I’m delighted to have my poetry film ‘Fragments of Us’ selected as one of the films to be shown at the StAnza Poetry Festival this year! The film will be available to view online, and also in St Andrews, where it will be screened at the Byre Theatre, 13-15th March 2026. Continue reading
Blog Posts
Online Creative Writing Course Starting in May: Ekphrastic Poetry & Prose
I’ll be running another online creative writing course starting in May, and it is now available to book! Inspired by Art: Ekphrastic Poetry & Prose begins on 11th May, focusing on seeking inspiration from visual art. It is self-paced, running for 9 weeks, with weekly writing prompts, feedback and discussion of example texts, including three live workshops delivered online, via Teams. Continue reading
Book Review: Witsh by Mari Ellis Dunning
There have been many fictional retellings of witch trials published in recent years, based on true stories of women who were accused of all sorts of offences. Witsh by Mari Ellis Dunning is more unsettling than most, because parts of the narrative are told from the perspective of ‘The Villagers’. This communal voice evokes an unnerving atmosphere of fear and suspicion: Continue reading
Online Creative Writing Courses – Poetry & Ekphrasis
I’m really excited to be delivering five online creative writing courses in 2025-6! These include three poetry courses: (1) Starting to Write, (2) Experimenting with Form & Technique, and (3) Pushing Poetic Boundaries. There will also be a course on ekphrastic writing, and I posted details about another course (Writing Neurodiversity) a couple of weeks ago. I’ve included a short summary of each course below, with links to find out more information and booking details… Continue reading
An Online Creative Writing Course: Writing Neurodiversity
I’m really excited to be teaching five different creative writing courses next year (2025-26) and all of these short courses will be taught online, so that means anyone, from anywhere, could sign up! One of these creative writing courses will be aimed at fellow neurodivergent writers. If that’s you, and you’re interested in reflecting on your own experience of neurodiversity through writing, then keep on reading… I’ll be posting more details about the other four courses very soon! Continue reading
Back to the Book Blog: Teaching, Readings and Reviews
I used to love writing blog posts and book reviews, and then I became a PhD student. From 2019 to 2024 I buried myself waist-deep in research while juggling a career as a freelance poet, creative writing teacher and academic. So I’m afraid this blog has taken a back seat for a while. Inspired by some of my fellow poets and their fabulous writer blogs (Natalie Ann Holborrow and Zoë Brigley, in particular) I am going to try and add a new blog post at least once a month, so here we go… Continue reading
Happy New Year! Here are my Literary Highlights of 2024
2024 began with the completion of the PhD, and then in May I was invited to read at the Aberystwyth Poetry Festival, where I enjoyed three days of sunshine and poetry performance. It meant a lot to me to be able to return to the place where it all began, reflecting on all that has happened since I began studying creative writing there in 2003. Nineteen-year-old me could never have imagined I would one day return, to read my poems in front of an audience at the town’s public library!
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An Ekphrastic Update: Exhibition, Course, and Conference
As my final year of being a PhD student draws to a close, I’m excited to be continuing my work on ekphrasis (writing poetry in response to art) in lots of different ways! First, there is still time to visit the Wales Millennium Centre where you can see our Explore Collective project exhibition: Freedom to Create.
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The End of an Era: Completing the PhD at Gregynog Hall
In December 2019 I visited Gregynog Hall for the first time – a gorgeous, rambling old mansion in mid Wales, where the annual Cardiff University Creative Writing retreat takes place. I was still working out what the plan would be for my PhD over the coming years, with no concept of what 2020 would bring. Continue reading
Poetry Submissions: An Update on the #100Rejections Challenge
Back in 2019 I was intrigued by the concept of the #100Rejections challenge. The idea is that if you are aiming for rejections, you will feel a sense of achievement, rather than disappointment, each time a piece is rejected, and maintain a more positive outlook as you press on towards your yearly goal. Having found that the average response time for UK based poetry magazine is between 3 and 6 months, I decided to adapt the challenge to make it a little more realistic, so my aim was to send off 100 batches of poems by the end of the year. Continue reading
Book Review: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
I have read The Historian twice. It has the perfect plot for someone who is obsessed with old books, archives and historical mysteries. Fortunately, second time around, I had forgotten the details, so the suspense was just as real. I did remember one crucial thing, however – this is not a book to read after dark. Continue reading
Crime & Coffee – A Festival of Crime Fiction in Cardiff
Cardiff will soon be playing host to some top quality crime fiction writers in the capital’s newest literary festival – Crime and Coffee. Taking place over two days – 1st and 2nd June – the festival is organised by Cardiff Council Library staff in conjunction with Crime Cymru, featuring Belinda Bauer, Christopher Fowler, Rebecca Tope, Kate Hamer, Mark Ellis, Katherine Stansfield and other crime writers, for two days of workshops, readings and discussion. I interviewed local crime writer Katherine Stansfield, to find out more about this brand new festival…