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. 

September Showcase

We have another great line up of poets for our next event: Bill Herbert, supported by Christie Williamson, Shehzar Doja and Charlie Gracie. The event will take place on Thursday 17th September at 7pm on Zoom. The Zoom link will be emailed to members on the week of the event. If you are not a current member of Mirrorball, please see ‘About’ page on this blog, for details of how to join.

 

^{W.N Herbert}

^{W.N. Herbert was born in 1961 in Dundee, and educated there and at Brasenose College, Oxford. He is Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing at Newcastle University, and has published widely with OUP, Arc, and others, including six books of poetry with Bloodaxe, several collaborative volumes with other poets, and five pamphlets. He has edited best-selling and influential anthologies such as Strong Words (2000) and Jade Ladder (2012). He is also a librettist, a text-led public artist, and a translator, working in collaboration on texts in Bulgarian, Chinese, Dutch, Farsi, and Somali. He has been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize, the Forward, and the Saltire, and has gained several PBS Recommendations and other awards, including the Cholmondeley. He was an original New Generation Poet, the first Wordsworth Trust Writing Fellow, and, between 2015 and 2018, the first Dundee Makar or city laureate. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Bill Herbert’s latest book The Wreck of the Fathership will be published by Bloodaxe in October 2020.}

 

^{Christie Williamson}

^{Christie Williamson lives in Glasgow where he runs Tell it Slant Books and is treasurer of the Scottish Writers’ Centre. Arc o Möns, his debut pamphlet, won the 2010 Calum MacDonald Memorial Award. His latest collection, Doors tae Naewye, is published this year by Luath Press. He comes fae Yell.}

 

^{Shehzar Doja is Founder/Editor-in-Chief of The Luxembourg Review and host of The Literary Lounge series. His poetry and translations have appeared in New Welsh Review, Pratik, Modern Poetry in Translation, Voice and Verses, Ceremony, Poems from the Edge of Extinction, Gutter, The Centenary Collection for Edwin Morgan, Fundstücke-Trouvailles and more. His poetry collection –Drift– was published by UPL/Monsoon Letters in 2016 and he co-edited  ‘I am a Rohingya: Poetry from the Camps and Beyond’ (Arc, 2019) with James Byrne which was recently Poetry Book Society’s inaugural ‘World Choice’ selection by Ilya Kaminsky.}

 

 

^{Charlie Gracie
Charlie Gracie grew up in Baillieston, Glasgow. His work has appeared in a range of anthologies and journals, with some listed for literary prizes, including the Bath Novel Award, Cambridge Short Story Prize and Bridport Poetry Prize. His first novel, To Live With What You Are (2019) was published by Postbox Press. His poetry collections, Good Morning, (2010) and Tales from the Dartry Mountains (2020), were published by Diehard Press. He is the 2020 official Scriever for the Federation of Writers (Scotland), and Chair of the Scottish Writers’ Centre. He now lives on the edge of the Trossachs with his family.}