His recent work includes Riverrun, a book of modernist sonnets about the river Trent, Tyneside dialect poetry and A Book of Odes, dealing with migration and the social and political histories of the north and midlands.

Alan was born and raised in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and has lived in Nottingham since 1985. He runs the poetry publisher Leafe Press and its associated magazine, ‘Litter’.

Making his way down to Dorset from the East Midlands, poet and small press publisher Alan Baker is another of our featured readers.

Her debut pamphlet, Guerrilla Brightenings (Against the Grain Press), was released in 2022, and she was longlisted for the National Poetry Competition in 2023.

Her research is funded by the South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership and is based at the universities of Southampton and Bath Spa, in association with writer-development agency, ArtfulScribe.

Joanna is a poet and researcher from Brighton. She has published over 70 poems and is about to complete a PhD investigating mentorship for poets in the UK.

Our very own editor Joanna Nissel is also on the line-up as a featured reader for this year's festival.

Her work is formally restless and shaped by questions of power, gender, and cultural exclusion.

Her essay in the upcoming anthology Bread Alone reflects on literary gatekeeping, soft-lit false starts, and the cost of staying visible for writers shaped by council estates and the Irish diaspora.

Claire's fiction and poetry explore inheritance, place, and the invisible labour of survival.

After early publication in The Rialto and Magma, she returned from a long hiatus with new poetry in Tears in the Fence and a Saboteur Award-shortlisted novella from Fly on the Wall.

Next up in our festival line-up is Claire Harnett-Mann, a Birmingham-based writer.

Simon Collings stories, poetry, reviews

He is a contributing editor at The Fortnightly Review, where some of his work appears including Some Guts, a prose sequence with collages by John Goodby. Blue Eyes, Zimzalla, Spring 2024, is his fourth chapbook. More information at: simoncollings.wordpress.com

Simon lives in Oxford, UK. His poetry, short fiction, translations, reviews and essays have appeared in a wide range of magazines. A collection of his prose poems and short fiction, Why are you here?, was published by The Fortnightly Review in November 2020.

The next poet we'd like to introduce from this year's festival line-up is Simon Collings.

His work has appeared a number of times in Tears in the Fence since 2012, and this will be his 10th appearance at the Festival, once again making the trip from his home in Orkney. We look forward to welcoming him back!

His surreal prose poem sequence The Jazz Age relaunched Salt’s Modern Poets series in 2022. Last year he won both the Scottish Poetry Library’s Julia Budenz Commemorative Prize and the Mallaig Book Festival Deirdre Roberts Prize.

Since Aidan Semmens’s first collection, published by Shearsman in 2011, there have been five more, including Life Has Become More Cheerful, which marked the 2017 centenary of the Russian Revolution.

The countdown to this year’s festival begins.

The first poet we’d like to introduce is Aidan Semmens, who will deliver this year’s festival address.

2025 FESTIVAL Our annual festival will be on 19th – 21st September 2025 at the Stourpaine Village Hall, Stourpaine, near Blandford Forum, Dorset. There will be readings, talks, discussion, book signings, m…

'Connections'

This year's festival will run 19 – 21 September at Stourpaine Village Hall. There will be readings, talks, discussion, book signings, music, an installation of concrete and visual poetry, refreshments and a Festival bookstall.

Find out more: tearsinthefence.com/2024-festival/