News – Page 4

June 21, 2019August 10, 2019 rhneedles News, Readings

Robert Hamberger, Martin Nathan, Anna Reckin & Clare Best – October 10th

Our next event is on Thursday 10th October 2019, upstairs at the John Harvey Tavern, Bear Yard, Cliffe High St, Lewes BN7 2AN.

Doors open 7pm, readings start 7.45pm.

Tickets £5 (£3 students, and the unwaged and claiming benefit) at the door on the night.

Readers: Robert Hamberger (poetry), Martin Nathan (prose), Anna Reckin (poetry) & Clare Best (poetry).

Robert Hamberger has been shortlisted for a Forward prize and awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship. His poetry has been featured on the Guardian Poem of the Week website and in various British, American and Japanese anthologies. He has published six poetry pamphlets and three full-length collections. His fourth collection Blue Wallpaper is forthcoming from Waterloo Press. His prose memoir with poems A Length of Road will be published by John Murray in 2020.

Martin Nathan has worked as a labourer, showman, pancake chef, fire technician, and a railway engineer. His short fiction has been published by Tangent Press, HCE and Grist. His novel A Place of Safety is published by Salt Publishing, his poetry by Finished Creatures. He contributed a monologue to Young Vic’s ‘My England’ project. Website: Martinnathan.co.uk

Anna Reckin is a poet and writer based in Norwich. Her second collection, Line to Curve, appeared from Shearsman in 2018, and she has had poems, essays and reviews published in Poetry Wales, Jacket2, Long Poem Magazine, and a selection in the anthology Infinite Difference: Other Poetries by UK Women Poets. She was longlisted for the inaugural Women Poets’ Prize in 2018.
Website: annareckin.com Photo credit: Nick Taylor

Clare Best’s first poetry collection, Excisions, was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize, 2012. Other publications include Treasure Ground, Breastless, CELLand Springlines. Clare’s prose memoir The Missing List (Linen Press) was published last year. Tonight she will read from her new poetry collection Each Other (Waterloo Press 2019) – ‘closely observed, exquisitely wrought poems about love and its endurance’ (Mara Bergman). Clare lived in Lewes for twenty years and co-founded Needlewriters – she now lives near the Suffolk coast. Website: clarebest.co.uk

April 18, 2019April 29, 2019 rhneedles News, Readings

Beth Miller, Kate Ashton & Jacq Molloy – June 13th

Our next event is on Thursday 13th June 2019, upstairs at the John Harvey Tavern, Bear Yard, Cliffe High St, Lewes BN7 2AN.

Doors open 7pm, readings start 7.45pm.

Tickets £5 (£3 students, and the unwaged and claiming benefit) at the door on the night.

Readers: Beth Miller (Prose), Kate Ashton (Poetry) and Jacq Molloy (Prose).

Beth Miller has published three novels: When We Were Sisters, The Good Neighbour, and The Two Hearts of Eliza Bloom, as well as two non-fiction books: For the Love of the Archers, and For the Love of Shakespeare. Her fourth novel will be published in Autumn 2019. Beth teaches on the Creative Writing Programme in Brighton, and works as a book coach for other writers. Website: bethmiller.co.uk
Photo credit: Katie Vandyke

Kate Ashton is a writer and translator. She lived for 25 years in The Netherlands, returning to Scotland in 2003. She has published full-length fiction and non-fiction. Her poems have appeared in UK magazines including THE SHOp, Agenda, Shearsman and Long Poem Magazine, and a first full collection, Who by Water, came out from Shearsman Books in 2016. She co-ordinates the Poetry Platform on behalf of Nairn Book and Arts Festival. Photo credit: Ally Macdonald

Jacq Molloy is an award-winning short story writer and performed playwright. Publications include short stories in anthologies The Brighton Prize, Memories of Clothes and Needlewriters. She was longlisted for the Mslexia Short Story competition in February 2019. She has been a creative writing tutor for fifteen years and also coaches writers and critiques work on a one to one basis. Jacq has a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Sussex University and is a Certified Writing Coach through NAWE, (National Association of Writers in Education). She teaches for the Open University on both their undergraduate and MA creative writing courses and bans the use of the word ‘perfect’ in her writing workshops! She is currently completing her first novel and working on a short story collection. Website: jacqmolloy.com

January 29, 2019February 21, 2019 rhneedles News, Readings

Kay Syrad, John Usher, Maria Jastrzębska – April 4th

Our next event is on Thursday 4th April 2019, upstairs at the John Harvey Tavern, Bear Yard, Cliffe High St, Lewes BN7 2AN.

Doors open 7pm, readings start 7.45pm.

Tickets £5 (£3 students, and the unwaged and claiming benefit) at the door on the night.

Readers: Kay Syrad (Poetry), John Usher (Prose) and Maria Jastrzębska (Poetry).

Kay Syrad’s recent publications include two volumes of poetry, Inland (Cinnamon Press, 2018) and Double Edge (Pighog, 2012); also prose and poetry in Exchange, a collaborative art-text work with Chris Drury and Cape Farewell (Little Toller, 2015). She also has two novels, The Milliner and the Phrenologist (2009/reprinted 2012) and Send (2015, both Cinnamon Press). Kay is Poetry Editor of the long-standing poetry journal ENVOI, and co-founder of Vert Institute for art events and writing at her home near Lewes. She has recently been collaborating with Clare Whistler on a series of eco-poetics workshops at ONCA Gallery, Brighton and Knepp Wildland in East Sussex.

John Usher has been writing for his own pleasure since retiring a few years ago. He has completed one novel and is well-advanced with his second, which deals with personal themes concerning the state versus populism.

Maria Jastrzębska came to the U.K from Poland as a child. Her most recent collection is The True Story of Cowboy Hat and Ingénue (Cinnamon Press/Liquorice Fish 2018). The Cedars of Walpole Park, her selected, was translated into Polish (SŻP 2015). Dementia Diaries toured nationally with Lewes Live Literature (2011). She co-edited Queer in Brighton (2014) and translated Justyna Bargielska’s The Great Plan B (Smokestack 2017), collaborating on Snow Q (2018). Maria’s blog is at https://mariajastrzebska.wordpress.com/

November 8, 2018November 22, 2018 rhneedles News, Readings

Matthew Stewart, Ansy Boothroyd & Janet Sutherland – January 17th, 2019

Our next event is on Thursday 17th January 2019, upstairs at the John Harvey Tavern, Bear Yard, Cliffe High St, Lewes BN7 2AN.

Doors open 7pm, readings start 7.45pm.

Tickets £5 (£3 students, and the unwaged and claiming benefit) at the door on the night.

Readers: Matthew Stewart (Poetry), Ansy Boothroyd (Prose) and Janet Sutherland (Poetry)

Matthew Stewart works in the Spanish Wine trade and lives between Extremadura and West Sussex. Following two pamphlets from HappenStance Press, both now sold out, The Knives of Villalejo (Eyewear Publishing, 2017) is his first full collection. He blogs at roguestrands.blogspot.com

Ansy Boothroyd

Ansy Boothroyd is a musician, potter and lover of birds. She teaches singing, performs locally as a soloist and sells her ceramics privately and in Henry Paddon in Eastbourne. Over the past several years all spare moments have been dedicated to completing her first novel, from which she will be reading tonight. Having finally stopped tinkering with the second edit, she is currently in the process of seeking publication.

Janet Sutherland was born in Wiltshire, growing up on a dairy farm. She has an MA in American Poetry from the University of Essex. Her poems are widely anthologised appearing in magazines such as Poetry Ireland Review, New Humanist, London Magazine, New Statesman and Spectator. In 2018 she received a Hawthornden Fellowship and she won the Kent and Sussex Poetry Competition in 2017. Home Farm, her fourth collection, is launching tonight. janetsutherland.co.uk

July 27, 2018August 28, 2018 rhneedles News, Readings

Lulah Ellender, Liz Bahs, Jan Woolf – October 18th, 2018

Our next event is on Thursday 18th October 2018, upstairs at the John Harvey Tavern, Bear Yard, Cliffe High St, Lewes BN7 2AN.

Doors open 7pm, readings start 7.45pm.

Tickets £5 (£3 students, and the unwaged and claiming benefit) at the door on the night.

Readers: Lulah Ellender (Prose), Liz Bahs (Poetry) and Jan Woolf (Prose)

Lulah Ellender is a writer and editor living in Lewes, East Sussex with her four children, husband and various animals. Her first book, Elisabeth’s Lists, a memoir telling the story of her grandmother’s life through a book of lists, is out now (Granta). Lulah’s work has appeared in The Guardian, Granta magazine, the-pool, YOU magazine, Green Parent, The Junket and Easy Living, amongst others. She is working on a second book and will be writer in residence at Paris bookshop Shakespeare & Company at the end of September.

Liz Bahs is a poet and academic who spent the first part of 2018 as Writer-in-Residence at the Hambidge Center for Arts and Sciences in the mountains of North America, and in Montreal presenting her post-doctoral research on the poetry sequence at the International Conference on Narrative. She will be reading from her poetry pamphlet, Greyhound Night Service (Maquette, 2018), and from work written during her residency. She is an Associate Lecturer for The Open University, and she blogs about writing at whenyoureadtome.blogspot.com

Jan Woolf is a maverick*. Choosing the form to fit an idea, she has no career to speak of as playwright, novelist or short story writer. Yet her 4th play The Man With the Gold is being prepared for a run in 2019; the previous three produced at the Hackney Empire and Royal Court respectively. Her short story collection Fugues on a Funny Bone was published in 2010 and she’s working on her first novel Hannibal and the Masked Girl, about a painter planning a citizen’s arrest of Tony Blair at Tate Modern. A varied working life as teacher, events producer, political activist, film classifier, editor and publisher has informed her work. Like Dorothy Parker, Jan ‘hates writing, but loves having written.’ She is currently writer in residence at the Marx Memorial Library. Photo: Charlie Hopkinson

* Maverick – a rancher who doesn’t brand their cattle.

April 17, 2018April 26, 2018 rhneedles News, Readings

Ruth Valentine, Sue Roe and Stephen Plaice & Martyn Ford – June 14, 2018

Our next event is on Thursday 14th June 2018, upstairs at the John Harvey Tavern, Bear Yard, Cliffe High St, Lewes BN7 2AN.

Interested in coming to Poetry Surgeries in the afternoon? 
Full details here...

Our evening readings will be preceded by a special Poetry Open Mic, as part of the South Downs Poetry Festival.

Doors open 6.30pm, the Open Mic starts at 6.45pm, with the main readings at 8pm.

Tickets £5 (£3 students, and the unwaged and claiming benefit) at the door on the night. This includes entry to both the readings and the Open Mic.

Readers: Ruth Valentine (Poetry), Sue Roe (Prose) and Stephen Plaice & Martyn Ford (poetry)

Ruth Valentine‘s latest publications are Downpour (Smokestack, 2016) and Rubaiyat for the Martyrs of Two Wars (Hercules Editions, 2017). Last year she also self-published a pamphlet, A Grenfell Alphabet, and sold it in aid of the Grenfell fund. She’s written a novel, The Jeweller’s Skin (Cybermouse 2014) and several works of non-fiction. She lives in Tottenham, and campaigns for the rights of migrants and refugees.

Sue Roe’s latest biography, about artists in twentieth-century Paris, will be published by Penguin at the end of June. Her previous books include In Montmartre; The Private Lives of the Impressionists; and Gwen John : A Life, as well as two books of poetry, The Magpie and The Spitfire Factory; and a novel, Estella, Her Expectations. She is currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Sussex.

Martyn Ford is a teacher, writer and illustrator, living in Brighton. Vanishing Point, his selected poems, is published by Parvenu Press.

Stephen Plaice lives in Sussex, the heart of his poetry. Those Under Saturn, his selected poems, also appears with Parvenu Press. He is currently Professor of Dramatic Writing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

In 2016 Stephen and Martyn published an anthology of the work of the Fonthill Poets, of which they were core members.

January 20, 2018April 17, 2018 rhneedles News, Readings

Robin Houghton, Nicholas Royle, Jonathan Totman – April 5, 2018

Our next event is on Thursday 5th April 2018, upstairs at the John Harvey Tavern, Bear Yard, Cliffe High St, Lewes BN7 2AN.

Doors open 7pm, readings start 7.45pm.

Tickets £5 (£3 students, and the unwaged and claiming benefit) at the door on the night.

Readers: Robin Houghton (Poetry), Nicholas Royle (Prose) and Jonathan Totman (poetry)

Robin Houghton’s first poetry pamphlet was The Great Vowel Shift (2014) from Telltale Press, the poets’ publishing collective she co-founded. All the Relevant Gods (2018) was joint-winner of the Cinnamon Press Pamphlet Competition 2017. Her work appears in numerous magazines and in anthologies including The Best New British and Irish Poets 2017 (Eyewear). She recently self-published a hand-made mini pamphlet, Foot Wear, and has written three non-fiction books. She blogs at robinhoughtonpoetry.co.uk

Nicholas Royle teaches English at the University of Sussex. His books include Telepathy and Literature: Essays on the Reading Mind (1991), E. M. Forster (1999), The Uncanny (2003), How to Read Shakespeare (2005), Veering: A Theory of Literature (2011), and two novels: Quilt (2010) and An English Guide to Birdwatching (2017). He is currently completing a book about the writings of Hélène Cixous.

Jonathan Totman grew up in Sussex. He was Fenland Poet Laureate 2015 and co-founded The Fenland Reed the same year. His poems have been published in Brittle Star, Envoi, The Frogmore Papers, The Interpreter’s House, Lighthouse and Orbis, and he will appear in Best New British and Irish Poets 2018 (Eyewear Publishing). His debut pamphlet Explosives Licence was a winner in the 2018 iOTA Shot Pamphlet Competition and will be published this summer by Templar Poetry.

November 1, 2017November 6, 2017 rhneedles News, Readings

Marek Urbanowicz, Jeremy Page & Robert Seatter – January 2018

Our next event is on Thursday 18th January 2018, upstairs at the John Harvey Tavern, Bear Yard, Cliffe High St, Lewes BN7 2AN. PLEASE NOTE NEW VENUE

Doors open 7pm, readings start 7.45pm.

Tickets £5 (£3 students, and the unwaged and claiming benefit) at the door on the night.

Readers: Marek Urbanowicz (Poetry), Jeremy Page (Prose) and Robert Seatter (poetry)

Marek Urbanowicz has been published in a number of magazines, notably Agenda, The Frogmore Papers and its offshoots. Marek recently completed an MA in Voice Studies at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and is currently a member of the RADA Elders Company. He is very interested in the relationship between poetry and how it is voiced. He is a well-known Brighton acupuncturist, having qualified in 1979.

Jeremy Page has edited The Frogmore Papers since 1983. His short stories have been widely published, and he is the author of several collections of poems, including Closing Time (Pindrop Press) and Stepping Back: Resubmission for the Ordinary Level Examination in Psychogeography (Frogmore Press). He has also written plays: Loving Psyche was performed in Bremen in 2010, and Verrall of the White Hart in Lewes in 2014. A novella, London Calling, will be published by Cultured Llama in September (2018).

Robert Seatter has published four poetry collections: Travelling to the Fish Orchards, On the Beach with Chet Baker and Writing King Kong, all from Seren; The Book of Snow from Two Rivers Press (2016). He has won many awards and nominations for his poetry including National Poetry Competition, London Poetry, Forward Poetry Prize, Housman Poetry Prize. Work has appeared in many publications, on TV and radio, and even the London buses. He was Chairman of The Poetry Trust. He lives in London where he works for the BBC, following earlier careers in publishing, acting and teaching.

June 26, 2017October 5, 2017 rhneedles News, Readings

James Flynn, Matt Freidson & Linda Black – October 2017

Our next event is on Thursday 12th October, upstairs at the John Harvey Tavern, Bear Yard, Cliffe High St, Lewes BN7 2AN. PLEASE NOTE NEW VENUE

Doors open 7pm, readings start 7.45pm.

Tickets £5 (£3 students, and the unwaged and claiming benefit) at the door on the night.

Readers: James Flynn (Poetry), Matt Freidson (Prose) and Linda Black (poetry)

Books by readers will be for sale on the night (cash and cheques only, no cards)

If you plan to have supper at the pub, it’s probably a good idea to arrive in time to order and eat downstairs before the readings start.

After a childhood spent mainly in Leicestershire, James Flynn studied in Oxford and has worked in ‘Europe’ as well as in London. His poems have appeared in magazines sadly defunct (14, The SHOp and Smiths Knoll) and happily still extant (The Interpreter’s House and Lewes-based The Frogmore Papers) and in anthologies. His pamphlet Arriving at the Capital was launched in 2016 by Eyewear Publishing.

Matt Freidson has published more than twenty short stories, including in Best New American Voices, The Needlewriters anthology, Ontario Review, Confrontation, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere. He is a former Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin and has taught writing at various places, including Birkbeck and City University. Currently he works for Creative Future, a Brighton charity supporting marginalised artists and writers.

Linda Black

Linda Black is an award-winning poet and visual artist. Slant was published by Shearsman in 2016. Previous collections are Inventory and Root (Shearsman 2008 & 2011) and The Son of a Shoemaker (Hearing Eye 2012) comprised of collaged prose-poems based on the early life of Hans Christian Andersen, plus the author’s pen and ink drawings. Linda is co-editor of Long Poem Magazine.

April 7, 2017April 13, 2017 rhneedles News, Readings

Susan Wicks, Caroline Price, Alice Owens – June 2017

Our next event is on Thursday 15th June, upstairs at the John Harvey Tavern, Bear Yard, Cliffe High St, Lewes BN7 2AN. PLEASE NOTE NEW VENUE

Doors open 7pm, readings start 7.45pm.

Tickets £5 (£3 students, and the unwaged and claiming benefit) at the door on the night.

Readers: Alice Owens (Prose), Susan Wicks (Poetry) and Caroline Price (Prose)

Books by readers will be for sale on the night (cash and cheques only, no cards)

If you plan to have supper at the pub, it’s probably a good idea to arrive in time to order and eat downstairs before the readings start.

Alice Owens has recently completed her first novel, working title Latent Grace, set in her native Alabama. It is currently with a potential agent and she is working on her second novel. Alice taught creative writing at the University of Sussex. She was founder and editor of the newsletter, Malawi Update, and co-editor of Human Rights and the Making of Constitutions: Malawi, Kenya, Uganda. Formerly, she was a civil rights lawyer in D.C and a Malawi human rights advocate with NGOs and the UN.

Susan Wicks‘s seventh collection of poetry, The Months, came out in 2016 and was a PBS Recommendation. Lace, a collaborative pamphlet with visual artist Elisabeth Clayman, was published by Stonewood Press in 2015. Her work has won the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, and been shortlisted for T.S.Eliot, Forward, Griffin and Popescu Prizes. Her more recent book of Valérie Rouzeau translations, Talking Vrouz (Arc, 2013) won the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.

Caroline Price is a violinist and teacher who has just moved to Suffolk after living for thirty years in Kent. Her stories have been short-listed for the Asham, Bridport and London Magazine awards, and in 2015 she was runner-up for the Society of Authors’ Tom-Gallon Award for short fiction. Her fourth collection of poetry will be published by Shoestring Press in Autumn 2017.