SO:To Speak Small Press Showcase #2 Penned in the Margins

Penned in the Margins creates publications and performances for people who are not afraid to take risks. From what started as a reading series in a converted railway arch in South London, Penned in the Margins has grown over the last decade into a respected, award-winning literary arts company producing new work live, in print and online.

This event will feature Sarah Hesketh, Luke Kennard and John McCullough.

Sarah Hesketh is a poet and freelance project manager. She holds a BA in English Literature from Merton college, Oxford and an MA in Creative Writing from UEA and from 2015-2017, Sarah developed and co-managed the Mixed Borders Residence for London Parks and Gardens Trust.

In 2015, Sarah was commissioned by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust to produce ‘Grains of Light’, a sequence of poems based around the story of Holocaust survivor Eve Kulger. She was the Poet in Residence with Age Concern Central Lancashire 2013-14.

In 2014, she was shortlisted for the Kim Scott Walwyn Prize. For five years, she was the Assistant Director at English PEN, and since 2012 has worked for organisations such as the Poetry Translation Centre, The Reading Agency and Free Word, managing projects such as World Book Night and International Translation Day.

Sarah’s collection The Hard Word Box was published in 2014, and was longlisted for the Medicine Unboxed Creative Prize. Her first collection of poetry, Napoleon’s Travelling Bookshelf, was published in 2009 and was highly commended in the Forward Prize 2010. In 2007, her collaboration with composer Alastair Caplin was performed at the Leeds Lieder Festival.

Her work has appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies including Agenda, The White Review, Birdbook III, Soundings, Catechism: Poems for Pussy Riot and Binders Full of Women. She was an editor at Oxford Poetry Magazine and is now the editor of The Emma Press Anthology of Age.

Luke Kennard’s debut novel, The Transition (2017), is published in 2017 by Fourth Estate, and was a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime. He was The Poetry Society and Canal & River Trust’s Canal Laureate from 2016 – 2017. In 2014 he was selected by the Poetry Book Society as one of the Next Generation Poets. His next pamphlet Truffle Hound will be released in September 2018.

Luke’s pamphlet The Necropolis Boat (2012) won the Poetry Book Society’s pamphlet choice 2012. His collection The Harbour Beyond the Movie (2007) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2007, making him the youngest poet ever to be nominated. His debut collection The Solex Brothers (2005) won an Eric Gregory Award in 2005

Luke has a PhD in English from the University of Exeter and is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham. He has published five collections of poetry.

John McCullough teaches creative writing at the Open University and New Writing South, and lives in Hove, East Sussex. His collection Spacecraft (2016) was named one of The Guardian‘s Best Books for Summer 2016, and was a Book of the Year for both Sabotage Reviews Critic’s Choice and the London Review bookshop.

His first collection of poems, The Frost Fairs (2011), won the Polari First Book Prize in 2012. It was a Book of the Year for The Independent and The Poetry School, and a summer read for The Observer.

John’s commissions include ‘1001 Nights’ for the British Film Institute, ‘Antinous’ for the British Museum and Seven Doors Danny in collaboration with Ricky Horscraft and the Actually Gay Men’s Chorus.