WordPlay with Dean Atta and Jane Burn

Open Mic Event

Contact: marketing@ninearchespress.com

Website: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/wordplay-poetry-night-24-october-tickets-403396769597

Join Nine Arches Press for a lively night of poetry with special guest poets Dean Atta and Jane Burn. Plus a chance to share your own poem on the open mic and take part in our rapid-writing warm-up workshop.

Doors open at the Nineteen58 Bar, upstairs at the Belgrade, from 6.30pm for the warm-up writing workshop. Live poetry from special guest poets and open mic from 7.15pm. Open mic slots are limited, please sign up on the night.

Dean Atta is a British author from London. He is a Malika's Poetry Kitchen member, National Poetry Day ambassador and LGBT+ History Month patron. Dean’s poems have been highly commended by the Forward Prizes for Poetry and shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize and Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition. His books have been praised by the likes of Bernardine Evaristo, Benjamin Zephaniah and Malorie Blackman. Dean’s debut poetry collection, I Am Nobody’s Nigger (The Westbourne Press, 2013), was shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. His novel in verse, The Black Flamingo (Hodder Children’s Books, 2019), won the Stonewall Book Award and was shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, Jhalak Prize, Los Angeles Times Book Prize and Waterstones Children’s Book Award. There is (still) love here is Dean's latest poetry collection, published by Nine Arches Press in September 2022.

Jane Burn is a poet and illustrator based in the North East of England. She has won many awards including first place in the Wirral, PENfro, Bailieborough and Wolverhampton Literary Festival Poetry Competitions. She is a working-class bisexual with a late diagnosis of Autism. Her poems have been published in magazines and appeared in anthologies, including Writing Motherhood (Seren, 2017), #MeToo (Fairacre Press, 2018), The Valley Press Anthology of Prose Poetry (2019), and The Anthology of Illness (The Emma Press, 2020). Her work has been nominated for the Forward and Pushcart Prizes. In 2019 she co-edited Witches, Warriors, Workers, a volume of contemporary women’s poetry and essays with Fran Lock for Culture Matters Press. Her illustrations have also been used as covers for many books. Be Feared was published by Nine Arches Press in 2021.

This venue is disabled accessible.
Nine Arches Press are supported by public funding through Arts Council England.

Price: £6.00 / £5.00

Time: 6:30pm (Writing prompts, open-mic, then headliners)