It's a busy old autumn for me, and it's been a (quietly) busy summer too! I've been working with Gboyega Odubanjo editing my debut pamphlet, which (you heard it here first) is going to be titled The Barman and is coming out from Bad Betty Press early next year. Woohoo!
I've also been busy writing my first reviews. The first one came out in Poetry Wales earlier this summer, I've got another in the upcoming issue of Magma (and a prose poem in it too!), and a third in the next issue of The North.
I'm also so happy to have two poems in The Book of Bad Betties and to be on this year's Winchester Poetry Festival longlist! I'm reading at the prize-giving on 9 October in Winchester when we'll all find out together who's won. I've also got a couple of little poems in Tentacular.
Meanwhile the Dead [Women] Poets Society tour is nearly over, and we're running the final event with Malika Booker and Lizzi Hawkins IRL in Leeds and online on 23 September. Exciting! The very same week I'll be resurrecting Li Qingzhao myself at a Dead [Women] Poets Society event headlining WayWORD festival.
I'm also v excited to be reading alongside Will Harris and Jay G. Ying and talking about cultural hybridity as part of the Poetics of Home festival on poetics of the Chinese diaspora on 28 September. These are two poet titans for me, and I'm also just thrilled to be surrounded by other poets of the Chinese diaspora.
And the final highlight for me this autumn is that I'm running a workshop series with Creative Future! I can't wait to spend six weeks, IRL in Deptford, with the same group of underrepresented writers, reading and writing surreal poems. The last 18 months have been a surreal old time, so it only seems apt.
Here's a full list of readings and workshops...
Friday 17 September 2021 - BESEA Poetry Night at Hackney Chinese Community Centre
Wednesday 22 September 2021 - Book of Bad Betties launch (online)
Thursday 23 September 2021 - Dead [Women] Poets Society séance in Leeds with Malika Booker & Lizzi Hawkins at Wharf Chambers, Leeds & online
Sunday 26 September 2021 - Dead [Women] Poets Society séance at WayWORD Festival with Helen Bowell & Jasmine Simms (online)
Tuesday 28 September - Poetics of Home reading & panel discussion with Will Harris and Jay G. Ying
Wednesday 13 October - 100 Poems To Save the Earth reading at Gloucester Poetry Festival
Monday 25 October - Poets for the Planet reading at Gloucester Poetry Festival
Wednesday 13 October - Wednesday 17 November - Keeping It (Sur)real: a six-week poetry workshop series with Creative Future, in Deptford Lounge
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