Unknown Launch – York Explore – Thu, 3 March 2022 18:00 – 19:45 GMT

Stairwell Books and York International Women's Week present feminist poetry collection Unknown, inspired by women from myth and history

Celebrate this launch event with readings by authors Anna Rose James and Elizabeth Chadwick Pywell from the book and their other work, as well as support readings from others.

 

The event is FREE but £1 of each purchase will go toward a charity that promotes resilience of women and girls in the face of climate change.

To register [Click Here]

About the book

'Unknown' is a collection of twenty-seven poems inspired by women from myth and history, featuring appearances from Medusa, Persephone, Ceridwen the witch, Grizell Steevens the Pig-Faced Woman, captain pirate Ching Shih, the infamous Gentleman Jack, revolutionary pilots Bessie Colman and Major Marina Raskova, tennis champion Althea Gibson and characters from Norwegian folklore, Shakespeare and the Tarot. These poems are celebrations, love letters, eulogies, reclamations and responses.

About the authors

Anna (she/her) is a queer, bisexual actor-writer of mixed British and Asian heritage, based in North Yorkshire. As well as poetry, she writes flash fiction, memoir and scripts for stage and screen. Her previous works include LITTLE IRRITANTS (Analog Submission Press); LOVE, ALBERTA; WAYSIDE; 100 FRIGGIN' POEMS; IT'S OK TO FALL FOR CAMP BOYS (self-published). Her work has also been featured on 330 Words, Alpha Female Society, Blue Animal Literature, Calm Down Magazine, Dissonance, Enclave, Forever Endeavour, Gingerbread House, Global Poemic, Mookychick, Prismatica, Thirst Aid Kit podcast, Vagabond City Lit, Visual Verse and What Rough Beast. You may know her face from Sonnet Sisters and Six Lips Theatre, or her voice from Tin Can.

Liz (she/her) is a York-based poet and writer of short stories and flash fiction, and an English and Drama teacher when she’s not writing. She also runs creative writing groups for children. She has recently been published in Fourteen Poems, Impossible Archetype, Untitled, Fat Cat Magazine, The Selkie, Tipping the Scales Literary Journal, Drawn to the Light Press, Lazy Women, Forever Endeavour, Dare to Create, Analogies & Allegories, Outta Time Magazine, Kalopsia, Visual Verse, Nightingale & Sparrow, Mookychick, Ang(st) and Dreich. She had two poems nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2020, and she sometimes performs at open mic nights in York when the country’s not in lockdown.

Praise for 'Unknown'

“Unknown introduces and re-introduces us to women otherwise slip through history and culture’s female-shaped holes. Brisk and beautiful poems speed us from goddesses like Kore to semi-mythic figures like Cartimandua (“Lost Queen of the North” as I think of her) to real life women like Khadija Saye. Works of reclamation like this are ongoingly necessary: when done so well, are a pleasure and a joy.” – Kate Fox

“Linguistically charged, rhythmically and technically assured, theatrically daring, these poems are robust, playful, tender and compassionate. The work as a whole forms an unsentimental and richly detailed testament to women's resistance.” – Graham Mort

*Missing this event? Find the book here: https://www.stairwellbooks.co.uk/product/unknown/