We would like to invite you to our competition event with readings from judge Seán Hewitt and winners Julian Bishop (1st), Hugo Jeudy (2nd), Zelda Chappel (3rd) and  Reemergence Prize winner Susan Shepherd. Please join us on Tuesday 4 May at 7pm (the event is free, tickets will be available from Eventbrite).

Seán Hewitt

Seán Hewitt lectures in English literature at Trinity College Dublin, and is a Book Critic for The Irish Times. He won a Northern Writers’ Award in 2016, the Resurgence Prize in 2017, and an Eric Gregory Award in 2019. Tongues of Fire (Cape, 2020) is his debut collection of poetry, and was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2020. His next book, All Down Darkness Wide, will be published by Cape in the UK and Penguin Press in the USA in 2022.

Julian Bishop: First Prize

Julian Bishop is a former television journalist living in North London who was recently longlisted in the National Poetry Competition. A member of the collective group Poets For The Planet, he’s also a former runner-up in the Ginkgo Prize for Eco Poetry and one of four prize-winning poets featured in a 2020 pamphlet called Poems For The Planet. contact: twitter @julianbpoet Poems For The Planet available at: https://www.maggiebutt.co.uk/poets-for-the-planet

Hugo Jeudy: Second Prize 

Hugo Jeudy is a high-school student currently living in Paris, France. This is his first publication.            

Zelda Chappel: Third Prize

Zelda Chappel’s first full collection of poetry, The Girl in the Dog-tooth Coat, was published in 2015 by Bare Fiction Press. Her work has been published in a number of journals, magazines and anthologies both online and in print, including Butchers Dog, Interpreters House, RAUM and Under the Radar.          

Susan Shepherd: Remergence Prize Winner

Susan Shepherd lives in the Scottish border town of Coldstream, where she works as a freelance journalist. Her first pamphlet, Wood End, was published by Shoestring Press in 2019 and her poems have appeared in The Interpreter’s House and The Poets’ Republic. She recently completed an MA in Creative Writing with the Open University. With her passion for history and a reporter’s eye, she often seeks to re-tell a story, or re-imagine events, through poetry.