Day Seven: Protect Nature

 

PILGRIMAGE TO A FAVOURITE TREE

I cherish our unspoken
friendship. We do not need words,
we are as one soul

Your sturdy trunk has
multiple offshoots, swathed in
trailing ivy braid

Solid branches reach up
skywards, towards pure light,
sense of place so strong

As I run my hands
across your rough, tough gnarled bark
I hear sweet birdsong

Friend, you have stood here
for many a year, and will
be here when I’m gone

Generations will
Pass you by, yet sadly not
love you as I do.

As April rain falls
Sap rises green in your veins
Majestic you rise.

-Margaret Royall (from her new collection, Earth Magicke)

Godlike

The day I was God
I held your life; my hands,
cupped around your fragile body,

thrummed to that heartbeat,
fast, sacred, to you essential.
I caressed you, broken thing.

My desire was to fix, only
as my hands uncupped,
you sped off, godless.

Originally published The Lyrical Aye

-Maxine Rose Munro

 

This is an excellent resource:

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/thriving-with-nature/guide

Bios and Links

-Jane Rosenberg LaForge

writes poetry, fiction, and occasional essays from her home in New York. She has published four chapbooks of poetry and three full-length collections, the most recent being MEDUSA’S DAUGHTER from Animal Heart Press. Her novel, SISTERHOOD OF THE INFAMOUS from New Meridian Arts Press, was inspired by the life of her sister, a one-time punk rocker and prodigy in mathematics. She also is the author of the novel, THE HAWKMAN: A FAIRY TALE OF THE GREAT WAR (Amberjack Publishing 2018) and an experimental memoir,  AN UNSUITABLE PRINCESS (Jaded Ibis Press 2014). More information is at jane-rosenberg-laforge.com 

-Jo Fearon

Is Public Sector Administrator and hobby poet. Second of Ian McMillan’s guest Hear My Voice Sonnets on You Tube. Soon to be published in HMV Barnsley 2020 competition anthology.  Passionate about live music especially rock/blues/punk. Aiming to devote more time to what I love. Rediscovered love of writing the past 2 years.

-Maxine Rose Munro

writes in English and her native Shetlandic Scots. She is widely published in the UK and beyond, both in print and online. She runs First Steps in Poetry, which offers feedback to beginner poets. More here http://www.maxinerosemunro.com

—Kathryn Southworth was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, and now lives in Camden Town, London and Prinknash, Gloucestershire.  She is married with three surviving children and three grandchildren.

She has always written poetry but returned to it in earnest only after a long career as an academic in midlands universities. She was a founding fellow of the English Association, Head of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Wolverhampton and held senior management posts there and at Newman University and also worked for the Quality Assurance Agency. She has been a governor of the Camden and Islington Mental Health Trust and is currently a governor of Rose Bruford College of Drama and Theatre Arts.

She has published poetry and reviews in several magazines and anthologies and reads at a number of London poetry venues, including the Poetry Café and Torriano Meeting House. The literary canon informs her writing, as does her Catholic faith, surreptitiously.

-Dr Sara Louise Wheeler

has Waardenburg Syndrome Type 1, a genetic condition which affects her physical appearance as well as her hearing. She writes the column ‘O’r gororau’ (from the borders) for Barddas Welsh poetry magazine and her poetry, belles lettres and artwork has been published by Unique Poetry Journal, Dark Poets Club, Fahmidan Journal, Cloverleaf Zine, and 3am Magazine. Sara is currently writing an autobiographical bildungsroman opera called The Silver Princess, funded by Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru. Originally from Wrecsam in North East Wales, she now lives on the Wirral peninsula with her husband Peter and their pet tortoise Kahless

“Catch Up” is a series of posts in which I discover what the writers I previously interviewed have been up to.

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Catch-up – 4th May 2021

When Paul Brookes interviewed me in 2018 it must have been just before or just after the Carmarthen Book Fair, where I met David Norrington. I actually bumped into him in the town car park, where he was panicking over not having change for the parking meter and needing to get along to the book fair and get set up. I leant him change enough for the meter, told him to pay me back later as I would also be at the fair. (Over the years, going to book fairs and the like, I’ve learnt that there is more friendly cooperation between  publishers, especially us indies, than competition. We tell one another of printers that might suit, pass on tips re websites, venues, etc.)

Later that day David sought me out at The Journal stall, repaid me, and looked over my display, which had some of my own books as well as Original Plus publications. He didn’t seem so much interested in my recent novels and collections as in those few out of print titles that I had looking for a buyer. He also asked what I was working on and talked of his own press, Wordcatcher Publishing, and what he was hoping to achieve with it. There were two of my out of print titles that he seemed particularly interested in – a Boho copy of Problems and Polemics and the SF series, the unMaking of Heaven.

When I got home I sent David the MS of my latest SF novel, Once Were Window Once Were Doors and of my eco-novel, Trees. A week or so later there began an exchange of emails which culminated in me taking along, as requested, copies of various out of print titles to David’s garden office. David explained how he was endeavouring to build up Wordcatcher’s backlist and that he wanted to put out new editions of some of my titles.

I have met up with many enthusiasts in publishing, not all of them able to deliver on their promises, along with more than a few wanting to make money out of me rather than with/for me. David though was running no vanity press, all would be standard royalty contracts. No advance, but I didn’t expect one. A few weeks later three books arrived, Problems and Polemics, Rooms and Something’s Wrong. All with brand new glossy covers.And it didn’t stop there. I turned up at a Cardiff hotel for a meeting of Wordcatcher authors to find David unpacking two more of my titles, The Secret Report of Friar Otto and The Care Vortex.

I had not anticipated anything like this happening to me. And it carried on all through 2019, when David brought out all five books – Balant, Happiness, You Human, Not Now and (renamed) The Eternals – of the unMaking of Heaven SF series. The covers for them, of his own design, were exceptional.

How quickly we adapt to new circumstances. Because, although gratified by all these new editions, I was impatient to see my eco-novel, Trees, in print. David though wasn’t confident what genre Trees  should be in, and didn’t seem to understand my urgency. So I found myself quietly pushing for it to be published. On 4th March 2020 Trees finally made it into print. Guess what happened next?

Before I could arrange a proper launch for Trees we were in lockdown. And that’s been it more or less since. I’ve entered my mini-collection of Mock Sonnets & Other Lives for a couple of US competitions. Unsuccessfully. I thought of seeking publication through competitions would guarantee some publicity. But one has to win for that.

As the lockdown wore on and Wordcatcher was forced into abeyance I put aside book promotion and concentrated on each of The Journal issues and on my new detective series. I now have almost 3 novellas under the umbrella of Disclosures. Their titles are The Bride Vetter, Donny’s Puzzles and A Woman Wronged. Still unsure how best to publish them – as one book or 3 separate novellas. Now that Wordcatcher is slowly coming back to life I’m waiting to see what happens next there. David always has plans. How will my books figure in them? Once Were Windows Once Were Doors still languishes in his slush pile.

Here is the link to my 2018 interview with Sam Smith: Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Sam Smith | The Wombwell Rainbow

 

Mask

The nurse forgets her mask,
and the boy reminds her to act
according to the masquerade.

Morning, the morbid wind
(the boy calls it so) blows brown
leaves in the yards
and green curtains in the room.

The oxygen level dips a bit.
The nurse brings some flowers
the day next; she has her mask on,
but in this act we all can
perceive her from those eyes.

-Kushal Poddar

Day Six: Combine nature with creativity

-Masquerading As Rocks, written and performed by Kathryn Cowley

Muses

Here are her muses, ocean borne,
beach combed. Her teenage confusions
and mumbling frozen tongue that can win
no arguments bring her out here, where
stories are written in a language
she understands.

Endless tourists snap their picturesque
romance of seals and seabirds, the painted
clinker-built boats. She doesn’t talk to them,
hooded parka pulled tight, alone on beach
below ancient stone pier, touching base
with her realm.

Among the Sulphur perfumed seaweed,
things speak to her. Blue, blue, fishing nets
twisted into gordian knots. Barbed wire, rusted
orange and no friend of the unwary. A yellow
fish-box. A clear bottle of Klondyker’s vodka –
a mostly empty message.

Excited tourists photograph a pod of orcas,
she sees oil rigs, trawlers netting vast subsidies,
a white sheep skull poking ridiculous teeth
through the weed. She pockets a lava rock
from Iceland, maybe sell it to a tourist after,
maybe not.

And here, a bird with a broken neck, bright
feathers catching sun, dead eye pinned to the sky
perhaps homesick. If she could only speak
to others as this bird speaks to her, say
all that matters, ever matters, is to
honour the world before you.

Originally published The New Shetlander

-Maxine Rose Munro

 

STRAY DOG IN THE RAIN

It has been wet for days. The sun is a fading memory,
squeezed beneath these swaddling clouds. Compressed,

her outline smudges blood and mud across the sodden sky.
Her skin turns black and blue under the violence of the storm.

The weather is dictating terms. Invading ocean roars, heaves
its bulk onto the land, drowning out the little cries of birds.

Her throat shapes anxious sounds beneath her tattered coat.
No-one here will hear her prayers. Stone deaf in its rage,

the supine land will lie in wait. Soon it will have its say.
It coils its spring. It does not care what becomes of her.

-Clare O’Brien (First published by Lunate, March 2020)

TO A SINGER, FROM HER SONGS

You have driven us for years.
Counting our notes like sheep, urging us over storm-weathered hills.

Our cries are nothing to you.
Some you catch, stretching them beyond your rhythm, into the dark.

Some of us you call, softly at first;
Some you flay alive, the sound reverberating as you feed.

Sated, you are tender then;
caressing our bones, draping our wet skins over the chords to dry.

-Clare O’ Brien (first published by Nightingale & Sparrow, May 2020)

-Jane Rosenberg LaForge from her collection, Medusa’s Daughter, Animal Heart Press

 

(untitled)

I’ve strayed too far from this mud, this earth
to which we all belong,
I will plunge my hands into the cool soil
and feel fresh roots strike forth
from my fingertips
anchoring this trembling heart
deep
within the land.

-Charlotte Olivet

I Create

Something to care for, saved on this blessed earth.
A poem’s words walk into wilderness.
A painting is a deep focus, unearths
details, how trees frame, repairs
brokenness.

Folk in my head seem quieter in woods,
and in the cemetery. I usually
only hear the loud mouthy ones, the no goods.
Now, I listen to quiet ones slowly.

Some are no goods too, but most, not. Listen,
They tell me woodland air is sacredness.
Keen, I write and sketch, all senses sharpen.
I never knew here, in my inwardness.

Outside of myself there are outside selves.
Too many is a burden, all is wealth.

-Paul Brookes

Bios and Links

-Jane Rosenberg LaForge

writes poetry, fiction, and occasional essays from her home in New York. She has published four chapbooks of poetry and three full-length collections, the most recent being MEDUSA’S DAUGHTER from Animal Heart Press. Her novel, SISTERHOOD OF THE INFAMOUS from New Meridian Arts Press, was inspired by the life of her sister, a one-time punk rocker and prodigy in mathematics. She also is the author of the novel, THE HAWKMAN: A FAIRY TALE OF THE GREAT WAR (Amberjack Publishing 2018) and an experimental memoir,  AN UNSUITABLE PRINCESS (Jaded Ibis Press 2014). More information is at jane-rosenberg-laforge.com 

-Jo Fearon

Is Public Sector Administrator and hobby poet. Second of Ian McMillan’s guest Hear My Voice Sonnets on You Tube. Soon to be published in HMV Barnsley 2020 competition anthology.  Passionate about live music especially rock/blues/punk. Aiming to devote more time to what I love. Rediscovered love of writing the past 2 years.

-Maxine Rose Munro

writes in English and her native Shetlandic Scots. She is widely published in the UK and beyond, both in print and online. She runs First Steps in Poetry, which offers feedback to beginner poets. More here http://www.maxinerosemunro.com

—Kathryn Southworth was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, and now lives in Camden Town, London and Prinknash, Gloucestershire.  She is married with three surviving children and three grandchildren.

She has always written poetry but returned to it in earnest only after a long career as an academic in midlands universities. She was a founding fellow of the English Association, Head of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Wolverhampton and held senior management posts there and at Newman University and also worked for the Quality Assurance Agency. She has been a governor of the Camden and Islington Mental Health Trust and is currently a governor of Rose Bruford College of Drama and Theatre Arts.

She has published poetry and reviews in several magazines and anthologies and reads at a number of London poetry venues, including the Poetry Café and Torriano Meeting House. The literary canon informs her writing, as does her Catholic faith, surreptitiously.

-Dr Sara Louise Wheeler

has Waardenburg Syndrome Type 1, a genetic condition which affects her physical appearance as well as her hearing. She writes the column ‘O’r gororau’ (from the borders) for Barddas Welsh poetry magazine and her poetry, belles lettres and artwork has been published by Unique Poetry Journal, Dark Poets Club, Fahmidan Journal, Cloverleaf Zine, and 3am Magazine. Sara is currently writing an autobiographical bildungsroman opera called The Silver Princess, funded by Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru. Originally from Wrecsam in North East Wales, she now lives on the Wirral peninsula with her husband Peter and their pet tortoise Kahless

Day five: Exercising In Nature

(Originally published Between These Shores)

Streams

The holiday hike arrested as slow
treacle time drips down leaves, oozes
over boulders. Held by cessation, embracing
abandonment, you entered and left yourself
behind. You sit in forgotten worlds
that do not see you become lost
in the vastness of how small you are.

-Maxine Rose Munro

The Void

I take a look, see myself in the void.
So I resolve to walk in Wombwell Woods.
Ancient forest. Once called dark and devoid
of kindness. Home to killers, thieves no goods.

I can handle ghosts. Real folk do my head.
I find a regular track. Don’t want to be lost.
Uphill patched with cobbles leads to spread
Of water, folk call the res where anglers boss

their lines, I wend the other way through bird
talk,
twigs snap underfoot. I am elsewhere, home.
Things float in spring sunbeams as I slow walk
Intoxicated, bathing in trees dome.

This is not a void, this is substance, worth.
Something to care for, saved on this blessed earth.

-Paul Brookes

Bios and Links

-Jane Rosenberg LaForge

writes poetry, fiction, and occasional essays from her home in New York. She has published four chapbooks of poetry and three full-length collections, the most recent being MEDUSA’S DAUGHTER from Animal Heart Press. Her novel, SISTERHOOD OF THE INFAMOUS from New Meridian Arts Press, was inspired by the life of her sister, a one-time punk rocker and prodigy in mathematics. She also is the author of the novel, THE HAWKMAN: A FAIRY TALE OF THE GREAT WAR (Amberjack Publishing 2018) and an experimental memoir,  AN UNSUITABLE PRINCESS (Jaded Ibis Press 2014). More information is at jane-rosenberg-laforge.com 

-Jo Fearon

Is Public Sector Administrator and hobby poet. Second of Ian McMillan’s guest Hear My Voice Sonnets on You Tube. Soon to be published in HMV Barnsley 2020 competition anthology.  Passionate about live music especially rock/blues/punk. Aiming to devote more time to what I love. Rediscovered love of writing the past 2 years.

-Maxine Rose Munro

writes in English and her native Shetlandic Scots. She is widely published in the UK and beyond, both in print and online. She runs First Steps in Poetry, which offers feedback to beginner poets. More here http://www.maxinerosemunro.com

—Kathryn Southworth was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, and now lives in Camden Town, London and Prinknash, Gloucestershire.  She is married with three surviving children and three grandchildren.

She has always written poetry but returned to it in earnest only after a long career as an academic in midlands universities. She was a founding fellow of the English Association, Head of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Wolverhampton and held senior management posts there and at Newman University and also worked for the Quality Assurance Agency. She has been a governor of the Camden and Islington Mental Health Trust and is currently a governor of Rose Bruford College of Drama and Theatre Arts.

She has published poetry and reviews in several magazines and anthologies and reads at a number of London poetry venues, including the Poetry Café and Torriano Meeting House. The literary canon informs her writing, as does her Catholic faith, surreptitiously.

-Dr Sara Louise Wheeler

has Waardenburg Syndrome Type 1, a genetic condition which affects her physical appearance as well as her hearing. She writes the column ‘O’r gororau’ (from the borders) for Barddas Welsh poetry magazine and her poetry, belles lettres and artwork has been published by Unique Poetry Journal, Dark Poets Club, Fahmidan Journal, Cloverleaf Zine, and 3am Magazine. Sara is currently writing an autobiographical bildungsroman opera called The Silver Princess, funded by Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru. Originally from Wrecsam in North East Wales, she now lives on the Wirral peninsula with her husband Peter and their pet tortoise Kahless

Day four. Bring nature to you.

(Originally published in Southlight)

She’s building a tower

One stone for every day
she is ok. This one
is from a loch.

She reached into cold water
and took it home,
the first, her chosen

foundation. It sparkles
darkly. The second
came from a hill.

Under uprooted Ash,
between exposed roots
that fed still-living tree,

broad, flat, and coloured
earth. Her third
a broken, river-rounded

section of tile, taken
from a garden.
Terracotta, pitted

yet smooth to feel
when held against cheek.
Next, reddish slate

from a shore below castle,
slipped from turret above,
part of the roof.

Its fall shaped it
into a heart
that echoes her own

romantic notions. One day
she will find a stone
belonging to the sky,

it will be blue. Or white.
Her tower will be done.
She will rest.

-Maxine Rose Munro

Happens

You can’t plan it. Get out. Breathe. It makes sense.
I fetched in wild as postcard from nature.
greetings and wish you were here. Some intense
rock from a Wombwell charity shop shares

space with unpainted pine furniture, grain
and knots need to be seen, to lose myself
in swirls, still rivers whose eddies are tamed
in these marble bookends split whole length

reveals metamorphic designs pressured
heated limestone packed with coloured crystals
formed from impurities. Beauty impured.
I am not pure. Who split me ogles.

When nature is a mirror I avoid,
I take a look, see myself in the void.

-Paul Brookes

Bios and Links

-Jane Rosenberg LaForge

writes poetry, fiction, and occasional essays from her home in New York. She has published four chapbooks of poetry and three full-length collections, the most recent being MEDUSA’S DAUGHTER from Animal Heart Press. Her novel, SISTERHOOD OF THE INFAMOUS from New Meridian Arts Press, was inspired by the life of her sister, a one-time punk rocker and prodigy in mathematics. She also is the author of the novel, THE HAWKMAN: A FAIRY TALE OF THE GREAT WAR (Amberjack Publishing 2018) and an experimental memoir,  AN UNSUITABLE PRINCESS (Jaded Ibis Press 2014). More information is at jane-rosenberg-laforge.com 

-Jo Fearon

Is Public Sector Administrator and hobby poet. Second of Ian McMillan’s guest Hear My Voice Sonnets on You Tube. Soon to be published in HMV Barnsley 2020 competition anthology.  Passionate about live music especially rock/blues/punk. Aiming to devote more time to what I love. Rediscovered love of writing the past 2 years.

-Maxine Rose Munro

writes in English and her native Shetlandic Scots. She is widely published in the UK and beyond, both in print and online. She runs First Steps in Poetry, which offers feedback to beginner poets. More here http://www.maxinerosemunro.com

—Kathryn Southworth was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, and now lives in Camden Town, London and Prinknash, Gloucestershire.  She is married with three surviving children and three grandchildren.

She has always written poetry but returned to it in earnest only after a long career as an academic in midlands universities. She was a founding fellow of the English Association, Head of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Wolverhampton and held senior management posts there and at Newman University and also worked for the Quality Assurance Agency. She has been a governor of the Camden and Islington Mental Health Trust and is currently a governor of Rose Bruford College of Drama and Theatre Arts.

She has published poetry and reviews in several magazines and anthologies and reads at a number of London poetry venues, including the Poetry Café and Torriano Meeting House. The literary canon informs her writing, as does her Catholic faith, surreptitiously.

-Dr Sara Louise Wheeler

has Waardenburg Syndrome Type 1, a genetic condition which affects her physical appearance as well as her hearing. She writes the column ‘O’r gororau’ (from the borders) for Barddas Welsh poetry magazine and her poetry, belles lettres and artwork has been published by Unique Poetry Journal, Dark Poets Club, Fahmidan Journal, Cloverleaf Zine, and 3am Magazine. Sara is currently writing an autobiographical bildungsroman opera called The Silver Princess, funded by Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru. Originally from Wrecsam in North East Wales, she now lives on the Wirral peninsula with her husband Peter and their pet tortoise Kahless

Day Three: Get Out Into Nature

(Originally published in Between These Shores)

Streams

The holiday hike arrested as slow
treacle time drips down leaves, oozes
over boulders. Held by cessation, embracing
abandonment, you entered and left yourself
behind. You sit in forgotten worlds
that do not see you become lost
in the vastness of how small you are.

-Maxine Rose Munro

-Kathryn Southworth from “A Pure Bead”, an account of Viginia Woolf’s life.

Wellbecoming

I forgot how afternoons could be simple and peaceful,
and how to lose myself in the murmur of the tide;
how life was – before the busyness, pressure and anxiety
– and ghastly decisions which muddle the mind completely.

How to close my eyes, absorbing the atmosphere,
appreciating the essence of the day, without it having to ‘count’.

I didn’t consider how a group of new friends could drift to the beach,
enjoying the break without guilt. I forgot how it felt to be healthy,
with a clear mind, and a future full of possibilities.

I learnt once again how to sit still, enjoying the breeze on my face,
and the smell of the seaside; how to watch a lone bird on a rock,
surrounded by water, and to casually wonder why
it was not with the others on the bank.

In this creamy sunlight, a pair of swans
are swimming in slow, silent circles.
The world has ceased spinning around me, and my spirit is lifted;
whatever the future holds, I am optimistic.

-Sara Louise Wheeler, Tŷ Newydd, 2019.

Written on the beach near Tŷ Newydd writing centre. Originally published in Welsh as ‘Dychwelyd’ (return) by Y Stamp literary magazine; later renamed ‘Llesddŵad’ to match the English title. This English version was published by Dark Poets Club and featured in an associated anthology about mental health called ‘Pluviophile’.

-Jo Fearon

Will Get Out

Not enough for myself, but I will, I will
get out. Force this skin against itself.
My head screams “No!”, stay here, stay safe until
pain in your head is gone, in better health.

All you will find out there is death, disease
you don’t want to infect kindly old folk.
I get out. Sat in cemetery’s ease.
Jackdaws turn their beaks as if I’ve just woke.

Don’t sit with me. Don’t don’t talk to me. Don’t.
A ladybird appears on my coat sleeve.
A delicate thing. Blow it away. Won’t.
It unlocks it’s cage and flits and I breathe.

Unexpectedly wonder just happens.
You can’t plan it. Get out. Breathe. It makes sense.

-Paul Brookes

Bios and links

Bios and Links

-Jane Rosenberg LaForge

writes poetry, fiction, and occasional essays from her home in New York. She has published four chapbooks of poetry and three full-length collections, the most recent being MEDUSA’S DAUGHTER from Animal Heart Press. Her novel, SISTERHOOD OF THE INFAMOUS from New Meridian Arts Press, was inspired by the life of her sister, a one-time punk rocker and prodigy in mathematics. She also is the author of the novel, THE HAWKMAN: A FAIRY TALE OF THE GREAT WAR (Amberjack Publishing 2018) and an experimental memoir,  AN UNSUITABLE PRINCESS (Jaded Ibis Press 2014). More information is at jane-rosenberg-laforge.com 

-Jo Fearon

Is Public Sector Administrator and hobby poet. Second of Ian McMillan’s guest Hear My Voice Sonnets on You Tube. Soon to be published in HMV Barnsley 2020 competition anthology.  Passionate about live music especially rock/blues/punk. Aiming to devote more time to what I love. Rediscovered love of writing the past 2 years.

-Maxine Rose Munro

writes in English and her native Shetlandic Scots. She is widely published in the UK and beyond, both in print and online. She runs First Steps in Poetry, which offers feedback to beginner poets. More here http://www.maxinerosemunro.com

—Kathryn Southworth was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, and now lives in Camden Town, London and Prinknash, Gloucestershire.  She is married with three surviving children and three grandchildren.

She has always written poetry but returned to it in earnest only after a long career as an academic in midlands universities. She was a founding fellow of the English Association, Head of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Wolverhampton and held senior management posts there and at Newman University and also worked for the Quality Assurance Agency. She has been a governor of the Camden and Islington Mental Health Trust and is currently a governor of Rose Bruford College of Drama and Theatre Arts.

She has published poetry and reviews in several magazines and anthologies and reads at a number of London poetry venues, including the Poetry Café and Torriano Meeting House. The literary canon informs her writing, as does her Catholic faith, surreptitiously.

-Dr Sara Louise Wheeler

has Waardenburg Syndrome Type 1, a genetic condition which affects her physical appearance as well as her hearing. She writes the column ‘O’r gororau’ (from the borders) for Barddas Welsh poetry magazine and her poetry, belles lettres and artwork has been published by Unique Poetry Journal, Dark Poets Club, Fahmidan Journal, Cloverleaf Zine, and 3am Magazine. Sara is currently writing an autobiographical bildungsroman opera called The Silver Princess, funded by Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru. Originally from Wrecsam in North East Wales, she now lives on the Wirral peninsula with her husband Peter and their pet tortoise Kahless