded the Dennis O’Driscoll Literary Bursary Award by Kildare County Council to work on her first collection. An upcoming solo exhibition at Cultúrlann (Belfast) will feature her most recent paintings responding to Irish landscape and literature.
Follow Rosin on Twitter at https://twitter.com/crowofminerva
Mo Schoenfeld is a relatively new poet living in Oxfordshire in the UK. Her work appears in Irisi Magazine (http://www.irisi-magazine.org/healing/healing-haikus-and-senryus-by-maureen-schoenfeld), The Best Haiku 2021 Anthology and the upcoming The Best Haiku 2022 Anthology (https://haikucrush.com/) as well as on Pure Haiku’s blog (https://purehaiku.wordpress.com/). She has appeared in print in ‘Poetry in 13: Volume 3 (2020)’ and ‘From One Line: Volume 2’ (2021). One of her micro poems will appear in tiny wren lit’s upcoming ‘Issue 2: Existential’ (www.tinywrenlit.com).
Follow Mo on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MoSchoenfeld
Lynn Valentine lives in the Scottish Highlands. She had her debut collection, Life’s Stink and Honey, published by Cinnamon Press in 2022, after winning the Cinnamon Literature Award in 2020. Lynn’s Scots language pamphlet, A Glimmer o Stars, was published by Hedgehog Poetry Press in 2021, after winning their dialect competition. She was runner up in the Scots category of the Wigtown Poetry Prize in 2021. She is currently being mentored by the poet Niall Campbell after winning a place on the inaugural year of the Roddy Lumsden Memorial Mentoring Scheme.
Follow Lynn at https://lynnvalentine.com/
Merril D. Smith’s first poetry collection, River Ghosts, was published by Nightingale & Sparrow Press in 2022. Her work has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Fevers of the Mind, Vita Brevis, and Roi Fainéant. She lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River.
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Paul Stephenson studied modern languages and linguistics. He has published three pamphlets: Those People (Smith/Doorstop, 2015), which won the Poetry Business pamphlet competition; The Days that Followed Paris (HappenStance, 2016), written after the November 2015 terrorist attacks; and Selfie with Waterlilies (Paper Swans Press, 2017). In 2013/14 he took part in the Jerwood/Arvon mentoring scheme and the Aldeburgh Eight, before completing an MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) with the Manchester Writing School. In 2018 he co-edited the ‘Europe’ issue of Magma (70) and currently co-curates Poetry in Aldeburgh. He lives between Cambridge and Brussels.
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Fran Fernández Arce is a Chilean poet currently living in the intersection between Suffolk, England, and Santiago, Chile. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Pollux Journal, The Hyacinth Review, and gaia lit, among others.
Follow Fran on Twitter at https://twitter.com/dylanblue3
Colin Dardis is a neurodivergent poet, editor and sound artist from Northern Ireland. His work, largely influenced by his experiences with depression and Asperger’s, has been published widely throughout Ireland, the UK and USA. His latest book is All This Light In Which To See The Dead: Pandemic Journals 2020-21 (Rancid Idols Productions, 2022). A new collection, Apocrypha: Collected Early Poems, will be released later in 2022 by Cyberwit.
Follow Colin at http://www.colindardispoet.co.uk/
Tara A. Elliott’s poems have appeared in such journals as Ninth Letter, TAOS Journal of International Poetry & Art, and The American Journal of Poetry. Founder and director of Maryland’s Salisbury Poetry Week, she also serves as co-chair of the Bay to Ocean Writers Conference, and President of Eastern Shore Writers Association. A fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, past Poet-in-Residence for the Freeman Arts Pavilion, and recipient of the Christine D. Sarbanes award from MD Humanities, she recently received a Literary Arts Independent Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council.
Follow tara at https://www.taraaelliott.com/
Jane Dougherty lives and works in southwest France. Her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at http://www.janedougherty.wordpress.com. Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.
Follow Jane on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MJDougherty33
Beth Brooke is a retired teacher who lives in Dorset. Her debut collection will be published by Hedgehog Press in July 2022. She loves Dorset but misses the deserts of her childhood. She is often cross – though not with poets.
Follow Beth on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BethBrooke8
Mairead Carrroll is an emerging Singer/Songwriter and Poet and established fiddle player from Newbridge, Co. Kildare. She is currently working on her debut EP and 1st Poetry Collection to follow ‘If the Stars Could See You Now’. Poetry has been one of the silver linings for Mairead during Covid times, a gift of expression and self-discovery came and opened Mairead’s heart to a whole new world where poetry was at the heart of it.
Follow Mairead on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MauneyCarroll
Kerry Darbishire lives in Cumbria where most of her poetry is rooted. Her poems have appeared in many anthologies and magazines including: Ink Sweat & Tears, The Birmingham Journal, Artemis, Mslexia, Finished Creatures. She has two pamphlets (a collaboration) with Grey Hen Press and recently with Dempsey & Windle. Her third collection Jardiniѐre was published in June 2022 by Hedgehog Press.
Follow Kerry on Twitter at https://twitter.com/KerryDarbishire
Ness Owen is a Welsh poet from Ynys Mon. Her poems have been published widely in journals and anthologies. Her first collection Mamiaith was published by Arachne press in 2019. Her second collection Moon Jellyfish Can Hardly Swim will be published by Parthian in 2023.
Follow Ness on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ness_owen
Ryan Gibbs lives in London, Canada. His works of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction have appeared in Words Gathered (Canada), Last Leaves (United States), The Turning Point (Australia), Travels & Tribulations (United Kingdom), Paper Lanterns (Ireland), Short Circuit (France), The Wild Word (Germany), Eyelands 10 (Greece), Literature for the People (Malta), and Haiku Pond (Thailand). His children’s poetry has been included in the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness.
Follow Ryan on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RyanGibbsWriter
Doreen Duffy MA in Creative Writing at DCU, studied creative writing and poetry at NUIM, UCD and at Oxford online. Doreen has been published internationally, in Poetry Ireland Review by Eavan Boland, Washing Windows Too, Arlen House, Beyond Words Literary Magazine (Germany), The Galway Review, Flash Fiction (USA), Live Encounters (Indonesia), The Woman’s Way and The Irish Times. She won The Jonathan Swift Award and was presented with The Deirdre Purcell Cup at the Maria Edgeworth Literary Festival. Shortlisted in The RTE Short Story Competition (in memory of Francis MacManus) and her story ‘Tattoo’ was broadcast on RTE Radio One.
Follow Doreen on Twitter at https://twitter.com/doreen_duffy13
Helen Openshaw is a Drama and English teacher, from Cumbria. She enjoys writing poetry and plays and inspiring her students to write. Words in Green Ink Poetry magazine, Words and Whispers magazine, The Madrigal, Fragmented Voices, Roi Faineant Press and The Dirigible Balloon magazine.
Follow Helen on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Pocket_rhyme
Fidel Hogan Walsh’s work has appeared in Poethead, Pendanic, UCD Archives, Poetry Ireland – Poetry Town Pocket Poems booklet and The Irish Times. Fidel’s first collection of poems Living with Love launched in 2020. Her second collection of poetry in collaboration with photographer, Julie Corcoran, launched Culture Night 2020. Time is the fruit of a lockdown project undertaken between March and June 2020. The fifteen poems and sixteen images reflect on the human condition during unprecedented times. Time was named in the top 10 non-fiction of 2020 by Dublin City Libraries.
Follow Fidel on Twitter at https://twitter.com/dragonslayerma
Cáit O’Neill McCullagh started writing poetry at her home in the Scottish Highlands during December 2020. Her poems have been published in journals and anthologies, including Northwords Now, Poets Republic, Poetry Scotland, and The Banyan Review. In this time she has been invited to read at numerous gatherings throughout Britain and Ireland. A co-director of the Wee Gaitherin ‘Scotland’s most democratic poetry festival’, she is committed to nurturing the work of fellow ‘becoming poets’. In May 2022 she was announced as a joint winner of Dreich’s Classic Chapbook Competition along with her sister in poetry Sligo’s Sinead McClure.
Follow Cáit on Twitter at https://twitter.com/kittyjmac
Vicky Allen is the illustrator/artist and the author of Broken Things and other tales (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2020). She’s been published in print and online including Mslexia, Stravaig, Saccharine Poetry, Writers Cafe, as well as anthologies published by Proost, Dove Tales, Fevers of the Mind and Black Agnes Press. Her spoken word work Wonderlines was performed at the Edinburgh Book Fringe in 2018 and Fringe at the Yard in 2019. She was a 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee. Vicky has a forthcoming Stickleback micro collection being published with Hedgehog Poetry Press, and is working on a full collection.
Follow Vicky on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bringonthejoy
Gaynor Kane, inaugural issue sub-editor, is the author of Circling the Sun, Memory Forest, Venus in Pink Marble and her new pamphlet, Eight Types of Love, was published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press on 30th July. She loves lots of different things including smashing down literal & metaphorical walls and often uses her writing to give others a voice.
Follow Gaynor at https://gaynorkane.com/
Damien B Donnelly, editor-in-chief, is the Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominated author of Eat the Storms, a poetry pamphlet listed on the Poetry Book Society Winter List 2020/21, a Stickleback micro-collection and the co-author of the conversational pamphlet In the Jitterfritz of Neon. His first full collection Enough! arrives on 29th August from The Hedgehog Poetry Press.
Follow Damien at https://deuxiemepeaupoetry.com/
Storm Shelter 