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Creative Writing

I published my first poem in 1984, when I was six. It was about a butterfly (first line: "I'm an Adonis Blue, happy and gay"), and considered radical for its linguistic innovations: it was clearly queer-positive, the final couplet didn't rhyme, and it ended with the words "homeward bound" (learnt from the Simon & Garfunkel song). I've pursued the same path since, exploring the limits of lyric form, revelling in language as it names the world of the senses, referentially (but never reverentially) celebrating and confusing pop and high culture, and participating in literary community around small press magazines. I've been privileged to be an editor as well as a writer, and have self-published chapbooks as well as being included in magazines and anthologies.

Books (solo)

  • The Private Parts of Girls (Salt, 2010)
  • Her Various Scalpels (Shearsman, 2009)
  • Marsh Fear/Fen Tiger (Salt, 2002)

Books (anthologies)

  • Infinite Difference, ed. Carrie Etter (Shearsman, 2010)
  • The Allotment, ed. Andy Brown (Stride, 2006)
  • Girls Who Bite Back, ed. Emily Pohl-Weary (Sumach, 2004)
  • Long Journey Home, ed. Caeia Marsh (Women's Press, 2001)

Chapbooks

  • junkmaildays (above/ground, 2005)
  • These Are the Licks (Fair Ladies at a Game of Poem Cards, 2003)
  • Found Objects (Fair Ladies at a Game of Poem Cards, 2002 [limited edition])

Magazines (offline)

Magazines (online)

Please support publishers and independent bookstores (and writers!) by purchasing books and magazines if you are able, and encouraging your school, college and/or local library to buy copies of these titles. The Links section offers further connections to venues for publication and literary organisations.