October guest poet
Jo Somerset
Jo Somerset (she/her) is a Manchester-based nonfiction writer who found a voice through Northern Gay Writers. Jo’s poetry and vignettes have appeared in Queerlings, mishmash, anothernorth.org, Dear Damsels, Buzzin Bards, The Selkie, Clavmag and Generations anthology. Other stories and articles are included in the European Journal of Life Writing, Northern History, and the Diva Book of Short Stories. In 2020 she completed a Creative Writing MA at Salford University, where she won the Leanne Bridgewater Award for Innovation and Experiment. She's contactable on https://josomersetwriter.wordpress.com or Twitter @josomerset
6 ArticlesAlasdair Wright
Alasdair (61) was born in London to a Scottish mum and an Anglo-Irish dad and came back to Scotland to live with his wife and two young sons in 1999. Since then, he’s combined working as a professional musician with jobs in catering. He was one half of healthy cookery demonstration duo ‘Two Fat Gents’ which toured the Highlands for the Healthways organisation and worked for many years as a chef for the National Trust For Scotland. Since accepting redundancy during the pandemic, he’s been concentrating on playing the piano and running the family’s tourism business in the Highlands.
4 ArticlesSue Oxley
Sue Oxley is a now-retired R.E. teacher but stays busy writing, quilting and running groups. She lives in the North East, by the sea, which she can very highly recommend as the sky is always changing. She has run a bed and breakfast hotel in Glastonbury, organised many Catholic pilgrimages all over Europe for pilgrims from her church, conducted – as a trained celebrant – over a hundred and fifty funerals, three weddings and one ‘welcome to the world’ for a new baby, and made nearly fifty quilts. She likes to be busy. She has three children, two grandchildren, one husband and one sister – who are her precious people – and friends that she loves.
1 ArticleLesley P Lyon
I discovered creative writing at the age of 63 when I settled in Glasgow after living abroad. I signed up for the Strathclyde Centre for Longer Living course, and stayed with it for 3 years. I've been writing ever since, loving it more each year. At the end of the course 10 of us wanted to continue and after a few false starts we have been meeting every month since 2012, reading out 'homework' and discussing each story, which opens up memories. Initially I thought I wasn't interested in being published or competitions, but now I've reached 80 I think it would be wonderful to see something in print - and not just the School FP Magazine!
1 Article