Looking into the Canopy

We are delighted to announce the winners of the first poetry and short story anthology celebrating urban trees - 10 writers have been selected for their engaging pieces that will be published by Sampson Low Publishers in the Urban Tree Festival Canopy anthology.  They will be joining authors of stories from our Autumn Colours anthology, published earlier this year, on stage for the Urban Tree Festival's finale event: Write About Trees on Sunday 24 May.

The writers are:

Paul Chown for his story The Sycamore Stake

Nick Fox for his story The Guardian of Spa Wood

Deborah Harrison for her story Millennium Wood

Robert Hogg for his poem Spring 2016: "The Chestnut Forests of North America" 

Albert Pellicer for his poem Passage imbued with tree

Rachel Playforth for her poem On being asked about my favourite tree

Electra Rhodes for her story Grief, Like the Apple Tree Grows Not Straight

Mark Stewart for his story The Woodland Chimes

Joseph Surtees for his story Sink earthwards

Amanda Tuke for her story Bed Bound Birdwatching: an escape into the canopy

The winners were selected by the judges:

Judges

Peter Jaeger is a Canadian writer based in London. He is the author of eleven books, including works of poetry and hybrid creative-critical research. Along with his own ecologically-grounded writing, he has published research on ecological issues in the work of John Cage and Marcel Proust. Recent publications include the artist book The Shadow Line (2016) and the long poem Midamble (2018). Jaeger holds the post of Professor of Poetics at the University of Roehampton in London, where he also directs the Exploratory Writing Research Group. During the 1980s he worked as a tree-planter in Canada, where he planted over 300,000 trees by hand.

Ghazal Mosadeq is an Iranian-Canadian writer, poet and translator based in London. She is the founder of Pamenar Press, an independent cross-cultural, multi-lingual publisher based in UK, Canada and Iran. Mosadeq's work has been performed internationally at festivals such as the Inishbofin Festival, Surrey Poetry Festival, Po-Ex Symposium Chile, among others. Her writings have been published by Words Without Borders, Poetry Wales, Boiler House Press, The Stand Magazine, Hesterglock Press, Vanguard Press, Tentacular and Oversound. She has published three poetry collections, Dar Jame Ma (2010), Biographies (2015), and Supernatural Remedies for Fatal Seasickness (2018). She lives in a home jungle of apartment plants.

Nigel Bristow - NG Bristow is a screen writer, director and visual artist. He is currently marooned at Goldsmiths University of London, where he runs the MA in Directing Fiction.

Andrew Stuck - Founder of the Museum of Walking, Producer Talking Walking podcasts, he worked in rights and sales for Hodder for 10 years. Andrew founded and is a co-producer of the Urban Tree Festival.

Anthology Editor

Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone - Author, editor and creative writing tutor for the Novel Studio, City, University of London.

With a fair wind in the trees, we are hoping to have the Canopy anthology published in time for the start of the Urban Tree Festival on Saturday 16 May.  We will shortly be publishing details of how you can sign up to participate in the Write About Trees showcase Festival finale.