Dear All,
The next Loose Muse at Winchester Discovery Centre will be on Monday, June 10th, 7.30pm – 9.30pm, £6 and will be well worth turning up for as I have booked two amazing guest features. They are poet, editor and academic, Rachel Bower with her poetry collection, ‘Moon Milk’ and acclaimed novelist, Louisa Treger bringing her second novel, ‘The Dragon Lady’ plus Open Mic!
My thanks to all who have sent me poems for both our Heritage Open Day Poetry Performance and our Loose Muse ‘Showcase’ in October as part of the Winchester Poetry Festival’s Poetry Day. As I am working with Hilary Hares to choose the poems I have decided that you can now submit a maximum of 5 poems for each event. The deadlines for submitting are 1st August for HOD’s and 1st September for the Showcase, so you still have plenty of time. I’m really looking forward to reading your work! If you are in need of some inspiration come along to the Loose Muse Poetry Workshop, ‘Writing poems on People Power’ – Sunday 9th June, 11.15am – 1.30pm at the Discovery Centre, £18 run this time by Louise Taylor. There are still places left so just email me if you would like to book.
Editors note this offer is for women who attend or have attended Loose Muse.
Rachel Bower
Rachel is a poet and academic. She is a Leverhulme Research Fellow at the University of Leeds. She is the author of Epistolarity and World Literature, 1980-2010 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and Moon Milk (Valley Press, 2018). Rachel is also the editor of the Verse Matters anthology with Helen Mort (Valley Press, Nov 2017), and the editor of a Special Issue of English Studies, with Jacob Blakesley, entitled “Tony Harrison: International Man of Letters” (January 2018). Rachel also co-edited a Special Issue of The Journal of Commonwealth Literature with Jarad Zimbler and Ben Etherington, entitled, “Crafts of World Literature“.
Rachel’s poems have featured in Magma, Stand, New Welsh Reader, Frontier, Wild Court, The Interpreter’s House, And Other Poems, Popshot Magazine, Strix, The Flambard Prize Winners’ Anthology 2017, Remembering Oluwale Anthology, Verse Matters Anthology, Peacock, Foxglove Journal, Laldy, Atrium, Visual Verse, Picaroon Poetry, Now Then and many others. Her work has been shortlisted for several prizes, including the 2017 Flambard Poetry Prize, The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2016, the Mslexia Poetry Prize 2017 and the Plough Prize. Rachel is currently working on a Poet in the City/ British Library commission, and has had previously had work commissioned by BBC Radio and Apples and Snakes. Rachel is a member of the University of Leeds Poetry Centre and a Trustee for the Ilkley Literature Festival.
Rachel has a PhD in English from the University of Cambridge, and reviews for various journals and magazines. Rachel is also the founder of Verse Matters, a feminist arts collective in Sheffield.
You can find out more about Louisa here:Website: http://