We are delighted to welcome Isabel del Rio, Penny Pepper and Michaela Morgan to the Poetry and Spoken Word Group Committee, after our recent election process.

We thank outgoing members Roy McFarlane, Shaea Quraishi and Keith Jarrett for all their work.

We were delighted to receive three nominations for the four vacancies on our Poetry and Spoken Word Group (PSWG) Committee.

The candidates up for nomination are:

Isabel del Rio

Michaela Morgan

Penny Pepper

Sue Wallace-Shaddad

Only Full Members can vote. The closing date for voting is Friday 10 March at 5pm.

Vote here.

Committee nominations 2021

There are currently vacancies in the PSWG committee for new committee members starting their 3-year term in March 2022.

Any full members* wishing to stand this year should send an email to Johanna Clarke (PSWG Coordinator) including:

1. their SoA membership number and preferred name
2. an election statement (200 words)
3. a short bio (100 words)
4. a photograph (optional).

The deadline is Monday 17 January 2022.

If there are more nominations than places, full details will be sent to all PSWG members and an online election will be held. The new committee will be announced at the AGM on Thursday 10 March 2022.

*Associate members are not eligible to stand or vote for committee positions.

There are currently vacancies in the PSWG committee for new committee members starting their 3-year term in February 2021.

Any full members* wishing to stand this year should send an email to Nadia Bonini (PSWG Secretary) including:

• their SoA membership number and preferred name
• an election statement (200 words)
• a short bio (100 words)
• a photograph (optional).
•  

The deadline is Sunday 24 January 2021.

If there are more nominations than places, full details will be sent to all PSWG members and an online election will be held. The new committee will be announced at the AGM on Friday 26 February 2021.

*Associate members are not eligible to stand or vote for committee positions.

The National Poetry Library is an essential asset for the creative wellbeing of its users, especially in these difficult days. Although their doors are still closed, they are providing vital access to their poetry collections online, and we encourage all poets and readers of poetry to use their fantastic services and to continue to support their work and their commitment to keeping the library active and viable during their temporary closure. We are aware that they are working to reopen the library as soon as it is possible to do so and look forward to celebrating with them at the reopening.

There are currently vacancies in the PSWG committee for new committee members starting their 3-year term in February 2020.

Any full members* wishing to stand this year should send an email to Nadia Bonini (PSWG Secretary) including:

• their SoA membership number and preferred name
• an election statement of no more than 200 words 
• a photograph (optional).

The deadline is Sunday 15 December.

If there are more nominations than places, full details will be sent to all PSWG members and an online election will be held. The new committee will be announced at the AGM on Saturday 18 January 2020.

*Associate members are not eligible to stand or vote for committee positions.

The PSWG and the owners of Thomas Grove House are pleased to announce the launch of the Hartsop Group Residency.

Members of the PSWG can apply for a free group residency of up to two weeks in a historic farmhouse in the Lake District. The house will be available for residencies from 10 to 24 January 2020. You can read the full description and guidelines on the Hartsop Group Residency page.

Applicants will have to provide a brief proposal on how they intend to run the group residency, their objectives and why this residency would be useful to the participants and their work. You can apply here.

The deadline for applications is Monday 9 September 2019.

This year's winners

On Monday 17 June we celebrated the SoA's Authors Awards 2019 at the beautiful Southwark Cathedral. Hosted by poet Jackie Kay MBE, with an introduction by the President of the SoA, Sir Philip Pullman, 9 awards were presented to 32 writers. Among these, 12 poets were awarded.

Six poets received an Eric Gregory Award: Mary Jean Chan for A Hurry of English; Sophie Collins for Who is Mary Sue?; Seán Hewitt for Lantern; Dominic Leonard for This Mysterious; James Conor Patterson for Bandit Country; and Phoebe Stuckes for Platinum Blonde.

Four poets were awarded for the Cholmondeley Awards: Malika Booker, Fred D'Aiguiar, Allen Fisher and Jamie McKendrick.

Two poets won the Somerset Maugham Award: Raymond Antrobus, for The Perseverance (Penned in the Margins), and  Phoebe Power, for Shrines of Upper Austria (Carcanet).

From our awards of the past

We asked four Eric Gregory winners from last year about what's changed a year on from the celebrations. You can read their answers in our blog here.

An interview with Jackie Kay

"Writing is as much a confidence game as football"

After the Awards' Ceremony, we spoke to novelist and Scotland's national poet Jackie Kay about hosting the 2019 Society of Authors' Awards as a previous winner, and why poetry is in a state of rude health. Read the interview here

In order to celebrate our Poetry Week (5-9 June) and our shortlisted poets for the SoA Awards, we'll be hosting our very first live Twitter Q&A on Wednesday 5 June between 12-12.30 pm on making a living as a poet.

The Q&A will centre on making a living as a poet: is it possible? What avenues are there for getting your name out there? What routes into publishing? How do you cope with rejection or competition fees? What impact do literary awards have?

Join us by following Soc_of_Authors and ask questions about making a living as a poet, using the hashtag #AskAPoet.

Among others, you will hear from poets Dean Atta and Anthony Anaxagorou, this year's Cholmondeley Award judge Drew Milne, 2018 Eric Gregory Winners Jenna Clake and Zohar Atkins, and our PSWG Committee Members Katrina Naomi, Helen Shay and Jacqueline Saphra.

Poet, editor and translator Martha Sprackland has put together a list of 8 very useful tips on creating your first poetry collection or pamphlet.

'First of all, reduce everything you already have to raw material. Break down the barriers between the ‘finished’ and the ‘unfinished’.'

You can read it on the Sunday Times' Young Writer of the Year Award blog.

The SoA's Scriptwriters Group have posted an interesting Q&A with writer and sound-poet Hannah Silva, which you can read on their webpage: https://www.societyofauthors.org/Groups/Scriptwriters

An interesting article from The Bookseller by Sandeep Parmar, one of the founders of the Ledbury Emerging Critics Programme.

Parmar argues that it is not enough to simply publish poets of colour -- 'a real and meaningful shift in cultural value must come with critics whose first loyalty is to the work at hand, to reading it knowledgeably and with an awareness of the structural power within which works of literature are produced and received.'

Poet Robin Houghton has comprised a useful list of tips for anyone who is unsure about entering a poetry competition.

The Poetry Society also recommends this lists of resources from Winning Writers about how to tell if a poetry competition is reputable or not.

Feel free to contact the SoA for advice about the terms and conditions of any poetry competitions.

Lunar Poetry Podcasts are a series of discussions, interviews and live recordings with poets in the UK and further afield, now available to the public for download.

Member Kate Fox has shared her email response to events organisers asking poets to work for free. 

This is an example of an invitation she has received:

Hi Kate,

Just thought I’d drop you a line to see if you’d be interested in performing at X, one of X's liveliest spoken word nights.

We regularly get crowds of 70 and would be happy to cover your expenses - including drinks :)

We’d be more than happy to give you a 15-20 minute slot. We’re based at X.

Let me know if you’re interested!

Cheers,

X

And this is how she suggests politely declining:

Hi X,

Thanks for the offer of a gig. Would love to be on at your night.

I make a living as a poet so this isn’t something I’d be able to do just for expenses.

I’m also a member of a union (the Society of Authors) and am conscious of not accepting gigs that reinforce the idea that poets generally work for free. I’d love a broader range of people to be able to work as poets, and offering fees to professional artists is something that can help that.

I don’t drink before gigs either so offering to buy my drinks isn’t usually much of an incentive (though a bottle of water on stage is always appreciated!).

Very best

Kate

The post has been shared on Paula Varjack's Show Me The Money tumblr, which collects various articles and internet posts that may be of interest to artists trying to make money in hard times.