Our next Needlewriters evening will be on Thursday 12th January 2023, featuring Sarah Barnsley (poetry), Ciar Byrne (prose) and Raine Geoghegan (poetry).
This will be a LIVE event at the John Harvey Tavern in Lewes (upstairs room): doors 6pm for a 6.30pm start.
Tickets £5 (£3 students/unwaged and claiming benefit) available on the door.
Books will be for sale on the night (cash only please).
Sarah Barnsley
Sarah Barnsley grew up in the Midlands where her dad was a firefighter. A winner in the Poetry Society Members’ Poems Competition (2021, 2018), her work has appeared widely in magazines including Poetry Wales, The Rialto and The White Review. Her first full collection, The Thoughts (Smith|Doorstop, 2022) explores different manifestations of intrusive thoughts as part of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) before navigating through the twists and turns of recovery and love. Other publications include a pamphlet, The Fire Station (Telltale Press, 2015), co-editorship of Truths: A Telltale Press Anthology (2018), and literary criticism. Sarah is Senior Lecturer in English and American Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London, Contributing Editor to The Understory Conversation (https://theunderstoryconversation.com/) and lives in Hove.
Ciar Byrne
Ciar has been a journalist for more than 25 years, working on staff for The Independent, The Guardian and Private Eye before going freelance in 2009. She is also a keen gardener, having retrained in horticulture and garden design, and writes the Gardener’s Diary for The Lady. Alongside her journalism, she writes fiction and recently had a short story published in the collection Brighton & Beyond, as part of the writing group West Hill Writers. She is currently working on a novel about sea swimming and under a nom de plume writing an urban fantasy set in Paris, both of which she hopes will be published one day soon. Her short story, ‘The Anchoress’, is inspired by St Anne’s Church, Lewes, which in the thirteenth century was home to an anchoress, a woman who withdrew from life to focus on religious contemplation. She lived in a simple cell built into the walls of the church known as an anchorhold.
Raine Geoghegan
Raine Geoghegan, poet, prose writer, playwright and tutor of Gypsy heritage, has an MA in Creative Writing from Chichester University. She is a Forward Prize, Pushcart Prize, (twice) and Best of the Net nominee. Her three pamphlets are published with Hedgehog Poetry Press. Her full collection, The Talking Stick: O Pookering Kosh is published with Salmon Poetry Press. She has performed in the UK and Ireland and her work has been published internationally in both print and online. Her essay, ‘It’s Hopping Time’ was featured in the anthology Gifts of Gravity and Light with Hodder & Stoughton. She won the Moon Prize for Writing in a Woman’s Voice and her poem, ‘The Birth of Rage’ was Highly Commended in the Winchester Poetry Competition. Apple Water: Povel Panni her debut pamphlet with Hedgehog Poetry Press was chosen as a Poetry Book Society 2019 Selected Pamphlet.
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