PoetCasting

Giles Goodland is the author of What the Things Sang (Shearsman, 2009), Capital (Salt, 2006), A Spy in the House of Years (Leviathan, 2001), Overlay (Odyssey, 1999) and Littoral (Oversteps, 1996).

He lives in London and works in Oxford.

Khadijah Ibrahiim was born in Leeds of Jamaican parentage. Hailed as one of Yorkshire’s most prolific poets by BBC Radio, she has appeared alongside the likes of Linton Kwesi Johnson, Lemn Sissay and Benjamin Zephaniah. She is a literary activist, researcher, educator and director of theatre for development and the co-ordinator/mentor for Leeds Young Authors.

Her work has appeared in several publications including, A Journey Through Our History (The Jamaican Society, 2003), Voices of Women (Yorkshire Arts, 2003) and Hair (Suitcase Press, 2006). Her 2008 collection Rootz Runnin was published by Peepal Tree Press.

Malcolm Parr is a translator, poet, lecturer, reviewer and short–story writer. Born in Pontypridd, Malcolm served in the Intelligence Corps in Austria and Bavaria. His poems and translations were published in Rasgos (1980), Serious Games: Poems from the Spanish and Original Poems (1992) and White Voices (2001).

Malcolm now works freelance and lives in Swansea. His translations of modern Spanish poetry have been published extensively, including in the USA. Malcolm has lectured for Department of Adult Education (Swansea) and the WEA, principally on modern literature.

Zodwa Nyoni is a Zimbabwean-born performance poet, playwright and actor based in Leeds. She started writing in 2005 with Leeds Young Authors (LYA). Since then she has performed alongside national and international poets such as Jackie Kay, E.G Bailey and Ugochi Nwaogwugwu. She competed at the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam in New York City in 2006 and won a one-year poets residency at BBC Radio Leeds in 2006.

Her awards include a Leeds Black Achievers Award  for the Arts (2011) and a Yorkshire African Merit Award (2010). Her work has appeared in Sable LitMag (Word From Africa Issue 2008), Suitcase Book of Love Poems (2008) and Aesthetica Creative Works 2009.

Her debut play, ’The Povo Die Till Freedom Comes’ (2010) toured nationally from November- December with Freedom Studios (Bradford) as part of their Street Voices 3 program.

Leo Lavery was born in 1935 in Lisburn, Co. Antrim. Educated at Queen’s University, Belfast, he was for a short while a teacher before traveling abroad, living in Italy, Germany, Spain, France and Algeria with spells in London. His poems have appeared in various British and Irish magazines.

In 2009, Lagan Press published his collection Sitting on Till Spring. A pamphlet, East Down View, was published by Lapwing Press in 1992. He is also a widely anthologized writer of haiku. He is married with one daughter.

Suzannah Evans grew up in Worcestershire and now lives in Leeds. She started the MA at Hallam in October 2009. She has had poems published in a few magazines including The Rialto and Brittle Star.

She runs writing workshops in Leeds and is poetry editor for Cadaverine, an online magazine for under-25s.

Adam Lowe is Editor of Dog Horn Publishing and Polluto. His debut novel, Troglodyte Rose, was published in hardback by Cadaverine Publications in 2009 and was released in paperback this year by Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink.

He has been nominated for four Lambda Literary Awards in the upcoming ceremony and has previously been published in Leeds Guide, The Cadaverine, Wamack, Kaleidotrope, Saucytooth’s, Unlikely Stories, Word Riot, Chimeraworld 5 and Killing Bob Marley.

He is also on the young writers’ steering committee for Arts Council Yorkshire and his play Boys appeared in Street Voices 2 at Theatre-in-the-Mill, Bradford.

Kate North has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from Cardiff University. She has previously taught at Cardiff University, York St John University and The University of York.

Her poetry is widely anthologized and can be read in Not a Muse (Haven, 2009) and Pterodactyl’s Wing (Parthian, 2003). Her debut novel, Eva Shell, was published by Cinnamon Press in 2008. She was poetry editor for Aesthetica throughout 2006 and 2007 and she writes reviews, articles and interviews for a variety of magazines and journals. She also judges the Aesthetica Annual Poetry Prize. She currently edits for Iota Magazine.

André Naffis-Sahely is a poet and freelance reviewer. He recently edited the Selected Prose of Mick Imlah.

A selection of his fables will be published by Fischer Verlag, in Germany, in August 2010.

Photo by Alexandra Parsons

Pascale Petit’s latest collections are What the Water Gave Me – Poems after Frida Kahlo (Seren, 2010) and The Treekeeper’s Tale (Seren, 2008). She has published five poetry books including two which were shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and which were books of the year in The Independent and TLS. Her second collection The Zoo Father was also published in Mexico in a bilingual edition. A poem from it was shortlisted for a Forward Prize. In 2004 the Poetry Book Society selected her as one of the Next Generation Poets.

She has won numerous awards, including three from Arts Council England. Petit trained as a sculptor at the Royal College of Art and was a visual artist. She is widely travelled, including in the Venezuelan Amazon, China and Nepal. She co-edited Tying the Song (Enitharmon, 2000), the first anthology from The Poetry School, has worked as Poetry Editor for Poetry London and was a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Middlesex University. She currently tutors poetry courses for Tate Modern, the Arvon Foundation and Ty Newydd. She regularly updates her website and blog.