A Lovely Poetry Festival presents... Panel Discussion: Poetry Publishing

How do you break into it?
Why should you do it?
What’s it all about? 

Join our fab panel for a candid discussion on poetry publishing, the state of the sector, how to get into it as a poet and what opportunities are out there in terms of publishing.
There’ll be lots of chances to ask questions and have some really interesting important discussions.

Jeremy Poynting
Whilst still working as a lecturer in further education and trade union activist, Jeremy began a Ph D at the University of Leeds focusing on the relationship between imaginative literature and ethnic diversity in Trinidad and Guyana. A conversation with the Guyanese writer Rooplall Monar in 1984 was the germ that started Peepal Tree, and the press was launched with Monar’s book Backdam People.  His amateur academic ‘career’ was rather cut short by the formal establishment of Peepal Tree Press in 1986. In 2014 he was awarded an honorary DLitt by the University of the West Indies (St Augustine).
www.peepaltreepress.com/about-us/jeremy-poynting 

Stuart Bartholomew
Stuart Bartholomew is Director and Programmer of VERVE: a Birmingham Festival of poetry and spoken word, which returns for its fifth year in February 2022. He is also Publisher at and Co-Founder of Verve Poetry Press – an independent press that focusses on publishing poets from Birmingham and beyond who share the festival’s ethos. His programming and publishing vision is to celebrate the full breadth of quality poetic activity in Birmingham and the UK – whatever the style or source – in colourful and exciting ways.

Kate Wilkinson
Kate Wilkinson is Publicity Manager at Pushkin Press where she leads on campaigns for the adult fiction and non-fiction lists. She started in publishing in 2019 at Penned in the Margins and alongside promoting their titles, she also worked as an editor for Wellcome Collection Stories, publishing online articles exploring health and human experience. In her spare time she is learning to tap dance.

Presented as part of A Lovely Poetry Festival