Author profile: New Contexts 7

Sara Arabzadeh is a London-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice is rooted in the intersection of identity, memory, and gender. She crafts narratives that confront personal histories and collective trauma. In her poem “Bedtime Stories,” Arabzadeh explores the absurdity and longing embedded in the act of disguise, while questioning the rituals and performances that shape girlhood and womanhood. Arabzadeh challenges the narratives that restrict freedom, offering instead a poignant, often surreal space for reclaiming autonomy and possibility.
Sam Aureli thrives on working with his hands, a passion rooted in his early blue-collar roles. Balancing work and family, he earned a degree in architecture at night and now leads a career in real estate development. Sam turned to poetry later in his journey as a refuge from the chaos of daily life and as a way to deepen his connection to nature. His work has recently been accepted in Atlanta Review and Amethyst Review.
Georgia Bailey is a poet and undergraduate in their final year at the University of Oxford. Her recent publications include “Green Fuses” (The VOLE Spring Anthology 2024) and Orbis 208. Any and all achievements are dedicated to Dad, 1966-2023.
Elizabeth Barton’s debut pamphlet, If Grief were a Bird, was published in 2022 by Agenda Editions. Her poems have appeared in magazines including Acumen, Agenda, Crannóg, Mslexia, South and The High Window. Her most recent awards are Highly Commended in the Ver Poets Open Competition 2024 and 3rd prize in the Shelley Memorial Project Poetry Competition 2023. She is Stanza Rep of Mole Valley Poets and editor of their anthology.  
Margaret Beston is widely published in magazines and anthologies, most recently Ourselves in Rivers and Oceans, Wee Sparrow Poetry Press, 2024.  She is the author of three collections, Long Reach River, 2014, Timepiece, 2019, Kintsugi, 2024, and a pamphlet When the Ground Crashed Upwards, 2020. She is the founder of Roundel, a Poetry Society Stanza, in Tonbridge, Kent, where she lives.
Zanna Beswick’s poetry has been published in The Independent, The International Times, The French Literary Review, Resurgence, Caduceus, Chrysalis, and Kindred Spirit amongst others, plus in several anthologies. Her work has also been read at literary festivals, and on R4’s ‘Poetry Please’. She has been placed in various international poetry competitions.
David Birkett is a husband, poet, cyclist and vegan, although not always in that order. He will, if unchecked, discourse at length on what he believes to be the overlooked poetry of Mervyn Peake.
Ama Bolton convenes a Stanza group in Somerset. Her poem ‘Survivor’ is currently displayed on a poster in Longbenton Metro Station, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Ray Clark is the award-winning author of the best-selling Northern Crimes series, set in Leeds, West Yorkshire. He divides his time by writing, singing live on the music circuit, and helping to raise money for the OPA cancer charity.
Gaia Aurora Costa is an Italian poet based in London whose work explores themes of love, loss, and the complexities of grief. Drawing inspiration from personal experiences, Gaia crafts poems that are both intimate and universal. Her poetry has been showcased at poetry events in Brixton, this collection marks her first publication, a milestone in her poetic journey.
Mike Douse has worked in education internationally since 1963. His publications include An Enjoyment of Education, One World One School, and numerous (and readily-accessible online) journal articles and conference presentations, along with three collections of his poems: Old Ground, Gone to Ground, and Grounded. He is living happily ever after in Mountain Ash, Rhondda Cynon Taf, with his dear wife Patricia.
Siobhan Gifford is a former journalist whose interest in writing poetry and short stories was re-awakened during an Arts & Humanities degree she obtained at the age of 66! Her work has been published in various anthologies including the New Context series, Ripon Poetry Festival anthologies and the White Rose Bards. She has been long-listed for the Anthology Poetry Prize and highly commended in the King Lear Poetry Prize.
Katie Goto-Švić is a Croatian-Australian writer based in Japan. She studied international relations, economics, and Japanese at the University of Sydney and works in energy and tech business development. Currently, she is also pursuing an engineering degree. Her fiction and prose appear in journals such as Santa Clara Review, L’Esprit Literary Review, Barzakh, The Manifest-Station, BarBar, and Grande Dame. Her crime manuscript ‘Neon Ghosts’ placed 3rd in The Plaza Prizes 2024 first chapters award.
Ian Gouge has been writing for a number of years, alternating between fiction and poetry. He runs the Derby Stanza for the Poetry Society as well as an international monthly poetry group, ‘Contextual’. A prize-winning short story writer, he has had both prose and poetry published. In June 2023 he performed his poetic monologue ‘Crash’ at the Ripon Theatre Festival. A sometime Indie Publisher, he also mentors at public writers’ retreats.
Jeremy Grant lives in Leicestershire with his wife, son, and cats, and teaches at a local sixth form college. His poetry has been published in Anima, Magma, Poetry Nottingham, Smiths Knoll, The Coffee House, The French Literary Review, The Journal and War, Literature, and the Arts, as well as Before the Cameras Leave Ukraine: An Anthology Raising Funds for Ukrainian Refugees and The Emma Press Anthology of Fatherhood.
Oliver Hipkins teaches English at Dulwich Prep & Senior. He is currently working on a verse novel and is interested in vernacular poetry which draws upon features of regional dialects, specifically those of his beloved West Midlands. He lives with his wife and two children in South East London.
Alison Hramiak is a poet, writer and tutor living and working in West Yorkshire, England. She is published in several Forward Poetry anthologies, New Contexts 4, 6 and 7 and on various poetry web sites such as Impspired and The Causley Trust. She edits and reviews poetry anthologies and is a member of several poetry groups, such as Consilience. She blogs for the Sheffield Institute of Education. Her work can be found at: wwwpoetryforlives.co.uk
Ben Hramiak is an author with a Bachelor’s Honours in English Literature and Creative Writing living and working in Yorkshire. He has written prose fiction from an early age and has been published in Impspired Volume 10, an anthology of short stories. He was also published in New Contexts: 4&5. He is currently trying to publish a short novel set in feudal Japan. His writing style is best thought of as descriptive and succinct.
Tim Kiely is a criminal barrister and writer based in London. He is the author of three poetry pamphlets, including Hymn to the Smoke and No Other Life, available from timkielybooks.bigcartel.com, and his poems have been published in Magma, Under the Radar, Atrium and Ink, Sweat & Tears. His short story ‘Elegy for a Yellowjacket’ was shortlisted for the Writers Rebel Flash Fiction Competition 2024.
Dave Kurley lives in central Portugal with the lovely Ali and two cats. His first book of poems and photographs, ‘Irritating the Silver Lining’ is available to order from bookshops, physical and online. Currently, he’s writing a poem a day on Bluesky, and you can find him there at https://bsky.app/profile/badvibrations62.bsky.social. You might also bump into him on Facebook, Instagram and Threads as @kurleybobspoetrycorner. Wherever you find him, say hello when you get there.
John Lancaster is author of five poetry collections, most recently Potters: A Division Of Labour (Longmarsh Press, 2017), winner of the inaugural Arnold Bennett Book Prize, and Where The Trent Rises (Clayhanger Press, 2023). Widely published in magazines and winner of competition prizes, including being a runner-up in the National Poetry Competition. A jazz trombonist, he lives in Totnes, Devon.
Thomas Larner was brought up in Cheshire on the Wirral Peninsula. He currently works as an archivist in Bedfordshire. He has been writing poetry since 2018 and has been published by the Coverstory books, The Littoral Magazine, Crank Magazine, The Cannon’s Mouth and many others.
Richard Lister’s poetry draws you into stories of intriguing characters, images & places. His Scattered with Grace is ‘a sumptuous collection, sprinkled with humour and a generosity of spirit’. In Edge & Cusp, he ‘captured life like a vibrant painting’. Lister’s work is in 13 international magazines (including Acumen & Orbis).
Penny McCarthy has published widely in magazines such as Stand, Argo, Poetry Durham, P. N. Review, and Ambit. She has also published studies on Shakespeare’s poems and plays, arguing for earlier dates for his works: see her recent Antedating Shakespeare’s Poems and Plays, 2024, with Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Iain McClure, originally from the North of Ireland, lives and works in England, teaching literature and politics. He began writing poetry during lockdown and has since been published in several anthologies and long-listed for a number of prizes. He writes about Ireland, the near and distant past, the natural world and landscape. His most recent work explores the intersection of lyrical and scientific language.
Freya Metcalfe is a queer, autistic, disabled poet based in Manchester, UK. They studied astrophysics at university but stumbled into the creative space after graduating, using poetry to articulate their experiences of the world. They mostly write spoken word poetry and feel most at home on stage at open mic events.
Denis Nightingale is an award winning journalist who has always enjoyed playing with words. His first poem at age six was about bodily functions. He has widened his range since then.
Jonty Pennington-Twist is an English poet, residing in Edinburgh. His work has been published in several magazines, anthologies and international collections and he is currently closing in on the final selection for his first collection. This is the fourth edition of New Contexts to feature Jonty’s work.
Based in Derbyshire, Janet Philo is chairperson of Ashbourne Writers’ Group and began writing after bringing up her family and a career in education in the North East. With work in two solo pamphlets, and numerous anthologies, she loves to share her poetry live and mix it up with her husband’s guitar music.
Jenna Plewes is a retired psychotherapist and gardener. She loves to walk her Welsh Collie in wild places and by the sea. She has published 4 poetry collections and 5 pamphlets. Her poems appear in journals and several anthologies. A Lick of Loose Threads came out in 2023, and Holding the Light in 2024. Both are sold in aid of ‘Doctors without Borders’, and ‘Freedom from Torture’, and are available from her at jenna.selvas@googlemail.com
Stephen Poole is a retired policeman. His poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry on the Lake, and LPP Magazine. New Contexts: 7 is the tenth anthology to publish his work. He has performed his poetry to live audiences at various venues including The Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden, Maidstone Fringe Festival, and Maidstone Radio.
Jenny Robb’s been writing poetry since retiring from a career in children’s and mental health services. She’s been published in online, and print magazines, and anthologies. Her debut collection is The Doll’s Hospital, (Yaffle Press 2022.) Her second collection is Hear the World Explode, (Yaffle Press 2024.) She lives in Liverpool with her partner and the family cat and has one grown up daughter.
Emily Roberts is an A&E nurse and uses her writing to explore the contrast of the darkness and the light that coexist in our world. Having written from a young age to untangle the complex emotions that can’t be verbalised, she finds it intriguing how this contrast shapes our experiences through life. How we must learn to live with both – whilst maintaining our sanity, relationships and comply with societal norms.
Elizabeth Robinson is a passionate poet and literature enthusiast, captivated by the evolution of language from medieval verse to rap lyrics and performance poetry. She finds joy in both the spontaneity of poems that seem to write themselves, as well as the meticulous craft of refining each word and line. Inspired by people and the world around her, Elizabeth’s work reflects a deep curiosity and love for words, embracing poetry’s ever-changing forms and possibilities.
Richard Side is a writer, musician, and former teacher and university administrator. Most recently he had two poems shortlisted for the Graham Burchell Award at the Teignmouth Poetry Festival 2024, of which one was awarded third prize. He lives in North Devon and is a member of The Poetry Society North Devon Stanza.
Dave Smith is currently working on a short collection of poems which reflect life in the 1960s.
Born in New York City, Nicholas Samuel Stember spent most of his life in the suburbs of Princeton, NJ, but his love of sci-fi, fantasy and horror ended up finding him a wife across the Pond and now he lives with her in the Faroe Islands. His works can be found in various magazines and anthologies.  Member of the Horror Writers Association since 2024. For more information check out his website at https://nsstember.com.
Deanna Strasse is an award-winning playwright. Her most notable works include The Cafe Mocha Murders, Summers in Prague, and Mayhem at Camp Marigold. Ms. Strasse has seen her plays developed and produced through companies such as Network Theatre (London), Windfall Theatre (Milwaukee, WI), The Box Theatre Co. (Oconomowoc, WI), Bishkek International School (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan) and more. Stay up-to-date on her adventures at DeannaStrasse.com
Debra Tillar has been an archaeologist, a teacher, and a freelance travel and food writer. Her short stories are included in several recent and upcoming print anthologies and online journals. Debra spends most of her time writing, creating art from natural and found objects, and traveling the world (she has visited over fifty countries and all seven continents). She grew up in New York City and now lives on the Seacoast of New Hampshire.
Eleanor Jane Turner is happiest when swimming. She enjoys the outdoors, especially remote Scotland. She presents her creative writing at the Forest Hill stanza.
Phillip Vine’s poetry has appeared in Acumen, La Vache, Outposts, and in Radio Free Palestine. His short fiction has been published in the USA by Mango and in the UK by Solaris, NewCon Press, and in prizewinning anthologies by Norwich Writers. In addition, he is the author of two acclaimed sports books brought out by Pitch Publishing: Manchester United, MIchael Knighton & the Football Revolution and The Immortals: Two Nines & Other Celtic Stories.
Sam Williams is an economist, songwriter and poet, based in St Albans.  His debut musical Little Fiend, co-written with Scott Bramley, premiered in 2023 and he is currently developing a second (also with Bramley) around the story of Dylan Thomas’ tours of America. Sam grew up in rural Herefordshire on the Welsh borders and enjoys bacon.
Keith Willson celebrates words in poetry, prose, and song, performing regularly around East Sussex at open mikes and on local radio. Last year he was a winner in the Eastbourne Poetry Café National Poetry Day Competition, his poetry appeared in Dream Catcher as well as New Contexts, and his stories were found in Bridge House’s Good News anthology and ScribbleMagazine. His ambition this year is to re-visit some unfinished longer projects.
Charlotte Wilson lives in Ripon, North Yorkshire, where she is inspired by nature, spirituality and the ways we find meaning in our ordinary – or extraordinary – lives. She is a member of Write-on Ripon! and enjoys reading at their open mic nights and taking part in the Ripon Poetry Festival, where she won third prize in the 2024 adult poetry competition. She has had poetry published in the Ripon Poetry Festival anthologies for 2023 and 2024.