April showcase

Our next Mirrorball Showcase takes place on Thursday 25^th April, 7-9pm in person at the CCA with a wonderful line-up of poets: Marjorie Lotfi, Marion McCready, Nuala Watt, Rebecca Farmer, Alan Riach, and Mary Thomson.

Marjorie Lotfi is an Iranian-American who has lived in the UK for over 20 years. She’s a winner of the inaugural James Berry Prize, and her first collection The Wrong Person to Askwas published by Bloodaxe Books in October. She’s regularly commissioned to write new work, most recently The World May Be the Same with Hannah Lavery (supported by The Edwin Morgan Trust) and also writes and performs regularly with the 12 Collective of women writers.  Marjorie is a Co-Founder and Director of Open Book, which runs over 1,000 shared reading and creative writing workshops each year across Scotland, the Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees for StAnza and an editor for New Writing Scotland.  

Marion McCready is a poet and psychotherapist living in Dunoon, Argyll with her husband and two children. Her poems have been published widely including in Poetry (Chicago), Edinburgh Review, The Glasgow Herald and have appeared in multiple anthologies. Her pamphlet collection Vintage Sea was published by Calder Wood Press. She is the winner of a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award and the Melita Hume Poetry Prize and is the author of two poetry collections from Eyewear Publishing: Tree Language (2014) andMadame Ecosse (2017). Her most recent collection, Look to the Crocus, was published by Shoestring Press in 2023.   

Nuala Watt lives and works in Glasgow. Her poems have appeared in anthologies includingStairs and Whispers: D/Deaf and Disabled Writers Write Back (Nine Arches Press 2017), A Year of Scottish Poems (Pan Macmillan 2018) and To Mind Your Life: Poems for Nurses and Midwives (Polygon/Scottish Poetry Library 2021). Poems have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4. Recent work was featured in Atrium and Bad Lilies. ‘Important Information Enclosed’ appears in the Poetry Archive’s Poetry Archive Now Worldview 2023 collection. Current interests include visual impairment as a creative context and the relationship between disability and parenthood.

Rebecca Farmer’s most recent pamphlet A Separate Appointment was published by New Walk Editions in November 2022. Her pamphlet Not Really won the Poetry Business competition judged by Carol Ann Duffy and is published by Smith Doorstop. She holds a PhD from Goldsmiths University where her dissertation was on Louis MacNeice’s later poems and his work at the BBC. She continues to research MacNeice and a recent article appeared in the London Magazine. She has been a Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library and a Hawthornden Fellow. Her poems have been published in a number of journals including: Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Wales, The Poetry Review, The London Magazine,The Spectator, The North, The Strokestown Anthology and The New Statesman.

Alan Riach. Poet and Professor of Scottish Literature, Glasgow University. Born in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, studied at the Universities of Cambridge and Glasgow, worked at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, 1986-2000, returned to Scotland 2001. Books include poetry: The MacDiarmid Memorandum (2023), The Winter Book (2017), Wild Blue: Selected Poems(2014) and Homecoming (2009); and criticism: Hugh MacDiarmid’s Epic Poetry (1991),Representing Scotland (2005), and co-authored with Alexander Moffat, Arts of Resistance: Poets, Portraits and Landscapes of Modern Scotland (2008), described in the Times Literary Supplement as ‘a landmark book’, and Arts of Independence: The Cultural Argument and Why It Matters Most (2014). His 734-page Scottish Literature: An Introduction (2022) was described in The Times as ‘magisterial’.

Mary Thomson has lived many lives since she left her Cheshire farm childhood behind at 18. One-time gallery owner and art critic, since she came to Scotland in 2006 she has published eight pamphlets (three of which were shortlisted for the Callum Macdonald Poetry Pamphlet Award) and her poems have appeared in many publications. Her collection of poems, Still Dancing, was published by Red Squirrel Press in October 2023 on her 80^thbirthday. ‘This is poetry that hinges on reminiscence, but makes it relevant to the world today… Mary’s work engages place to achieve a time traveller’s delight, dipping in and out of past and present to future revelation and realisation.’ Marc Sherland

Save the dates

This month you’l find many of us at StAnza –St Andrew’s International Poetry Festival– where some of our members will be reading, or watching online or in person. Check out the fantastic programme here.

The forthcoming dates for Mirrorball are: 25/04/24 and 06/06/24, more details to follow.

William Bonar Poetry Prize winner 2023

On 17^th February 2024, which would have been William’s Bonar’s seventy-first birthday, Red Squirrel Press, in partnership with St Mungo’s Mirrorball, had great pleasure in announcing that the winner of the William Bonar Poetry Prize 2023 is Julie Laing.

Julie is a Glasgow-based writer and artist. She is interested in spaces where environmental elements, human experience and the news intersect in unexpected ways. In 2017 she graduated with an MRes in Creative Practices from The Glasgow School of Art. Julie is a winner of the Wigtown Poetry Prize 2022 and was mentored through the St Mungo’s Mirrorball Clyebuilt 13 verse apprenticeship scheme. She has been published on the Scottish Poetry Library website, in New Writing Scotland, Gutter, The Edwin Morgan Centenary Collection, Studies in Photography and elsewhere. She co-founded off-page, a series of visual exhibitions with CD Boyland, and co-ordinates Round Table, a peer-led criticism group supported by Street Level Photoworks.

Julie’s prize is publication of a pamphlet by Red Squirrel Press, mentored, designed and typeset by Gerry Cambridge. 

We would like to thank judges Sheila Wakefield, Elizabeth Rimmer, Eleanor Livingstone, Padraig MacAoidh, Lynnda Wardle and everyone who entered.

February Mirrorball

Award winning poet Mary Jean Chan will be headlining, live streamed from London, supported by poets in the room: Isobel Dixon, Shehzar Doja, Stephanie Green, Charlie Gracie and Peter Clive. The event will be held in the CCA on Thursday February 8th at 7-9pm (doors open 6.30pm). 18+ event

Free to members, guests £7/5.

Mary Jean Chan is the author of the poetry collection Flèche (Faber & Faber, 2019) which won the Costa Book Award for Poetry and was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, the Jhalak Prize, the Seamus Heaney Centre First Collection Poetry Prize and a Lambda Literary Award. Chan’s second book, Bright Fear, forthcoming from Faber, was shortlisted for the 2023 Forward Prize for Best Collection. Chan co-edited the acclaimed anthology 100 Queer Poems(Vintage, 2022) with Andrew McMillan and served as a judge for the 2023 Booker Prize. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Chan is currently the 2023-24 Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellow at the University of Cambridge. www.maryjeanchan.com

Isobel Dixon grew up in South Africa, where her debut Weather Eye won the Olive Schreiner Prize. She followed her Scottish roots to study in Edinburgh, before working in publishing in London. She now lives in Cambridge. Her further collections are A Fold in the Map, Bearings and The Tempest Prognosticator, which J.M. Coetzee described as ‘a virtuoso collection’. Her latest collection is A Whistling of Birds (Nine Arches, 2023). The UK edition contains 12 illustrations by Scottish nature artist Douglas Robertson. Edinburgh-based publisher Mariscat published her pamphlet The Leonids in 2016 and its poems will form the core of her next collection, The Landing (Nine Arches, 2025). She has worked with composers, filmmakers and artists. Her work is recorded for the Poetry Archive.www.isobeldixon.com

Shehzar Doja is Founder/Editor-in-Chief of The Luxembourg Review and Poetry Reviews Editor at Gutter. His poetry and translations have appeared in numerous publications worldwide. His poetry collections are: -Drift- (UPL/Monsoon Letters, 2016); I am a Rohingya: Poetry from the Camps and Beyond (Arc, 2019) co-edited with James Byrne (Poetry Book Society’s inaugural ‘World Choice’ award); and Let Us (or The Invocation of Smoke) (Broken Sleep Books, 2023). Shehzar’s poem marked the start of Cop 26 in Scotland in 2021 which was also the catalyst for the first ‘Poetry in Parliament’ event at Holyrood in 2022 and he was invited to read at Cop27. Shehzar was named a ‘Youth Icon’ in Bangladesh in 2017 by NewAge Newspaper and a ‘Future World Changer’ by the University of Glasgow in 2019.

Stephanie Green’s pamphlets are Glass Works (Cat’s Pyjamas Publications, 2005) shortlisted for the Callum McDonald Award,  Flout (HappenStance, 2015) and Ortelius’ Sea-Monsters (Wigtown Festival Company, 2023) winner of the Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize. She has created poetry/sound recordings in collaboration with the sound artist, Sonja Heyer on  Berlin Umbrella, (Berlin, 2018, and StAnza, 2020) and Rewilding, (Orkney Nature Festival, 2023). In 2023, she won 2nd prize at the Poetry Wales Award and, alongside winning the pamphlet prize, was shortlisted for the Wigtown single poem prize. Co-curator of ‘PoetryLit’ online, she lives in Edinburgh.  www.stephaniegreen.org.uk

Charlie Gracie grew up in Baillieston, Glasgow. His poetry collections, Good Morning (2010) and Tales from the Dartry Mountains (2020), were published by Diehard Press. His first novel, To Live With What You Are (2019), published by Postbox Press, was longlisted for the Bath Novel Award. His most recent collection of poetry and prose, Belfast to Baillieston, was published by Red Squirrel Press in 2023. Charlie was the winner of the 2023 Deirdre Roberts Poetry Competition. He was the 2020 official Scriever for the Federation of Writers (Scotland). He now lives on the edge of the Trossachs.

Peter Clive lives on the Southside of Glasgow with his wife and their three children. He has been published in a variety of journals and anthologies. His poetry collections include The end of the age of fire, stowaway, Crossing the Minch, 19 Women, and Moonsong. Peter has a background in physics and astronomy and works in the renewable energy sector. He enjoys writing music for piano and playing in bands. 

Thank you

Many thanks to all our members and guests for supporting Mirrorball over the past year. Merry Festivities to all who celebrate, and look forward to seeing you at Mirrorball in 2024. Our next event is on Thursday 8th February at the CCA, Glasgow with headliner Mary Jean Chan live streamed from London, supported by poets: Isobel Dixon, Shehzar Doja, Stephanie Green, Charlie Gracie & Peter Clive.

December showcase

Martina Evans will headline our December showcase with readings from James McGonigal, CD Boyland, Medha Singh and David Ross Linklater. The event will take place in the CCA CINEMA (ground floor) on December 14th at 7pm. Members – fee entry, guests £7/£5 on the door.

There will also be a Secret Stanza festive book swap, for those that want a surprise poetry present. Bring along an anonymously wrapped book for the lucky dip if you want to join in (a poetry book that you’ve bought and read, and is still in good condition).

Martina Evans is an Irish poet, novelist and teacher. She grew up in County Cork in a country pub, shop and petrol station and is the youngest of ten children. The author of twelve books of prose and poetry, her work has been highly accoladed including: winner ofPremio Ciampi Internazionale di Poesia 2011 for Facing the Public; winner of The Pigott Poetry Prize 2022 for American Mules which was also a TLS and Sunday Independent Book of the Year. Martina has been Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London from 2003-2007 and again in 2011-2012. She has run workshops and seminars internationally. Currently she is a Royal Literary Fund Advisory Fellow and Books Critic for the Irish Times. The Coming Thing was published by Carcanet in 2023.

CD Boyland is a poet, visual poet and editor from Cumbernauld. His pamphlets are User Stories; Vessel; SMC (pronounced ‘Seh-mik’) and Ptchdk (‘Pitchdeck’). Together with Julie Laing, he organised ‘off-page’, first in a series of anthology/exhibitions held at Many Studios, Glasgow in March 2023 with support from St Mungo’s Mirrorball. His first full-length poetry collection (Mephistopheles) will be published by Blue Diode Press in November 2023. Other work has been published in magazines and anthologies such as: 3AM Magazine, Gutter, The Interpreter’s House, The North and New Writing Scotland. He also co-edits the Glasgow Review of Books.

James McGonigal is a poet and editor, formerly a schoolteacher, teacher educator and professor of education. He is Edwin Morgan’s biographer and literary executor, and has published selections of his letters and uncollected prose, and a critical introduction for school students. His poetry has appeared from the 1990s onwards in Mariscat Press pamphlets and in three collections from Red Squirrel Press, most recently Life Sentences (2023). Cloud Pibroch (2010) won the Michael Marks Award.

Medha Singh is a poet, translator, and editor. She is editor of Berfrois, London. She has published a collection of love letters that she translated from the French, penned by Indian modernist painter Sayed Haider Raza during his time in France, I Will Bring My Time: Love Letters by S.H. Raza (Vadehra Art Gallery, 2020). Her work has been published widely and translated into Hindi, Spanish and French. Medha was longlisted for the Toto Funds the Arts Awards (India) in 2019 and 2020. She took her MSc in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh. Winner of a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award 2023 for Poetry, her collection of poems is forthcoming.

David Ross Linklater is a poet from Balintore, Easter Ross. He is the author of four pamphlets, most recently Star Muck Bourach (Wish Fulfillment Press, 2022). His work has appeared in The Dark Horse, Butcher’s Dog, Bath Magg and New Writing Scotland. He won the 10th Ó Bhéal’ International Poetry Competition, was awarded joint first place in the 2022 Neil Gunn Poetry Competition, is the recipient of a Dewar Arts Award and has been shortlisted for both the New Writers Award and the Edwin Morgan Award. He lives and writes in Glasgow, where he works as a screen printer.  @DavidRossLinkla / www.davidlinklaterpoetry.

November 16th Mirrorball

A showcase of the best new Scottish poetry collections with: William Letford, supported by Marjorie Lofti, Andy Jackson, Eleanor Livingstone & Tracy Patrick.

Our next Mirrorball Showcase will be held in the CCA clubroom from 7pm-9pm on 16th November 2023, and will be live streamed on Zoom for members – thanks to our tech support, Mark Cunningham Guest price is £7 or £5 conc

William Letford first appeared in Carcanet’s New Poetries V (2011) and published his first collection of poetry, Bevel (2012), while working as a roofer. Since then, his work has been adapted into film, projected onto buildings, carved into monuments, adapted for the stage, written onto skin, cast out over the radio, and performed by orchestras. He has helped restore a Medieval village in the mountains of Northern Italy, taught English in Japan, fished with his bare hands in Indonesia, and been invited to perform in Iraq, South Korea, Lebanon, Australia, Germany, India, Poland, and many more countries. Billy now has three books published, all with Carcanet Press. The latest of these is From Our Own Fire which has just come out.

Marjorie Lotfi is an Iranian-American who has lived in the UK for over 20 years. She’s a winner of the inaugural James Berry Prize, and her first collection The Wrong Person to Ask was published by Bloodaxe Books in October. She’s regularly commissioned to write new work, most recently The World May Be the Same with Hannah Lavery (supported by The Edwin Morgan Trust) and also writes and performs regularly with the 12 Collective of women writers.  Marjorie is a Co-Founder and Director of Open Book, which runs over 1,000 shared reading and creative writing workshops each year across Scotland, the Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees for StAnza and an editor for New Writing Scotland.  

Andy Jackson is author of four poetry collections, including A Beginner’s Guide to Cheating (Red Squirrel Press, 2015) and The Saints Are Coming (Blue Diode, 2020). His new collection Games Night was published by Red Squirrel Press earlier this year. He is also editor of a dozen anthologies including Scotia Extremis with Brian Johnstone (Luath, 2019). Andy was Makar to the Federation of Writers Scotland in 2017. He is co-editor of the magazine Poetry Scotland, runs the Otwituaries blog and is currently developing the Lonely Funeral project in Scotland.

Eleanor Livingstone’s first full collection, Even the Sea, re-issued in 2023, was shortlisted for the 2010 inaugural London New Poetry award for first collections. Selections of poems from Even the Sea have been translated into six other languages. Her other publications include The Last King of Fife, A Sampler, and as editor Skein of Geese, Migraasje, Bridging the Continental Divide, Necessarily Looking Backward and The Arch. Her new collection, Surprising the Misses McRuvie, is from Red Squirrel Press, 2023. She lives in Fife where she worked as a paralegal and creative writing tutor before becoming Festival Director for StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival from 2010 to 2021.

Tracy Patrick‘s new pamphlet, Out of the North, published by Maytree Press, is an original long poem sequence based on the life of the Reverend Joseph Johnston in his letters to thePaisley & Renfrewshire Gazette during the First World War. Tracy is a former Clydebuilt mentee and has an MLitt from Glasgow University. She is the author of one novel, Blushing is for Sinners, and three poetry publications, Wild Eye Fire Eye, Portrait and Painting San Romano.

Blue Diode showcase at Mirrorball

We’re looking forward to a wonderful evening of poetry on the 26th October from Blue Diode Press supported by readings from Rob A. Mackenzie, Petr Hruška, Jane McKie, Lady Red Ego and Georgi Gill.

Our next Mirrorball Showcase will be held in the CCA Clubroom on 26/10/23 from 7-9pm.

The event will be live streamed on Zoom, for Mirrorball members, thanks to our tech support Mark Cunningham

Tickets: £7 / £5 on the door (Mirrorball members free)

Ages: 18+

Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible

Blue Diode is an independent publisher of quality books, mainly poetry, based in Leith, Scotland. their first publication was Spark, a poetry anthology containing many poems written in response to the novels of Muriel Spark. Since then they have published several individual poetry collections. one of which, Juana Adcock’s Split, was the Poetry Book Society Choice for Winter 2019. This book, along with Tessa Berring’s Bitten Hair was highly commended in the Forward Prizes.

Petr Hruška is a poet and literary scholar who lives in Ostrava and works at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. He has published eight acclaimed poetry collections, including Darmata (To No Travail, 2012), for which he was awarded the Czech State Award for Literature. His poems have been translated into many European languages and books of his selected poems have been published in Germany, Poland, Italy, Hungary and Slovenia.Everything Indicates, a selected poems, in English translation by Jonathan Bolton, is published by Blue Diode Press in October 2023.

Rob A. Mackenzie is from Glasgow and lives in Leith. He has had three previous full collections published, The Opposite of Cabbage (Salt, 2009) The Good News (Salt, 2013) and The Book of Revelation (Salt, 2020), and two pamphlets, The Clown of Natural Sorrow(HappenStance, 2005) and Fleck & the Bank (Salt, 2012). A fourth collection, Woof! Woof! Woof!, was published by Salt in July 2023. His poems, criticism, reviews, and translations have appeared widely in literary publications. He runs publishing house, Blue Diode Press.

Jane McKie’s first collection, Morocco Rococo (Cinnamon Press), was awarded the 2008 Sundial/Scottish Arts Council prize for best first book of 2007. Recent collections include Quiet Woman, Stay (Cinnamon Press, 2020) and Jawbreaker (2021), which won the Wigtown Poetry Festival’s Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize 2021. She works as a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh. Carnation Lily Lily Rose (Blue Diode Press) was published in May 2023.

Lady Red Ego is a Chinese and Scottish lesbian writer concerned with intimacies. Her first pamphlet, The Red Ego, was published in 2019 with Wild Pressed Books and her second pamphlet, Natural Sugars, was published in 2020 by Broken Sleep Books. Your Turn to Speak! (Blue Diode Press) is her debut collection.

Georgi Gill is a writer and researcher whose poems explore a range of themes including the personal and cultural impact of illness and disability, and queer history. Georgi was the inaugural poet-in-residence at the Anatomical Museum in Edinburgh and editor of The Interpreter’s House magazine. Limbo, published by Blue Diode Press, is her first collection and was shortlisted for Scottish First Book of the Year in the 2022 Saltire Society Awards.

William Bonar Poetry Prize 2023

The William Bonar Poetry Prize 2023

(supported by St Mungo’s Mirrorball and Red Squirrel Press)

Submissions are now open for the third, 2023, annual poetry prize for Scottish-based poets in memory of William Bonar. This gifted and well-loved poet was the co-founder of St Mungo’s Mirrorball. He published three titles; his second pamphlet and full collection were published by Red Squirrel Press.

Eligibility

Entrants should be over 18 years old and currently based in Scotland. They should not previously have had a pamphlet or collection published by a publisher. Entry is free but restricted to one entry each year.

Process

Entries should be of 10-12 poems, must be the original work of the poet and can be in English, Scots and Gaelic. The poems should not be more than five years old and entries should be accompanied by a short biography in a single document. Email entries marked ‘The William Bonar Poetry Prize’ to jimcarruth63@gmail.com

Judges

The judges are Sheila Wakefield, Founder and Editor of Red Squirrel Press, Elizabeth Rimmer, (Red Squirrel press poet, reviewer, editor), Eleanor Livingstone (Former Director of StAnza), Padraig MacAoidh (Gaelic judge) and Lynnda Wardle, writer and William Bonar’s partner.

Prize

The winner will receive the following:

• Publication of a pamphlet by Red Squirrel Press
• 30 free copies and 50% discount on unlimited further copies
• Editorial support in developing their pamphlet from poet, ‘The Dark Horse’ founder, editor, essayist, typesetter and designer Gerry Cambridge who is Red Squirrel Press in-house typesetter and designer.

Closing Date

The Closing date is 31 December 2023 and the winner is expected to be announced in February 2024. Last year’s winner of the William Bonar Poetry Prize (2022) was Jane Picton Smith and she read from her winning pamphlet at St Mungo’s Mirrorball on Friday 6 October 2023.

Clydebuilt 16 News

We’re delighted to announce the successful mentees for Clydebuilt 16 are:

Nasim Rebecca Asl, Kim Crowder, Mattea Gernentz and Cat MacLeod.

The mentor for Clydebuilt 16 will be the brilliant poet Anthony (Vahni) Capildeo.

There was tough competition this year with 52 applicants, so congratulations to our new cohort.

Anthony (Vahni) Capildeo FRSL is a Trinidadian Scottish writer, with interests including place, memory, plurilingualism; interdisciplinary, multimedia, and collaborative work; singing, and traditional masquerade. Recent work include Like a Tree, Walking (Carcanet, 2021) (Poetry Book Society Choice). Capildeo served as a judge for the Jhalak Prize (2023), and is Professor and Writer in Residence at the University of York.  

Nasim Rebecca Asl is a Glasgow-based poet and journalist. Originally from Washington, Tyne and Wear, her work has been published widely in magazines and anthologies including in New Writing Scotland, Poetry Wales, Modern Poetry in Translation. She has been the Scotsman’s Poem of the Week. Nasim received a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award for Poetry in 2021 and was shortlisted for the 2022 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. She has worked on projects with the likes of The Poetry Translation Centre, The Poetry Business and the Rugby League World Cup. She teaches workshops, has performed around the UK and chairs events at book festivals. Her debut pamphlet Nemidoonam was released by Verve Poetry Press in February 2023.

Kim Crowder has poetry published in numerous journals including Argo, Encounter, Envoi, New Statesman, Outposts, Rialto, and 1987 Arvon Anthology (Selectors T. Hughes and S. Heaney). First prize in George Crabbe Memorial poetry competition 1984 and 1986. Recent creative non-fiction essays have appeared in Heather: AnAnthology of Scottish Writing, Pushing Out the Boat, and on websites including Landlines Nature Writing Project, Weather Matters Hub and The Polyphony. During 2023, participated in The Prescription medical humanities writing project hosted by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. Postgraduate degrees in Art (Norwich) and Research Methods (Goldsmiths). Visual Anthropology PhD (Goldsmiths) documented the effects exerted by industrial pig-farming on human and animal bodies and minds. Has contributed chapters to several anthropological essay collections. Also undertakes copy-editing for academics working in the arts and humanities globally. She lives in rural Angus.

Mattea Gernentz is a poet and curator from Tennessee based between Edinburgh and Paris. With studies in art history, literature, and psychology, she is an alumna of the University of St Andrews and Wheaton College. Mattea was selected as a 2022 Next Generation Young Makar by the Scottish Poetry Library and acted as Writer-in-Residence at the Château de la Haute Borde in 2023. Her writing meditates on themes of beauty, memory, and faith and has been featured in a variety of publications, such as Solum Press, The Pub, and Little Living Room, in addition to exhibitions and anthologies.

Cat MacLeod is a poet, creative facilitator and library worker based in Dundee. They graduated from University of Dundee with a Master of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing 2021, and are currently completing a Post-Graduate in Applied Arts and Social Practice at Queens Margaret University. They were selected as an Emerging Programmer for Book Week Scotland 2021, and as a ‘Future Library Leader’ on the CILIP125 List, and have poetry within F!lm Soup, The Magdalene and Variant Literature.