The Needlewriters anthology launched at Needlemakers in Lewes, and other news

Cover art by Mary Anne Aytoun-Ellis

The latest Frogmore publication The Needlewriters was launched at the Needlemakers in Lewes on 26 March 2015. The anthology contains poetry and prose by writers from Kent and Sussex who have read at the Needlewriters' quarterly events since 2008, including Peter Abbs, John Agard, Sasha Dugdale, Vanessa Gebbie, Lee Harwood, VG Lee, Patricia McCarthy, Grace Nichols, Nicholas Royle, Joe Sheerin, Catherine Smith, Lorna Thorpe, Jackie Wills and 40 others.

Also launching at the event was the online Needlewriters Companion.

Frogmore Papers editor Jeremy Page will be reading at the next Needlewriters event on 9 April with poet Judith Cair and novelist Jon Walter.

The Needlewriters anthology is available post-free from The Frogmore Press or Skylark in the Needlemakers, Lewes. Price £10.

October events

On Tuesday 15 October, at Shoreham Airport (7.00 pm), Michael Bartholomew-Biggs will launch his  new collection Fred & Blossom, a poetic tale about love and flying, which was reviewed in the latest number of The Frogmore Papers.  He will be joined by guest readers and fellow Frogmore voices Jeremy Page and Jackie Wills.  Fred & Blossom is based on the story of F. G. Miles and Maxine Forbes-Robertson, who fell in love in an aeroplane at Shoreham and went on to design and build successful light aircraft during the 1930s.  Through their lives we learn about the beginnings of airline travel, the British class system, the Spanish Civil War and the golden age of detective fiction.  The event is free and all are welcome, but please RSVP to mbiggs@sampo.plus.com

On Thursday 24 October Grace Nichols and John Agard (7.45 pm, doors 7.00)  will be reading at Needlewriters in Lewes.  Grace will be reading from her collection Picasso, I Want My Face Back and John will be reading a selection of his work, particularly from his new Bloodaxe volume Travel Light Travel Dark.  

Tickets are £5 (£3 unwaged and claiming benefit) and are available in advance from Skylark bookshop in the Needlemakers, Lewes (and why not pick up a copy of the new issue of The Frogmore Papers while you’re about it?). It is anticipated that this event will sell out and early purchase of tickets is strongly recommended.  More information from:  http://www.needlewriters.co.uk/

 And on the subject of John Agard, the Frogmore blogmaster cannot resist posting this wonderful picture of John receiving The Queen's Gold Medal of Poetry 2012:

Poems from the Old Hill: a Lewes anthology

Which town has the strongest claim to be the poetry capital of the United Kingdom?  

Cover art by Neil Gower

If the number of poets per head of population is anything to go by, then the answer must surely be tiny Lewes (population approximately 16,000) in East Sussex.

Poems From The Old Hill, an anthology to be published by the Frogmore Press on 28 September, includes contributions from no fewer than three Cholmondeley Award winners, a Commonwealth Poetry Prize winner, a Paul Hamlyn Award winner, nominees for the Forward Prize, Seamus Heaney Centre Prize 2012 and Michael Marks Award 2012 and a Next Generation poet. 

The anthology is edited by Jeremy Page and published as part of the Press’s thirtieth year celebrations and features the poetry of Anna Adams, John Agard, Judith Kazantzis, Grace Nichols, Catherine Smith and fifteen other widely published poets who are resident in the town’s precincts, and will be launched at the Needlemakers in Lewes on National Poetry Day (4 October).  

Copies will be available at £5.00 (post free) from the Frogmore Press or through good bookshops.