Adham Smart is a writer and three-times Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award winner. He has had work published in The Cadaverine Anthology, Korsakoff’s Paper Chain and The Salt Book of Younger Poets. His first solo publication Yes Yes Mouth was published by Valley Press in 2019.

 

Chérie Taylor Battiste graduated from SOAS University of London and worked as a TV researcher before moving to acting. She has since won the Norman Beaton Fellowship, joined the BBC Radio Drama Company and gained roles on stage and screen. Alongside this she has facilitated workshops in prisons and schools, going on to project manage the embedding of creative learning in schools with CapeUK. Her first collection, Lioness, was published by Valley Press in 2019.

 

Julia Deakin was born in Nuneaton and worked her way north to Yorkshire via Shropshire, the Potteries, Manchester and York to Huddersfield where she began writing poems. The Half-Mile-High Club (2007) was a Poetry Business Competition winner and her full-length collections, Without a Dog (2008) and Eleven Wonders (2011) drew praise from nationally-renowned poets. Widely published, she has featured twice on Poetry Please and has won numerous prizes. Her latest collection, Sleepless, was published by Valley Press in October 2018.

 

Ralph Dartford was the founding member of influential spoken word collective A Firm of Poets, and his first collection of poetry Cigarettes, Beer and Love was published by Ossett Observer Presents in 2013. A new collection, Recovery Songs – also touring as a spoken word show – is forthcoming from Valley Press in October 2019.