Virtual Stanza Reading
An evening of poetry from some of the best contemporary voices currently writing in the UK and Ireland.
The event is part of the Poetry Society's network of Stanza groups that bring poetry into your home every month. Join us for readings from the Kitty Donnelly, Nikki Dudley, Inua Ellams, Ella Frears and Andrew McMillan
About the Poets:
Kitty Donnelly’s first collection, ‘The Impact of Limited Time’, was published in 2020. She is Northern Irish by origin but has lived all over the UK. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Manchester Metropolitan University & a BSc in Mental Health Nursing. She received a Creative Future Award in 2019 & was nominated for the Jerwood Compton Prize in 2021. She rescues animals, has completed her 2nd collection & is writing her first novel.
Nikki is managing editor of streetcake magazine and also runs the streetcake writing prize and MumWrite. She has a chapbook and collection with KFS. Her pamphlet 'I'd better let you go' is out with Beir Bua Press. She is the winner of the Virginia Prize 2020 and her second novel, Volta was published in May 2021. Her website is: nikkidudleywriter.com Twitter: @nikkidudley20
Ella Frears is a poet and artist based in London. Her collection Shine, Darling (Offord Road Books, 2020) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. Her latest pamphlet I AM THE MOTHER CAT written as part of a residency at the John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, is out with Rough Trade Books.
Born in Nigeria in 1984, Inua Ellams is an internationally touring poet, playwright, performer, graphic artist & designer. He is an ambassador for the Ministry of Stories and his published books of poetry include Candy Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars, Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales, The Wire-Headed Heathen, #Afterhours and The Half-God of Rainfall – an epic story in verse. His first play The 14th Tale was awarded a Fringe First at the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival and his fourth Barber Shop Chronicles sold out two runs at England’s National Theatre. He recently completed his first full poetry collection The Actual, is currently touring An Evening With An Immigrant and working on several commissions across stage and screen. In graphic art & design, online and in print, he tries to mix the old with the new, juxtaposing texture and pigment with flat colour and vector graphics. He lives and works from London, where he founded the Midnight Run, a nocturnal urban excursion. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Andrew McMillan's first collection, physical, was the first poetry collection to win the Guardian First Book Award; it also won a Somerset Maugham Award, an Eric Gregory Award, a Northern Writers' Award and the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. In 2019 it was voted as one of the top 25 poetry books of the past 25 years by the Booksellers Association. His second collection, playtime, won the inaugural Polari Prize. He is a senior lecturer at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His Third Collection is pandemonium, published this year by Jonathan Cape