January 2007
We started the New Year with the wonderful: Michael McCarthy, Neville Clay, James Welsh and Mark Ellis.
MICHAEL McCARTHY Michael’s first collection Birds’ Nests and Other Poems won The Patrick Kavanagh Award. He has also published two books of verse for children. The Story of Noah and the Ark, which has been translated into sixteen languages, and The story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den. He lived in Durham during the 90’s and last performed at The Blue Room in January 2006. He currently lives in Sherburn in Elmet North Yorkshire where he works as a Priest, Counsellor and Spiritual Director. He has just returned from a four-month writing residency at John Sturt University in Canberra Australia.
NEVILLE CLAY In 2006, Sand published Nev’s first collection of words, The Leaf Collector (‘a quiet gem’, Terry Kelly). He also plays guitar and writes songs. He is currently working on a music/poetry project in Alnwick Garden with Mercury prize-nominated singer-songwriter, Kathryn Williams.
JAMES WELSH has been writing for around nine years and has had short stories published in various magazines including Billy Liar and Liar Republic. James writes mainly prose but also some drama and poetry. He lives in the east end of Newcastle and is in the final stages of writing his novel.
MARK ELLIS graduated from the MA in Creative Writing at Newcastle University in September ’05. Since then he has completed a play and a book called Liber Mundi for a commission by Harrogate Theatre, which was slashed to pieces, re-written and produced in its benign lesser state in November ’06. Having (almost!) put this behind him and following successes in both the University of Plymouth and WRHammons.com writing competitions, he has set up his own publishing company, The Pumpleton Press, and vowed to complete and Publish Liber Mundi in its original form. In the meantime, Faded Pictures, a collection of Mark’s short stories, is in Pumpleton Press’ first release and will (hopefully) be available on the night, or by contacting pumpleton@hotmail.com
