MordenTower in association with Origins presents the return of poetry to its spiritual home.
Poetry from Scotland and North East England

Sunday September 26th 7.30pm £4 (£3 concessions)

Claire Askew was born in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, but moved to the Scottish Borders as a child and has lived in Edinburgh for the past six years. Claire has a MA (Hons) in English Literature, a MSc in Creative Writing and is currently working on a PhD in Creative Writing and Contemporary Scottish Poetry, all with the University of Edinburgh Claire is now a college lecturer, currently teaching at Edinburgh’s Telford College and the University of Edinburgh. In 2008 she was awarded the Grierson Verse Prize, the Sloan Prize for Writing in Lowland Scots Vernacular, the Lewis Edwards Award for Poetry and the William Sharpe Hunter Memorial Scholarship for Creative Writing. She was also nominated for the Scottish Variety Best Young Scottish Writer of the Year Award in early 2009.

Kathleen Kenny lives and writes in Newcastle upon Tyne. She works as a part-time creative writing lecturer for Sunderland University and is a well known and loved poet in Newcastle with collections from Red Squirrel Press, Diamond Twig, Smokestack and Flarestack.

Valerie Laws is a poet, performer, playwright for stage and BBC radio, and sci-art specialist: her Arts Council-funded Quantum Sheep infamously involved spray-painting poetry onto live sheep. She lives on the North East coast and has published seven books, including The Rotting Spot a novel from Red Squirrel. Moonbathing was her first collection of poetry, published by Peterloo Poets in 2003.

Josephine Scott is a writer from the North East of England. Her first collection was ‘Sparkle and Dance’ from Red Squirrel Press.

Alistair Robinson is a lecturer in Journalism at the University of Sunderland, formally working for many rears as Arts Editor at the Sunderland Echo. His pamphlet, ‘South of Souter’ (Sand) won a Northern Promise award. His first collection was the acclaimed , ‘Stereograms of the Dead’ (RSP). He is also guitarist in ‘The Bicycle Thieves’ a flamenco jazz trio who perform all over the North East.

Colin Will is an established Edinburgh-born poet with a scientific background. He has chaired the Boards of the StAnza Poetry Festival and the Scottish Poetry Library. He lives in Dunbar, loves to travel, and sometimes writes and teaches Japanese and Chinese poetic forms, as well as leading workshops on many other themes. The Floorshow at the Mad Yak Café is his fifth collection to be published.

Mike Dillon is the 2009 Aye Write Slam Champion and Voxbox Half Century Slam champ 2009. He is an award winning songwriter and has had many pamphlets and books published. In terms of Edinburgh he is an unsung legend.

Kevin Cadwallender lives in Edinburgh and is a writer, poet and editor and allergic to biogs.

http://cadwallenderk.blogspot.com

http://savaged babies.blogspot.com