A Celebration of Our Online Lounges
Online
Tuesday 8th September 2026 7:00PM
September's lounge is a mini-festival of all-star poets. To celebrate 6 years of our online poetry lounges we are bringing back to our Zoom room six poets who have wowed our audiences in the past.
Those poets are:
More about the poets:
Karen Downs-Barton is a neurodiverse, working-class writer. Her collection, Minx, won the John Pollard International Poetry Prize. Her pamphlet, Didicoy, was an International Poetry Book and Pamphlet Competition winner and Poetry Book Society recommendation. Karen has performed at Radio 4's The Verb, Ledbury, Deptford, Swindon, and Edinburgh International Book Festivals.
Rae Howells is a poet, journalist and lavender farmer from Swansea. Her debut collection, The language of bees (Parthian), was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2023. She has previously won the Rialto Nature & Place and Welsh poetry competitions.This Common Uncommon was written as part of the campaign to defend a local common from a housing development, and is her second poetry collection.
John McCullough's book of poems, Reckless Paper Birds (Penned in the Margins) won the 2020 Hawthornden Prize for Literature as well as being shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award. The poem ‘Flower of Sulphur’, from his fourth collection Panic Response (Penned in the Margins), was shortlisted for the 2021 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. His fifth collection, Crowd Voltage, was published in March 2026 by Bloodaxe.
Rachel Spence has had poems on BBC's The Verb, in PN Review, The Alchemy Spoon and 14 magazine among other publications. Her two poetry collections, Bird of Sorrow (Templar 2018) and Daughter of the Sun (The Emma Press, 2025) were both highly commended in the Forward Prizes. Rachel is based in the UK and Italy.
Christina Thatcher grew up between a farm and a ranch house in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She now lectures at Cardiff University and has three collections published with Parthian Books: More than you were (2017), How to Carry Fire (2020) and Breaking a Mare (2025). Christina has toured internationally, reading her work in the UK, USA, Canada, Costa Rica, Switzerland and Romania.
Julia Webb is a neurodiverse writer and artist from a working class background. She has four poetry collections with Nine Arches Press: Bird Sisters (2016), Threat (2019), The Telling (2022) and Grey Time (2025). She has had two poems highly commended in the Forward Prize (2016, 2022). She is steering editor for Lighthouse – a journal for new writers. She lives in Norwich.
Please join us for a stunning evening of poetry.
Those poets are:
- Karen Downs-Barton
- Rae Howells
- John McCullough
- Rachel Spence
- Christina Thatcher
- Julia Webb
More about the poets:
Karen Downs-Barton is a neurodiverse, working-class writer. Her collection, Minx, won the John Pollard International Poetry Prize. Her pamphlet, Didicoy, was an International Poetry Book and Pamphlet Competition winner and Poetry Book Society recommendation. Karen has performed at Radio 4's The Verb, Ledbury, Deptford, Swindon, and Edinburgh International Book Festivals.
Rae Howells is a poet, journalist and lavender farmer from Swansea. Her debut collection, The language of bees (Parthian), was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2023. She has previously won the Rialto Nature & Place and Welsh poetry competitions.This Common Uncommon was written as part of the campaign to defend a local common from a housing development, and is her second poetry collection.
John McCullough's book of poems, Reckless Paper Birds (Penned in the Margins) won the 2020 Hawthornden Prize for Literature as well as being shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award. The poem ‘Flower of Sulphur’, from his fourth collection Panic Response (Penned in the Margins), was shortlisted for the 2021 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. His fifth collection, Crowd Voltage, was published in March 2026 by Bloodaxe.
Rachel Spence has had poems on BBC's The Verb, in PN Review, The Alchemy Spoon and 14 magazine among other publications. Her two poetry collections, Bird of Sorrow (Templar 2018) and Daughter of the Sun (The Emma Press, 2025) were both highly commended in the Forward Prizes. Rachel is based in the UK and Italy.
Christina Thatcher grew up between a farm and a ranch house in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She now lectures at Cardiff University and has three collections published with Parthian Books: More than you were (2017), How to Carry Fire (2020) and Breaking a Mare (2025). Christina has toured internationally, reading her work in the UK, USA, Canada, Costa Rica, Switzerland and Romania.
Julia Webb is a neurodiverse writer and artist from a working class background. She has four poetry collections with Nine Arches Press: Bird Sisters (2016), Threat (2019), The Telling (2022) and Grey Time (2025). She has had two poems highly commended in the Forward Prize (2016, 2022). She is steering editor for Lighthouse – a journal for new writers. She lives in Norwich.
Please join us for a stunning evening of poetry.
Event Details
Starts at 7:00PM
Price
Ticket price
£3.00
