About Me
Welcome to my website. I hope you enjoy grazing. I am what you might call a working poet, that is, I’m a freelance writer roaming the Midlands, working with children and adults to develop their creative writing skills. I work extensively in the education sector, in schools, universities, libraries, prisons and even, in 2006, on an allotment.
I began writing seriously around 15 years ago. I’d always tinkered with poetry, getting my fingers burnt as a teenager, for example, with a vanity press who described my writing as, ‘stunning’ and ‘original’. I persuaded my father to part with £40.00 to fund an appallingly produced anthology.
My poetry began to develop when I began reading more, taking an interest in other people’s experiments with form and subject. A few early acceptances in poetry magazines, Smith’s Knoll and Magma, for example, led me to take the discipline more seriously and I embarked on an OCA course first with Robert Drake as tutor, then on the advanced course with John Cassidy. I’ve been an advocate of the courses ever since.
After some success in magazines I had my first pamphlet collection, ‘The Magic Garter’, published by Flarestack in 1999. This helped me to be taken seriously as a poet and work as a poetry tutor and facilitator followed with organisations such as the Ikon Gallery and Birmingham University. After 18 years as a lecturer in Further Education I went freelance in 1999, and my freelance career has developed since then. My second pamphlet collection, ‘Girls In The Dark’, was published by Dagger in 2002, after that a number of highly enjoyable residencies and commissions followed.
I became Birmingham Poet Laureate in October 2003, and took on a number of commissions including from the BBC, Shakespeare’s Law Firm and the Federation of Children’s Book groups. During the laureate year I read with Simon Armitage, Ian Macmillan and Owen Sheers. Residencies have included St. Martin’s church in the Bullring and for a number of years work as resident poet in schools for the Ledbury Poetry Festival. I work extensively in schools, often with other artists, including working with a film-maker for the arts organisation, FIERCE, on a project called ‘Feed Me’, based on an allotment.
In June 2007, I ran a starting to write course at The Hurst, the Arvon writing centre, with the novelist James Runcie.
I have been assistant editor, reviewer and feature writer for the last ten years on the magazine, Raw Edge, the magazine of new writing in the Midlands.
My first full poetry collection published in association with the Birmingham Book Festival, ‘How to Dismantle a Hotel Room’, appeared in Autumn 2006.