Absolutely thrilled for Kathleen McCracken winning the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing, a very fine poem to add to an already outstanding body of work. Many thanks to Community Arts Partnership and Arts Council of Northern Ireland for their provision and support with the award. It was a delight to be longlisted, and to be able to share my poem at Seamus Heaney Homeplace in Bellaghy with the other listed poets at the awards event.

If you want to know a bit more about Kathleen, here's an interview with her I did back in 2015, when her New and Selected Poems was released.

Geraldine O'Kane and myself were honoured to be able to open at the Farrago Poetry Heartbreak(er) Slam in the The Poetry Society Cafe in London this weekend. Many thanks to John Paul O'Neill (a fellow Tyrone bard and a generous host) for letting Geraldine and I open proceedings, our very first time reading in London. Loved hearing all the difference voices and views. 

​From there, we travelled to Newham Poetry House for a great workshop and reading on Saturday, as part of Newham Word Festival. Also big thanks to Sonia Quintero, Karim Leo and the team for being so welcoming, and for listening to our poems. Real positive community work being done there!