CONTRIBUTORS
Rosemary Appleton (she/her) writes in the wilds of East Anglia, fuelled by coffee. Her work has been published in Mslexia, Quince and The Fenland Reed and by Black Bough Press, among other places. Her poems have been anthologised by Dunlin Press, PaperSwans and Fairacre Press. She has twice been among the winners of the Oxford Radcliffe Science and Poetry Prize. In spite of her best efforts to try something new, her work tends to be inspired by the past, by a human story or a significant place. Ely, a place so rich in architecture and history, is always inspiring. She tweets @BluestockingBks.
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Sophy Bristow is a writer based in South Cambridgeshire, and while walking in the Gog Magog Hills where she lives, she often stops at the Ely Viewpoint to make out Ely Cathedral on the horizon nearly 30 kilometres away. Her work has previously been shortlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize and published in Lighthouse Literary Journal. She is currently studying for a Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. She tweets @SoffoirBristow.
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Finnian Burnett teaches undergrad English and creative writing. They also run an online writing academy for LGBTQ writers and will corner people at parties to talk about story structure. Finn has been published in the Bath Flash Fiction Award anthology, Reflex Press, Ekphrastic Journal and more. In their spare time, Finn watches a lot of Star Trek and takes their cat for walks in a stroller. Finn lives in British Columbia, Canada, with their wife and Lord Gordo, the cat. Finn can be found at www.finnburnett.com and on Twitter under @FinnianBurnett.
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Thomas Farr is a British writer of fiction and poetry whose work has appeared in The Folkestone Anthology, Eunoia Review, Amphora, The Dark Door and elsewhere. He enjoys travelling (when he can), running, cycling, reading and writing. He doesn't enjoy writing author bios. He tweets @tfarrpoetry.
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Jonathan Foulkes writes on walking, nature, history and memory. Under the pen name of Eric Wark, he publishes the online journal Behind the Sky, a place of escape and reflection covering topics as diverse as the East Anglian Fens, found photographs, bookshops, allotments and post-Soviet Russia. He occasionally writes about sport and was the 2020 Winner of the Wisden Writing Competition. He can also be found on Twitter and Instagram.
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Martha Lane (she/her) is a writer by the sea. Her stories have been published by Northern Gravy, Ellipsis Zine, Reflex Press and Perhappened Mag, among others. Balancing too many projects is her natural state. Tweets @poor_and_clean.
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Arlette K Manasseh initially trained in visual art and contemporary dance. She went on to become a recipient of the Royal National Theatre Studio JS Cohen Director’s Award and the Genesis Prize for New Directors. She moved out of cross-disciplinary performance and theatre direction to work directly with communities and local neighbourhoods in London, Iceland and Scotland. She took up writing in 2017, after returning to West Lochaber to live with her family. She occasionally still directs work, for example, the prepublication tour of Roger Robinson’s 2019 TS Eliot Prize- and Ondaatje Prize-winning collection A Portable Paradise.
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Joy McAlpine-Black has a Masters in Museum & Gallery Education and a Masters in Creative Writing, so writing about art just makes sense. As a former Advisor to Museums, Libraries and Archives in England, Joy is over-the-top enthusiastic about gleaning stories from pictures, objects and manuscripts. Joy recently completed a draft biography of her Fen ancestor, Ann Shaw, spiritual leader of the 1820 settlers, ‘Mother of Methodism in South Africa,’ yet oddly absent in her husband’s memoirs. Sifting through women’s letters, artefacts and unpublished diaries, Joy unravels the mystery, reclaiming a significant fenwoman’s history from falling between the lines.
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A freelance science writer by trade, Larissa Reid (she/her) has written poetry and prose regularly since 2016. Notable publications include Northwords Now, Silk & Smoke, Black Bough Poetry Anthologies and the Beyond the Swelkie Anthology. She had a poem shortlisted for the Paisley Book Festival's Janet Coats Memorial Prize 2020. Larissa is intrigued by visible and invisible boundary lines in landscapes—geological faultlines, myth and reality, edge-lines of land and sea. Based on Scotland’s east coast, she balances her writing life with bringing up her daughters. Larissa is a founder member of the Edinburgh-based writing group, Twisted::Colon. Twitter: @Ammonites_Stars Instagram: ammonitesandstars
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Merril D. Smith’s (she/her) poetry has been published in several poetry journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Ekphrastic Review, Fevers of the Mind and Nightingale & Sparrow. She holds a Ph.D. in American history from Temple University and is the author/editor of numerous books on gender, sexuality and history. She lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. Her full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts, is forthcoming from Nightingale & Sparrow Press. Twitter: @merril_mds Instagram: mdsmithnj Website/blog: merrildsmith.com
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Originally from London, Jackie Taylor (she/her) has lived and worked in rural Cornwall for the past thirty years. She is interested in edges and liminal spaces, in what lies behind the beauty of landscape and in working as an outsider writer. ‘How to Ferment: A Recipe’ was inspired by the similarity between cow parsley (which makes lovely pesto) and hemlock (which is a deadly poison). Facebook: @jackietaylor.cornwall Twitter: @jackietcornwall www.jackietaylor.org.uk
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Rob Walton is from Riddings Estate, Scunthorpe, and now lives in Whitley Bay. His poems, flash fictions and short stories for adults and children have appeared in various anthologies and magazines in the UK, USA, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand. Arachne Press published his debut poetry collection, This Poem Here, in March 2021. Other publishers include Butcher’s Dog, the Emma Press, Bloomsbury, Frances Lincoln, Harper Collins, Dreich, IRON Press, Smith/Doorstop, Dunlin Press, Dostoyevsky Wannabe, Popshot and Strix. He has also written scripts, a pathway and columns for Scunthorpe United’s matchday magazine. Instagram and Twitter: @robwaltonwriter