21/08/2012
Thought peole might like to be reminded of Ellen's and my writing background, to see whether you'd like to come and spend the weekend with us. Here are Ellen's details:
Ellen Phethean was born and grew up in South East London. She moved to Newcastle upon Tyne in 1978 and has remained there ever since. She met and began to work with poet Julia Darling, in The Poetry Virgins. An anthology of their work is Sauce, Bloodaxe Books 1994. Together with Julia she also co-founded Diamond Twig, a north east women’s press: www.diamondtwig.co.uk. Ellen’s poem Witnessing Westgate Hill was broadcast on Stanza, BBC Radio 4 in 1997 while she was Writer in Residence for Gateshead Libraries and Arts, and her verse play Journey with a Golden Lady, was broadcast on Radio 4 in 2000. She wrote Wall, Smokestack Books 2007, a teen novel in poems, when she was writer in residence with Seven Stories, the Centre for Children's Books. It won joint first prize in the Bishop Auckland Crossover Novel competition in 2004. Jackie Kay said it had ‘pace, style, panache.’ Her first full collection of poetry Breath, 2009 Flambard was shortlisted for the London Fringe 1st Collection Award 2010. She co-wrote Cain and Abel with her son Fred Phethean, in Hip Hop style, for the Durham Mysteries Cycle, May 2010. She graduated from the Creative Writing MA at Newcastle University in December 2008 with distinction and she is currently working on a prose novel for teenagers. She teaches Creative Writing at North East Centre for Lifelong Learning in Newcastle.
Diamond Twig is the website of Ellen phethean, poet, playwright and editor, and founder of Diamond Twig Press.
