Face to face

Jane Monson is a widely published and commended poet, freelance writer and tutor, living in Cambridge.

Her Ph.D in Critical and Creative Writing led to her debut collection of prose poems, Speaking without Tongues (Cinnamon Press, 2010. She is the editor of the Anthology of Contemporary British Prose Poetry (forthcoming, Cinnamon Press). She also works for Cambridge University Press Bookshop and Lucy Cavendish College and is teaching a new course in Film and Creative Writing at the Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge.

Andrea Porter’s first full collection, A Season of Small Insanities was published by Salt Publishing in 2009. She has had poems published in many magazines and anthologies in the UK, Ireland, and the USA. She has also been awarded prizes in a number of national poetry competitions. Her narrative sequence Bubble was published by Flarestack and adapted by playwright Fraser Grace into a radio play that was nominated for a Sony Award. She has been involved in creating a multi-media piece with a digital artist, graphic artist and a composer as a part of a Waterways Project sponsored by the European Union. She received an Escalator Award from The Writers Centre Norwich to complete her first novel. She is a member of the Joy of Six Poetry ensemble that has performed at various poetry and literary festivals and in the USA. She helps organize CB1, a poetry reading series in Cambridgea and writes a blog 'We Liked It But Not Quite Enough' .

Andrea studied psychology and trained as a social worker and now works with pupils with Special Needs. She lives in the fens. She was told at 14 years of age that she should read a great deal of poetry before attempting to write it and perhaps took this advice too much to heart and read avidly for thirty-five years before starting to write and send poems out.