playforth News, Readings

Janet Sutherland (poetry), Lynsey Main (prose) and Richard Skinner (poetry) – Thursday 12 October

Our next Needlewriters evening will be on Thursday 12th October 2023, featuring Janet Sutherland (poetry), Lynsey Main (prose) and Richard Skinner (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).

Janet Sutherland

Janet Sutherland grew up on a dairy farm, she is the author of five poetry collections, most recently The Messenger House (Shearsman Books, 2023). Her previous collections all from Shearsman are Home Farm (2019), Bone Monkey (2014), Hangman’s Acre (2009) and Burning the Heartwood (2006).   The Messenger House, a hybrid collection, is about her great-great-grandfather’s travels to Serbia in the 1840’s with his friend Mr Gutch, a Queen’s Messenger. Her poems are widely anthologised and published in magazines such as New Statesman, The Spectator and The North.  A critical essay on the poet Charles Reznikoff appeared as an afterword to two new editions of his work, Holocaust, in the UK (Five Leaves Publishing, 2009) and USA (Black Sparrow Press, 2007). She won the 2017 Kent and Sussex Poetry Prize and received a Hawthornden Fellowship for 2018.  She has an MA in American Poetry and lives in Lewes, East Sussex. https://www.janetsutherland.co.uk/

Lynsey Main

Lynsey Main grew up near Sheffield where her Dad made tools for Spear and Jackson. After migrating south to be a mature English Language student at Sussex University, Lynsey met her husband and spent many years working as a script writer in Brighton creating online learning content – a role that made her an expert in a range of useful subjects from smallpox to sewage treatment. She also wrote stories in her spare time. Two children, two dogs and many years later, she is dedicating more time to the stories. It was during the Creative Writing Programme with New Writing South in 2019 that she began her first novel, Sleep Switch, influenced by her own chronic insomnia and travels in South East Asia.  When she’s not writing, working, or nurturing two teenagers, she can be found up on the South Downs with the dog, walking and plotting.

Richard Skinner

Richard Skinner has published seven books of poetry. His most recent collections are Dream into Play (Poetry Salzburg, 2022), Cut Up (Vanguard Editions, 2023) & White Noise Machine (Salt, 2023). Richard is Director of the Fiction Programme at Faber Academy. He also runs a small press, VanguardEditions, was the co-editor of Magma 80 and is the current editor of 14 magazine. 

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David Bradford (prose), Rachel Playforth (poetry) and Sophie Anderson (prose) – Thursday 8th June

Our next Needlewriters evening will be on Thursday 8th June 2023, featuring David Bradford (prose), Rachel Playforth (poetry) and Sophie Anderson (prose).

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).

David Bradford

David Bradford, a writer and editor, was raised in Laughton and currently lives in Lewes. He pursued his education in English at the University of Sussex and began his career as a journalist in 2004. However, his life took a different turn when he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative sight condition, at the age of 24 in 2006. In response to his condition, David returned to the University of Sussex and studied for a Master’s degree in Creative and Critical Writing, focusing his thesis on portrayals of sight loss and blindness in literature and philosophy. He is fitness editor at Cycling Weekly magazine. 

Rachel Playforth

Rachel Playforth is a poet, editor, medical librarian and crossword compiler from Lewes. She is a member of the Frogmore Press editorial committee and co-edited Watermarks: Writing by Lido Lovers and Wild Swimmers in 2017. Her poetry has appeared in magazines including Envoi, Finished Creatures and The High Window, and in anthologies including These Are the Hands: Poems from the Heart of the NHS (Fairacre Press, 2020) and Night Feeds and Morning Songs (Orion, 2021). Her most recent project is Twitten, a poem sequence exploring the steep ups and downs of Lewes. The twelve poems can be navigated online, accompanied by photographs and an interactive map: https://rachelplayforth.com/twitten/

Sophie Anderson

Sophie Anderson enjoyed a career in TV production before working with her husband to set up an online software business but neither scratched that creative itch to tell a story, so she enrolled on a creative writing course and wrote her first novel The Butterfly Garden which was published in 2021. Her second novel The Sapphire Cove came out the following year in 2022 and she has just finished writing her third book. Sophie lives in Arlington, East Sussex with her husband and four children. 

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Sue Roe (prose), Christopher Horton (poetry), and Matt Birch (hybrid) – Thursday 13th April

Our next Needlewriters evening will be on Thursday 13th April 2023, featuring Sue Roe (prose), Christopher Horton (poetry) and Matt Birch (hybrid).

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).

Sue Roe

Sue Roe’s first published book was a novel, Estella, Her Expectations, after which she turned her attention to non-fiction – a critical book on Virginia Woolf, followed by her Penguin Modern Classics edition of Woolf’s third novel, Jacob’s Room. She has published four biographies of artists: Gwen John: A Life (Chatto); and The Private Lives of the Impressionists (also published in the UK by Chatto, and in nine other countries). Her next two books were published by Penguin – both were read on BBC Radio 4’s Book of the week – In Montparnasse; and In Montmartre, which made both the Sunday Times and the New York Times best seller lists. While pursuing her career as a biographer (her forthcoming book is a biography), Sue has also published two poetry pamphlets, The Spitfire Factory and The Magpie; and she has recently completed a novel.

Christopher Horton

Christopher Horton’s poems have appeared in The Spectator, The North, Poetry London, Poetry Wales, New Welsh Review, Ambit, Iota, Magma, Stand, and in anthologies with Penned in the Margins, Broken Sleep Books, tall-lighthouse and Days of Roses. He was a prize winner in the National Poetry Competition and the Bridport Prize. He won first prize in the South Downs Poetry Festival Competition in 2021 and had another poem highly commended in the same year of the competition. He was also commended in the Verve Poetry Festival Competition twice, Highly Commended in the Walter Swan Award and shortlisted for the Canterbury Festival Poetry of the Year Competition. He has written poetry reviews for the London Magazine and Poetry London. His pamphlet, Perfect Timing, was released by tall-lighthouse press in 2021. 

Matt Birch

Matt Birch has run Skylark, a small bookshop and gallery in The Needlemakers, since 2006. In creative terms, he has had two exhibitions of his photography, in IO, Brighton and The Foundry Gallery, Lewes.  He is also a songwriter and keyboardist with the band IBEX. He will read from Meridian: A Walk From Sussex to Yorkshire, his first book, published by The Frogmore Press. In July 2021, he set out to walk along the Greenwich Meridian, a route determined by an abstract concept rather than natural features and completed in stages over four seasons. Reflecting the rhythm of a long walk, his colour photographs of the Weald, London, the Fens and Lincolnshire Wolds, are matched with short pieces of writing: writing that meanders through history, politics, nature, literature, music, etymology, prose and poetry. A personal and whimsical exploration of the places encountered between two little-known coastal towns.     

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Sarah Barnsley (poetry), Ciar Byrne (prose) and Raine Geoghegan (poetry) – Thursday 12th January

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.

playforth News, Readings

Antony Mair (poetry), Beth Miller (prose) and Frances Presley (poetry) – Thursday 17th November

Our next Needlewriters evening will be on Thursday 17th November 2022, featuring Antony Mair (poetry), Beth Miller (prose) and Frances Presley (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).

Antony Mair

Antony Mair has just moved to Bexhill, but previously lived in Hastings, where he established the Hastings Stanza. Following an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Lancaster, where he gained a distinction, he has published three collections. Bestiary, and Other Animals, was shortlisted for the 2017 Live Canon First Collection Prize, and published by Live Canon in June 2018.  Let The Wounded Speak, published by Oversteps Books in October 2018, and A Suitcase Filled with Hope, published by Live Canon in May 2021, were longlisted for the Poetry Book Awards 2020 and 2021 respectively. He was recently awarded first prize in the 2022 Live Canon International Poetry Competition. His work ranges over a wide variety of themes and forms, influenced by his family background, his identity as a gay man, and a career in international commercial law.

Beth Miller

Beth Miller is the author of six novels, including the bestselling The Missing Letters of Mrs Bright (2020). Her most recent novel, The Woman Who Came Back to Life (2022), will be published in seven languages. She has also published two non-fiction books: one about Shakespeare and the other about The Archers. She is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Brighton University, and teaches creative writing at various places including for Arvon. She also works as a writing mentor and book coach.

Frances Presley

Frances Presley’s Collected Poems 1973-2020 were published this year, in two volumes, by Shearsman.  As Harriet Tarlo writes ‘from her earliest poems, with their intense and tense engagement with her modernist forbears, Presley has maintained an uncompromising integrity and invention… her sense of place, the politics of landscape and her astute feminism remain constant’.   She will also be reading from Black Fens Viral, which began when she was recovering from Covid and travelling on the slow train through East Anglia.  This flat, agricultural, landscape of black peat was once marshland before the fens were drained. It extends to Lincolnshire, where she spent her childhood.  ‘Viral’ refers both to Covid and to a text generator known as the Markov chain: its strange rearrangement of text resembles a viral assault. www.francespresley.co.uk

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Neil Gower (poetry), Natalie Grahame (prose) and Frogmore 100 (poetry) – Thursday 6th October 2022

Our next Needlewriters evening will be on Thursday 6th October 2022. In a change to the previously advertised line-up, it will feature Neil Gower, Natalie Grahame and readings from the 100th issue of legendary Lewes journal The Frogmore Papers. Sarah Barnsley is unable to read but we hope to welcome her back very soon.

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).

Neil Gower

Neil Gower is an internationally acclaimed graphic artist, best known for his book jackets
(Bill Bryson, William Golding) and literary cartography (Kazuo Ishiguro, Jilly Cooper, Simon Armitage). Marking a shift from distilling the words of others into print his first collection of poetry, Meet Me in Palermo, was published last year. He was born into black and now inhabits white: the 1960s Rhondda coal-fields and the chalk trails of the South Downs respectively. He lives in Lewes and Kreuzberg, Berlin.

Natalie Grahame

Natalie has been writing creatively since childhood. She attained a BA in
Contemporary Writing and Drama at Manchester Metropolitan University, and later
an MA in Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media at the Central School of Speech
and Drama. Since moving to Lewes Natalie has had a short story published in a local
anthology of life writing by the Frogmore Press, True Tales From The Old Hill. 
Natalie’s manuscript, One Day You’ll be a Dad, addresses the themes of parental
legacy and inherited trauma, lone-parenthood, and mental health.
Ultimately this is a tragi-comic story of survival and hope.

playforth News, Readings

Poetry Special: Alasdair Paterson, Ruth O’Callaghan and David Swann – Thursday 9th June 2022

Our next Needlewriters evening will be on Thursday 9th June 2022, featuring Alasdair Paterson, Ruth O’Callaghan and David Swann.

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).

Alasdair Paterson

Alasdair Paterson’s most recent collections are Elsewhere Or Thereabouts (Shearsman Books 2014), Silent Years(Flarestack Poets 2017) and My My My Life (Shearsman Books 2021). Born in Edinburgh, he began writing in Liverpool in the 1970s, winning an Eric Gregory Award in 1975. Later he took a 20-year sabbatical from poetry before starting to write again after a career in academic libraries. He has travelled extensively, from San Francisco to Siberia, from Samarkand to Swaziland – and to many places in between not starting with an S. He lives in Exeter, where he organises and presents the monthly Uncut Poets reading series. 

Ruth O’Callaghan

Ruth O’Callaghan has 11 full collections, has been translated into six languages, read from Mongolia to USA and many places between. She is a mentor and workshop leader in the UK and abroad, an international competition adjudicator, interviewer, reviewer and editor and hosts two London poetry venues to raise money for the homeless.

David Swann

David Swann’s most recent book is the novella, Season of Bright Sorrow (Ad Hoc Press), which won first prize in the Bath Novella-in-Flash Award. Recently his novella, The Twisted Wheel, finished runner-up in the same contest. Dave’s poetry and fiction has won many awards, including the 2016 Bridport Flash Fiction Competition, his eighth success in a Prize that he judged in 2013. His other publications include The Privilege of Rain (based on his experiences as a Writer in Residence in jail, and shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award) and The Last Days of Johnny North, a short story collection. A former local newspaper reporter, and a toilet cleaner in a legendary Amsterdam night club, he now teaches at the University of Chichester, and makes fires on his allotment.

rhneedles News, Readings

Barry Smith (poetry), James Ellis (prose) and Peter Raynard (poetry) – Thursday 14th April 2022

Our next Needlewriters evening will be on Thursday 14th April 2022, featuring Barry Smith (poetry),* James Ellis (prose) and Peter Raynard (poetry)

This will be a LIVE event at the John Harvey Tavern in Lewes (upstairs room): please note the start time of 6.30pm.

Tickets £5 (£3 students/unwaged and claiming benefit) available on the door. 

Books will be for sale on the night (cash only please).

* Barry Smith is taking the place of Richard Skinnner who is unable to attend

Barry Smith

Barry Smith is the director of the South Downs Poetry Festival and co-ordinator of the Festival of Chichester. He curates the poetry element of Blakefest and edits Poetry & All That Jazz magazine. Barry was runner-up in a BBC Proms Poetry Competition and shortlisted for the Bread & Roses Songwriting and Spoken Word Award, 2021. His poetry is widely published in magazines and his first collection, Performance Rites, was published by Waterloo Press in 2021.

James Ellis

James Ellis has written two novels, The Wrong Story and Happy Family, published a number of short stories, a travelogue of his journey through Central America and a monthly column for The Gudgeon. His short story Connor and His Amazing Ejector Boots was nominated for the 2020 Pushcart Prize, and Kumi’s Cake was shortlisted for the 2020 Bridport Prize and published on the Fairlight short story portal.  He is a presenter on Frome FM’s On-Air Book Group and is currently editing his third novel.

Peter Raynard

Peter Raynard is editor of Proletarian Poetry: poems of working class lives, featuring over 150 contemporary poets. He is an associate editor of Culture Matters and former member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. His two books of poetry are Precarious (Smokestack Books, 2018) and The Combination: a poetic coupling of the Communist Manifesto (Culture Matters, 2018). His poetry is widely published and he lives in St Albans. His third book Manland will be published by Nine Arches Press in July 2022.

rhneedles News, Readings

Sonya Smith (poetry), Colin Bell (prose) and Kay Syrad (poetry) – Thursday 10th March 2022

Our next Needlewriters evening will be on Thursday 10th March 2022, featuring Sonya Smith (poetry), Colin Bell (prose) and Kay Syrad (poetry).

This will be a LIVE event at the John Harvey Tavern in Lewes (upstairs room): please note the start time of 6.30pm.

Tickets £5 (£3 students/unwaged and claiming benefit) available on the door. Still cash only please; we hope to have card payments enabled at our APRIL event.

Books will be for sale on the night (cash only please).

Sonya Smith

Sonya Smith’s first collection, every robin I never quite saw, was published in 2021 by tall lighthouse. From this collection, her poem ‘Telharmonium 1906’ was Poem of the Week in The Telegraph. Previously she has taken part in Poetry South East and Needlewriters anthologies and her 2009 pamphlet old panic undressed was also published by tall lighthouse. Sonya has a daughter, partner and dog and currently lives in Sussex.

Colin Bell

Former television producer-director Colin Bell’s debut poetry collection Remembering Blue was published in 2019 by Ward Wood Publishing. His second poetry collection, Brief Encounters – 100 Fibs, featuring the poems first published in the Fib Review, is scheduled to be published by Ward Wood Publishing. His two published novels are Stephen Dearsley’s Summer of Love (Ward Wood Publishing, 2013) longlisted for the Polari Prize 2014 and Blue Notes, Still Frames, (Ward Wood Publishing, 2016). His third novel, Over the Hills is a Long Way Off, will also be published by Ward Wood. A fourth novel is now in its final draft.
Several of his fibs have been set to music as the song cycle, Fibonacci Poems (2017) for tenor voice and piano by American composer Tim Risher. In 2020 he was made Musepie Press’s Featured International Poet and his Fibonacci poetry has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Kay Syrad

Kay Syrad’s publications include two novels and three collections of poetry, of which the latest is What is near (Cinnamon Press, 2021), which has been described as ‘a quiet engagement with moss, air, horizons, […] the human, the non-human and the spaces-between’. Kay was Poetry Editor of the longstanding journal Envoi from 2014-2020, and writes reviews and articles about both poetry and art. Kay has often collaborated with other writers and artists, including the environmental artist Chris Drury (Exchange, Little Toller, 2015), and she is currently half of the composite eco-poet kin’d & kin’d with the artist-performer Clare Whistler. Since 2018, kin’d & kin’d have run a variety of eco-poetry workshops and courses, including at the pioneering rewilded estate in Sussex, Knepp Wildland. Their collaborative work has appeared in journals such as Magma and Finished Creatures,  and their newest publication is Wild Correspondings: an eco-poetry source book (Elephant Press, 2021). 

rhneedles News, Readings

John Davies (poetry), Derek Allen (prose) and Sally Festing & Peter Wallis (poetry) – Thursday 25th November 2021

Our next event on Thursday 25th November when we will be welcoming readers John Davies (poetry), Derek Allen (prose) and Sally Festing & Peter Wallis (poetry).

This will be a LIVE event at the John Harvey Tavern in Lewes (upstairs room): please note the start time of 6.30pm

John Davies

John’s published work includes two pamphlets, The Nutter in the Shrubbery and Glove Poems and the full collection Shedman, as well as Our Storeys, a book about art and poetry in healthcare written with artist Sue Ridge. He was the first non-Irish editor of The Stony Thursday Book, an annual anthology published in Ireland. In 2018, Jizz, New and Selected Poems was published in the UK by Kingston University Press and as Nest in the USA by Red Hen Press. He won third prize in this year’s Wales Poetry Award. His commissioned work includes poems engraved into the windows of a learning centre on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, to major hospital projects and a poem for the High Weald AONB.

John has perhaps been best known as his literary funster alter ego, Shedman, the original itinerant poet in a shed who has appeared at numerous festivals and events. His website is johndavies.net.

Derek Allen

For many years, Derek Allen has been a frequent visitor to Denmark. He became fascinated by the stories he heard about the remarkable escape of most of Denmark’s Jews from the Nazis in World War 2. They also received assistance, often at considerable risk, from their fellow Danes who decided to help them flee the Germans. In his book, The Crossing, a young Jewish woman, Anna, her son and parents, have their lives brought to a halt as they become refugees in their own country and they are forced to leave their home and possessions, to avoid being captured. On their journey out of Denmark, they are never certain that the decisions they are forced to make will lead them to safety. The Crossing is Derek’s first book and is being readied for submission. He lives in Lewes and works in healthcare as a chiropractor.

Sally Festing & Peter Wallis

These two prize-winning poets present poems about the head, both in its physical and mental aspects. Peter has just returned from a Hawthornden Fellowship in a Scottish castle, and Sally’s sixth book of poetry is White Queen’s Last Stand, out this year with KFS. They will read, however, largely from earlier work.

How does repeated brain surgery impact on families? What if the patient has an identical twin? The answers come, in Andrew McMillan’s words, in poems that see “life as something tentative as well as tender”. Similarly, how can the effects of something like schizophrenia, bear on future generations? Family history and a cache of intimate letters suggested Sally’s answers.