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.