Biographies - Issue 1 - Summer 2025

1. Nell Alison -  is a poet and writer based in Weymouth, Dorset. They’ve  performed at festivals across the country, hosted poetry events and  open mics, and appeared as a speaker at the National Association of  Writers in Education conference. Outside of writing, Nell is often  found playing table-top games with friends. 

2. Jonathan Aylett (He/Him) -  is a multi-slam winning, neurodivergent poet based in Bristol, who regularly appears at festivals and events across the UK. His haiku have won or been placed in several high-profile international competitions. His poetry collection, Goldfish, was published by Stairwell Books in 2024.

3. Charlie Barret -  is an outdoor psychotherapist who incorporates poetry therapy in her work, to help support self-exploration and healing. She’s mum to a wonderful teenage son and lives with him and her partner and various  beloved animals on Hogchester Farm, which is run as a nature conservation site.

4. Sarah Barr -  writes poetry and fiction, leads writing groups, and is a Stanza rep. Among poetry prizes won are 1st in the Frogmore and National Memory Day competitions, 2nd in Poetry on the Lake, short and long-listed in the Bridport Prize and long-listed in the National Poetry Competition 2023. Poetry books are January (2020) and Hawthorn (2024). 

5. Jeni Bell -  is an award-winning writer inspired by nature. Living on the borders between three counties, her work explores the layers that lie within the landscape both seen and unseen. Jeni’s work has been featured in a variety of print and online publications, as well as on local radio. 

6. Stephen Boyce  - is the author of three poetry collections, Desire Lines (Arrowhead 2010), The Sisyphus Dog (Worple 2014) and The Blue Tree (Indigo Dreams 2019) and three pamphlets. He is co-founder of Winchester Poetry Festival and lives in north Dorset. stephenboycepoetry.com

7. Melanie Branton - is a spoken word artist, educator and linguistics nerd from Bristol. She is currently touring a show about the history of the English language and likes wearing her pants on her head while talking to her socks.

8. Jason Butler - is a wordsmith hailing from Cornwall. He performs his poetry at festivals and venues across the South West and was a finalist in both the national Outspoken Poetry Prize and the BBC Urban Music awards. His first collection of poetry Miscellany of One was published in 2023.

9. Mary Cecilia - as a Northerner, she is a long way from home in Dorset, but any time she feels a little lost, she turns back to poetry. In the South West, she has rediscovered the pure joy of performing Spoken Word, which combines her life long love of literature with the simple fact that she never stops talking. 

10. Rachael Clyne -  is a retired psychotherapist from Glastonbury, Her prizewinning collection, Singing at the Bone Tree (Indigo Dreams), is about eco-concerns. Her pamphlet, Girl Golem (4word.org) explores her Jewish migrant heritage. Her recent collection, You’ll Never Be Anyone Else (Seren), expands on themes of identity and otherness, to include childhood and LGBTQ+.

11. Jane Colquhoun - is a multi- disciplinary artist, mainly working in textiles, with interests in the materiality of cloth and clay and the connections between people and places. She exhibits widely and has work in collections in the UK and abroad. Trained in Dorset and London, she taught art before moving back to Dorset to continue her creative career. www.janecolquhoun.com

12. Jackson Davies - has been performing spoken word for around five years, veering from humorous honest observations about his marriage, to rhyming rants about the state of the nation. His style is energetic and down to earth, and is influenced by the flow of artists like Scroobius Pip and Kae Tempest. He's too old and middle class to refer to himself as a rapper, basically.

13. Ged Duncan - is the author of six books for children. He enjoys writing poems, short stories, and stories for telling, and performing them - especially in intimate settings where he can see the whites of the audience's eyes…He has also written several books for children and adults, including a trilogy of stories about a time- travelling smuggler! Currently, he is  having fun noodling around with a bass and spoken-word combo, 'BassLines'.

14. Molly Dunne - is a poet, storyteller and current Bard of Dorchester, whose work delves into hidden voices, immersive fantasy, and feminist retellings of folklore and history. Passionate about reconnecting people to the oral tradition of storytelling, their writing seeks to bridge the past and present, bringing long-overlooked narratives to light.

15. Jo Earlam - has had a love of writing from childhood that took her initially to a career in journalism. After leaving mainstream media behind, she listened to children reading in school and in her 50s began writing stories for children. Now turning 60, who knows what is next.

16. Lizzie Elliot-Klein  -is a poet, nature connection guide and mother rooted in Plymouth, UK. Her work is inspired by the natural world, matrescence and the intricate connections that are woven in the Web of Life.

17. Nicola Ellis - is a poet and painter, combining the two to create both written, and visual poetry. Both ways of working are inextricably connected - coexisting to create personal maps of thoughts, feelings and ideas.

18. Edward A M Emmerson - lives in the highest village in Dorset where his imagination soars amongst the hills. He is a self-confessed anti-technologist still finding his literary feet. This is his second published piece.

19. Dominic Fisher - lives in Bristol. His poems have been widely published and sometimes broadcast. His first collection, The Ladies and Gentlemen of the Dead, was published by The Blue Nib in 2019. His second, A Customised Selection of Fireworks, was published by Shoestring Press in 2022.  https://dominicfisherpoetry.co.uk/

20. Phoenix Ford - is a trans poet and artist from Bournemouth, blending scars, starlight, and strange worlds. His work unearths the cosmic within the real, mental health, identity, and transformation. A voice for the unseen, Phoenix is part of The Pipedown Collective and the soul behind Soaring Ember and Ash.

21. Robert Garnham - works in retail management in and around Devon, and in training new employees in company procedures. He was born in Surrey and has lived in Devon for thirty years. His hobbies include travel, reading, and collecting fountain pens.

22. Phil Genoux -  is a poet and spoken word artist who lives in Glastonbury. Until a few years ago, he had been writing poetry for 20 years without showing or reading it to anyone. He has a lifelong interest in divination and aleatoric events and is a Tarot author.

23. Rebecca Gethin - has written 5 poetry publications and 2 novels. She was a Hawthornden Fellow and a Poetry School tutor.  Her poems are widely published in various magazines and anthologies. She won the first Coast to Coast pamphlet competition with Messages.

24. Nicki Greenham - is a writer, artist and creative healing coach in Dorset. Paint and poetry have gotten her through some difficult times. Working intuitively, she often has to record her stories in odd places. Last week she wrote a poem in the spaces between a Sainsbury’s voucher.

25. Amanda Griffin - sees poetry everywhere, in the name of a country lane, a lyric of a song. She prefers to describe herself as someone who writes poetry rather than a poet. She has had some of her poems published and can regularly be found in the sea in Swanage Bay.

26. Ione Harris - is a polyglot, poet, performer and yoga practitioner from Totnes, Devon. She teaches poetry and contemplative writing in-person and online. She likes to live life as an inquiry and she would like to be a singer when she grows up. Her singing teacher says she has 'a very good range'. 

27. Gary Hawker - After a career of social working and as a mental health trainer for the NHS, he now devotes his time to creative writing. In 2020, his first published novel Inside the Seventh Wave was nominated for the Booker Prize. A fifth anniversary re-edition is due out soon. Since then, he has had a second novel The Eye of a Little God published, and his novella The Hole at the Centre of the Universe is to be published later this year. His first love, however, has always been poetry. 

28. Rachan Hegde - is a poet. Chronic overthinker. Emotionally available on stage only. Fueled by caffeine, chaos, and questionable life choices. Writes to heal, to remember, and to rebel. Finds meaning in messy feelings and beauty in broken places. Often found chasing metaphors or running from reality- sometimes both at once.. 

29. Claire Hillier (aka Claire H ‘the poet’) - is a poet, spoken word artist from St Helens, Merseyside, now Bournemouth-based. Punk and witchy. Autistic and dyslexic. She self-published a bestselling poetry collection and performs at UK festivals, and sold-out events. Her work has travelled from the House of Commons in London, to COP28 in Dubai.

30. Rosie Jackson lives in Teignmouth, Devon. Widely published, she has won many awards including being commended in Mslexia, 2025, Troubadour 2024, National Poetry Competition, 2022. Books include Love Leans over the Table, Two Girls and a Beehive: Poems about Stanley Spencer, (both from Two Rivers Press) and The Glass Mother: A Memoir (2016). www.rosiejackson.org.uk 

31. Anne Lovejoy - lives in Watchet. She can often be found on Helwell bay some 250 yards from her home, combing the beach for fossils. On other days she can be found slowly walking the Quantock hills and combes with her dogs Coco and Taitti.

32. Athena Lynn - is a young genderqueer emerging Dorset writer who tackles abstract themes around death, gender, love, sexuality, trauma and womanhood. They’re in their early twenties and have recently finished university, with their dissertation and specialism being in poetry. They advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, women’s rights, and other minority groups through writing. 

33. Patricia Millner - is a retired academic living on the North Devon coast. She has been writing for many years. She founded the North Devon Poetry Stanza Group and continues to take an active part. She is a community teaching assistant on the ModPo course run online by the University of Philadelphia.

34. Clare Morris - is a writer, reviewer and performance poet from South Devon. Her collection Devon Maid Walking was published by Jawbone in 2023. She has been nominated for the Pushcart and the Forward Prize .Short-listed for Best Spoken Word Performer in the 2023 Saboteur Awards, Exeter Slam Champion and a finalist in Slamovision 2022, a global poetry competition. She has worked as a teacher and researcher, editor for The Blue Nib,  The Write Life and more recently the launch issue of The Jawbone Journal.. Award-winning poet and novelist, Luke Kennard believes her poetry possesses ‘a rare formal and lyrical dexterity.’

35. Julian Nangle - lives and works in and above his bookshop in Dorchester, Dorset.  seventy seven years old and he has been writing poetry for more than sixty years. He has had a hand in publishing many luminaries in the poetry world in zines and mags published in the seventies and eighties.

36. Kathryn O'Driscoll - is a Bridport-born queer, disabled poet, mentor, and event organiser. She was the 2021 U.K. Slam Champion and a World Slam Finalist. Her debut collection Cliff Notes is available now from Verve Poetry Press.

37. Jennie Osborne - is well-known in Devon as a poet, performer and workshop leader, and was for many years an organiser of Teignmouth Poetry Festival. Her latest collections are Reconstructing a Brother, 2024 from Wylde Publications and Signals From the Other, 2022  from Dempsey and Windle.

38. Clive Oseman - is a Swindon-based Brummie spoken word artist and comedian with a liking for the surreal and absurd. His fourth book, Musical Hamsters and Much Bigger issues’ a collection of humorous poetry and prose, was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2024.

39. Kasha-Faye Pascoe - is a queer, disabled novelist and educator based in Bath, England. They have a degree in Creative Writing and use it to teach, edit and mentor new writers via their community organisation Page One.

40. Geoff Petty - is a prize winning poet, except when he’s in a better mood.  He’s worked as a professional musician, a physics teacher, and a teacher trainer.  He’s written best-selling books on how to teach, and on creativity, but now campaigns on environmental issues, wasting much time on social media. 

41. Mandi Phelen - is a poet and short story writer. She recently returned to Gloucestershire after living abroad for many years.

42. Izzy Robertson - is a writer and complementary therapist living in the wilds of Dorset. She takes inspiration from landscape, folklore and the energy of place, finding wonder and magic in the everyday.

43. Peter Roe - lives in Bridport. He is a physically disabled, Neurodivergent performance poet - an alliterating, artistic, autistic. He is the Founder, Managing Editor, and Publisher of The Jawbone Collective CIC; The Grand Bard of Caer Dur (Dorchester: 2024-29); Host/founder of Jawbone @ The Poet Laureate and Jawbone Online; Three published poetry collections and a novella; He is described as “Like Pam Ayres but a bloke!” and “The Gandalf of Poetry”.

44. Katerina Sgouros - is a poet, visionary, musician, stand-up comedian, therapist, and a human exploring the out-of the-ordinary world within and without. She was born in Central Europe, studied literature and performing arts, lived  many years in the jungle, and now settled in Devon, she is rediscovering her poetry as a neurodiverse being

45. Karen Silverthorne - is a member of New Forest Writers and Christchurch Writers’ Haven.  She has been placed or shortlisted in competitions including Writer’s Forum, Winchester Writing Festival, Flash 500, Victory Radio and Tortive Lit. She lives with her husband on the south coast and creates stories when running along the clifftop.

46. Liam Smith - is an author and performance poet from the South of England. He enjoys writing quietly, drumming loudly and dressing in black. Liam would love one day to own an Addams Family-style house, with its own library full of volumes of forgotten lore and a resident talking raven.

47. Heidi-Marie Stephenson - is a poet-activist living in Devon. She writes for International Times and All-Creatures.org and recently completed her first collection WILD CRY! In 2021 she was Arts Council-funded to create her eco-poem, The Re Greening http://internationaltimes.it/the-re-greening/ Her book Rage and Reason: Women Playwrights on  Playwriting is published by Bloomsbury. 

48. David Thompson - spent many years as translator, interpreter, editor and publisher with the United Nations and WHO in New York, Bangkok and Geneva. Since returning to England he has published two poetry collections: Days of Dark and Light (Hobnob, 2021) and Where The Love Is (Hobnob, 2023).

49. Georgina Titmus - has had poems in The Pomegranate, The Moth, Orbis, The Frogmore Papers, The Journal, South, Briefly Write, Fenland Poetry Journal, Full House Literary and others. She’s twice been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. She lives in Cornwall, has a degree in Philosophy and is a ‘seer’ for her sight-impaired husband. 

50. James Turner -  has had an interest in poetry since 1989 while recovering from a nervous breakdown. His second poetry collection, A Chance of Love, was published by Oversteps Books, 2015. He was Exeter slam champion 2014/15, and has lived in Exeter for over 50 years.

51. Adam Victor - has always been a writer, even when he hasn’t been putting pen to paper/pixel to screen. The non-fiction work he’s published came from the head. Fiction, published or otherwise, always comes from the heart. A recent return to writing fiction and poetry times feels like a great benediction.

52. Alex Wallace -  is a creative writing teacher. She especially loves to help people take their first steps towards writing. It is such an honour and a joy to witness. She is a life-long diarist and writer of fiction, with a degree in photography and an MA in creative writing. She is a mother of four and lives in Burton Bradstock with her two cats.

53. Simone Webber -  has been writing all her life but only started focusing on poetry in the last year after attending a Jawbone workshop. Having a background in ecology, she has a particular interest in exploring our connection to the natural world and our responsibilities towards it, and loves playing with sound.

54. Jo Webb - lives on the South Devon coast and can often be found sitting at one of the coves with her dog - Reggie - drawing inspiration from the beach and sea life for her poetry. Jo enjoys sea swimming all year round and is a keen trail runner.

55. Angela Wensley - is a living, breathing Quantock Poet.  Her words formed in Covid’s combes have since flourished across her moors of Mindfulness. Under the tutelage of Liv Torc, Ralph Hoyte, Olivia Douglass and now Peter Roe and Jawbone, Angela’s personal poetry has touched several people to date, both live and via GPS.

56. June Wentland - lives in Wiltshire. Her poems have been published by various magazines and anthologies  including PN Review, Stand, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, 14 magazine etc. Her debut novel, Foolish Heroines, was published by Valley Press in 2021.

57. Naomi Willcox-Lee - is a queer poet based in Dorset, where they live with their young family. Inspired by the words of Audre Lorde and others, Naomi uses their poetry to explore how we can dream new worlds and brings the power of poetry into social justice and activist spaces.