Kate Potts
Kate Potts was born in South London in 1978. She worked in music publishing before training as a teacher. Her pamphlet Whichever Music (tall-lighthouse, 2008) was a Poetry Book Society Choice and was shortlisted for a Michael Marks Award. In 2009 she received an Arts Council award towards her first collection Pure Hustle (Bloodaxe, 2011). […]
Edward Mackay
Edward Mackay is a poet living and working in east London. His work has been published in journals and anthologies, including Stand and The Rialto. His poetry was shortlisted for the inaugural Picador Poetry Prize (2011), commended in the Emerge Escalator competition (2010) and shortlisted for an Eric Gregory Award (2009). A pamphlet is forthcoming […]
Jacqueline Saphra
Jacqueline Saphra organises the successful ‘Shuffle’ poetry readings in London and is one of the editors of UK poetry journal Magma. Her first collection The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions was shortlisted for the Aldeburgh Festival First Collection Prize. She has a whole previous incarnation as a playwright and was also a very successful participant in […]
Stevie Ronnie
Stevie Ronnie is a poet and artist and a successful participant in Cove Park’s Fielding Programme. His pamphlet length collections include The Thing To Do When You Are Not In Love (SAND / Red Squirrel, 2008) and Another Voice (Hatton Gallery / Tyne and Wear Museums, 2011). He has recently received awards from New Writing […]
Nia Davies
Nia Davies was awarded a place on the Academi Gymreig mentoring scheme for writers in 2008. Polaris is her first novel, inspired by Arctic Scandinavia. Her poems have been published in several magazines and anthologies and her first pamphlet will be published by Salt in autumn 2012. Nia also writes non-fiction pieces such as country […]
Xiaolu Guo
Xiaolu Guo was born in 1973 in China and comes from a family of sea lovers. Her grandfather was a fisherman, her father was sent to a labour camp in the 60s because he wanted to paint the sea instead of being a farmer. At 19 she left her hometown and studied at Beijing Film […]
Jo Shapcott
Jo Shapcott was born on the 24th March 1953, in London, and is a poet, editor and lecturer. Shapcott has won the National Poetry Competition twice, in 1985 and 1991. Her Book: Poems 1988-1998 (2000; reprinted 2006) consists of poetry from her three earlier collections: Electroplating the Baby (1988), which won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize […]
Inua Ellams
Inua Ellams is a word and graphic artist based in London. He was born in Nigeria in 1984 and moved to the UK as a teenager. His work merges visual art, spoken word and theatre, and he is known for his iconic imagery, beauty and attention to detail. He writes about his upbringing, the experience […]
Jan Carson
In Autumn 2022, Cove Park former resident Jan Carson will spend four week at Varuna as part of the Cove Park / Varuna Residency Exchange Programme. Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in East Belfast. Her debut novel, Malcolm Orange Disappears and short story collection, Children’s Children, were published by Liberties […]
Nicola White
We are delighted to announce the writer taking part in the 2022 residency exchange between Cove Park in Scotland and Varuna, the National Writer’s House in New South Wales, Australia. This residency allows one writer from Scotland to spend a month at Varuna and one writer from Australia to enjoy a month at Cove Park. […]
Victoria MacKenzie
In Autumn 2019, Scottish novelist, short story writer and Cove Park former resident Victoria MacKenzie will spend four weeks at Varuna in Australia as part of the Cove Park / Varuna Residency Exchange Programme. Victoria MacKenzie lives in the East Neuk of Fife and teaches creative writing for the Open College of the Arts and […]
Sumayya Usmani
Sumayya Usmani is a Pakistani author living in Glasgow. She is a Scottish Book Trust Next Chapter Awardee (2021) and the award winning author of two cookbooks and one memoir. Sumayya is currently finishing a MLitt in Creative Writing at University of Glasgow followed by the DFA Creative Writing starting October 2024. Sumayya also mentors […]