MinK2024 - The Judges
Our MinK Creative Writing Competitions are judged by active practitioners - published writers working in the literary forms in which they are assessing your submissions. We're delighted to have the opportunity to work with them, hugely grateful to them for giving us their valuable time and insights, and pleased to have the chance to share their profiles and links to their work with you.
Flash Fiction
Jupiter Jones lives in Wales and writes short and flash fictions, which have been published by Aesthetica, Amphibia, Fish, Reflex Press, Ad Hoc Fiction, Mslexia, Parthian Books and rejected by many others.
She is the author of three novellas-in-flash, The Death and Life of Mrs Parker, Lovelace Flats, and Gull Shit Alley and Other Roads to Hell, and is currently working on a PhD at the Open University on the role of (dis)connectivity in the novella-in-flash.
Jupiter is taking part in our Online Programme in March 2024, talking to Electra Rhodes about Flash Fiction as part of our The Long and Short of It series with the Open University.
More about Jupiter:
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Leigh Russell is the well-known author of nearly forty novels, including the bestselling Geraldine Steel crime series which has sold nearly two million copies. She is sought after as an editor, writes critiques for the Crime Writers’ Association, and is an experienced and popular creative writing tutor.
Known for her encouraging and inspiring approach, she is a popular tutor at the Writers’ Lab in Skyros. In addition to her crime novels, Leigh has written dystopian and historical fiction and psychological thrillers. She is Chair of Judges for the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award, and an Advisory Fellow for the Royal Literary Fund.
Leigh will be running a Writing Workshop as part of MK Lit Fest's Spring Festival 2024.
More about Leigh:
Poetry
Caroline Davies holds an MA in Writing Poetry from Newcastle University and the Poetry School London. Cinnamon Press published her first two poetry collections, Convoy and Voices from Stone and Bronze; her third book, Elements of Water, a pamphlet of poems about Noah’s Ark, was published by Green Bottle.
She has contributed to a wide range of journals including Obsessed with Pipework and Magma, undertaken poetry commissions, and read for Poets for the Planet, Lodestone Poets and many more.
More about Caroline:
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Patrick Wright has a poetry collection, Full Sight of Her (Eyewear), which was nominated for the John Pollard Prize. He has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize.
His poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The North, Southword, Poetry Salzburg, Agenda, and London Magazine. His second collection, Exit Strategy, will be published by Broken Sleep Books in 2025.
More about Patrick:
Creative Non-Fiction
John Grindrod is a social historian of modern places. He is the author of Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain; Outskirts: Living Life on the Edge of the Green Belt; and Iconicon: A Journey Around the Landmark Buildings of Contemporary Britain. He is a resident of Milton Keynes.
Along with Owen Hatherley, he is delivering an event looking at the story of new towns around the world - Dirty New Town - as part of MK Lit Fest's Online Programme on 13 February 2024.
More about John:
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Shanta Everington is a creative and critical writer whose work explores recurring themes of difference, identity and belonging. She is the author of Another Mother: Curating and Creating Voices of Adoption, Surrogacy and Egg Donation (Routledge 2023), which uses hybrid form combining interview material, creative responses, and poetry sequence. Her debut novel, Marilyn and Me (Cinnamon Press, 2007), was shortlisted for the Cinnamon Press Debut Novel Prize, her young adult novel, XY (Red Telephone Books, 2014) won the Red Telephone Books YA Novel Competition, and her short story, Hang Up, was shortlisted for the Bridport prize. Currently an Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Open University and a Royal Literary Fund Reading Round Lector, her creative writing teaching experience includes the University of East London, The Brilliant Club and FutureLearn.
More about Shanta:
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