January 4th, 2024: DEREK SELLEN, TIMOTHY ADES, MARK HAWORTH-BOOTH, MARY ANNE SELLEN

Derek Sellen has been writing poetry, stories and plays over many years. He has read his work widely, in the UK, Italy, Germany, Russia (in better times) and Ireland and has won various poetry awards, including Poets Meet Politics and Poets Meet Painters. He has twice won the O’Bheal Five Words and also twice won the Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year international competition. His poems have been placed or highly commended in the Plough Poetry Competition, Richmond Arts, Sentinel and many other competitions.

His collection of poems inspired by Spanish art The Other Guernica (Cultured Llama 2018) was a finalist in the Poetry Book Award 2020 and was very positively reviewed in Poetry Salzburg, London Grip and other places. His first collection was The Arch and its Shadow (2009). His work has been widely published in anthologies, online, and in magazines.

Timothy Adès is a rhyming translator-poet, with books by Victor Hugo, Robert Desnos, Jean Cassou, Alfonso Reyes, and awards for these poets; a Venezuelan book, a Greek booklet, and three German books coming soon, one to follow. He rewrote Shakespeare’s 154 Sonnets without using letter E. He translated Benjamin Britten’s chosen texts from Rimbaud’s ‘Illuminations’ to fit the music. He runs a bookstall of translated poetry. He is in magazines, on Facebook and YouTube, and his website is http://www.timothyades.com .

Mark Haworth-Booth read English at Cambridge and art history at Edinburgh. He worked at the Victoria and Albert Museum as a specialist in design and history of photography. He moved to North Devon in 2009 and is a Green Party member of North Devon Council. He has published two books of poems – Wild Track (2005) and The Thermobaric Playground (2022). 

Mary Anne Smith Sellen’s work has been recognised in both national and international poetry competitions. She has been widely published, in magazines, anthologies and online, including Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Grey Hen Press, Confluence, Dream Catcher, Beautiful Dragons and Wildfire Words. She has recently completed the manuscript for her first full poetry collection and is currently working on ideas for a new pamphlet. She is a regular reader at events and festivals.