Welcome

Hi—and welcome—good to see you here—you’ll find an eclectic mix of first and subsequent drafts of my work—I like to see your comments as my poetry and prose move towards the published (or not!) versions. Thanks to all who ‘like’ and share their views about my posts.

If you are a writer and are interested in meeting others try out the events organised by the Worcestershire LitFest & Fringe. The SpeakEasy evenings are well worth a visit, they take place in Worcester on the second Thursday of each month, from page to stage: performance poetry and prose, see their Facebook page for more details, click this link. For those with darker (or ‘alternative genre’) preferences, try 42Worcester nights, they run on the last Tuesday of the month, this Worcester gothic / horror / sci fi / fantasy group is often fascinatingly ghoulish, you’re sure of a friendly atmosphere and a good evening. Currently, both of these events and the wonderful Dear Listener are online using the Zoom platform. 42Worcester, has never missed an event.

If you want to develop your writing, the friendly and well-established Worcestershire Writers’ Circle meet on the first and third Tuesday of each month and Malvern Writers’ Circle are meeting on Zoom for the time being. Another creative group on Zoom is the Malvern Spoken Word group.

…and here’s my ‘official’ bio:

Polly Stretton writes for both page and performance, her work has been widely published in anthologies and she was an artistic resident at Croome Court and a member of Croome Poets. Two of her poems were featured in the Croome Soul to Sole project. Her first collection of poetry, Girl’s Got Rhythm was reprinted by Black Pear Press (2016), who also published her series of poems in a pamphlet, Chatterton, about tragic 18^th century poet Thomas Chatterton (2014).

Between 2016 and 2018, Polly was busy collating WWI anthologies as part of the hundred year commemorations. Polly says, ‘It was a privilege to work with some fine writers and poets, and with the Big Ideas Company, on these projects. I’m delighted to see they’re now available at a nominal price as eBooks on Amazon.’

Pressed Flowers came out of a project with Worcestershire Poet Laureate 2019-2020 Charley Barnes, and was, says Polly, ‘an absolute delight’. Working together, Polly and Charley asked other like-minded poets to contribute poems to the prompt ‘pressed flowers’, this pamphlet is the result.

Published in 2020, Polly’s new collection The Alchemy of 42 features 42 poems that have been written to 42Worcester prompts over the past nine years. The collection was launched via Zoom 11 August 2020.

Polly is the Chair of the Open University Poetry Society, a member of Malvern Writers’ Circle and Malvern Spoken Word, a former member of Worcester Writers’ Circle and organised the alternative genre spoken word event 42Worcester for 11 years. She was a Director of Worcestershire LitFest & Fringe for six years, and is known as a competition judge, editor, and tutor. Polly can occasionally be found on Facebook and posts at https://journalread.com and https://pollycroome.wordpress.com She is a member of the UK Society of Authors, a coach and mentor, assessor and moderator and part of the Black Pear Press team.

https://journalread.com
http://pollycroome.wordpress.com

Get in touch at pollystretton@gmail.com if you wish to quote anything from this blog or for the password to any password protected post (rare…but you never know!).