ABOUT ME

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Born in Cornwall surrounded by animals (monkeys, parrots, frogs, dogs, bugs, mice, pigs, chickens and whatever else turned up) I now find myself back in Cornwall writing about animals. In between then and now I've worked as a gardener, fishmonger, bookseller, bodyguard, grocer, daffodil-picker and numerous other jobs across the country. Alongside this work I studied for a BA in Philosophy, an MA in Writing, Nature and Place, and a PhD on the poet Jack Clemo. 

 

My most recent book is Domadomadoma-Blumblumblum: Conversations with Other Animals, exploring the ways in which we have imagined or attempted conversing with other species, from John Lilly’s experiments with dolphins to the talking mongoose poltergeist on the Isle of Man. It covers the literature and practice of some of the most extraordinary cases from ancient times to the present. Doma was published by Ortac Press in September 2024, featuring cover art by the amazing comics artist Donya Todd.

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Other recent titles include Treasures of Cornwall (Macmillan, 2023), A Guillemot Guide to Very Small Press Publishing (2022), the poetry collection Singing About Melon (Shearsman, 2020) and the essay Rhinoceros (Broken Sleep, 2020). I've also published a couple of poetry pamphlets and a biography of the poet Jack Clemo. 

 

Recent performances, talks, events and exhibitions have been at the Belfast Book Festival, the Poetry Society in London, the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool, the Isle of Man's Manx Litfest, the Manchester Poetry Library, the Natural History Museum, Moniack Mhor near Inverness, the Westminster Reference Library, the Ted Hughes Arvon Centre at Lumb Bank, and at New Networks for Nature. 

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In 2016 I co-founded Guillemot Press, a very small publisher of beautiful books, with Sarah Cave. We've got a tremendous list of poets, both new and established, with recent or forthcoming titles from Selima Hill, Fiona Benson, David Harsent, Karenjit Sandhu, Jen Hadfield, Rebecca Goss, Nina Mingya Powles, Petals Kalulé, Rosmarie Waldrop, David Constantine, Robert Lax, Alycia Pirmohamed, Jessie Greengrass, Adam Marek, Selima Hill, Isabel Galleymore and many, many more. 

 

​I’m also a senior lecturer at Falmouth University, leading the MA Professional Writing.

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