Ian Seed will be reading from New York Hotel (Shearsman, 2018), his latest collection of prose poems, which follows on from his previous collections Identity Papers (2016) and Makers of Empty Dreams (2014). These were both featured by the BBC on their radio programme The Verb. Poet and critic Mark Ford writes that Ian Seed is ‘our most brilliant exponent of that most unBritish of genres, the prose poem. Hilarious and unsettling, his beautifully controlled micro-narratives genially induct us into a world that soon turns out to be as dangerous as it is magical. His work should really come with some kind of health warning, for these poems are not only intoxicating – they are addictive.’ Ian is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Chester. His poetry also appears in a number of anthologies, including The Forward Book of Poetry 2017 (Faber & Faber) and The Best British Poetry 2014 (Salt).  

William Stephenson has taught English Literature at the University of Chester since 2001.  His first full poetry collection Travellers and Avatars was shortlisted for the Live Canon First Collection Prize and will be published by Live Canon in 2018.  He is currently working on the manuscript of a second collection, The Butterfly Factory.  Reviewers have described his work as ‘quirky, refreshingly different and wide-ranging in its cultural references. Data made interesting in a way I would never have expected or anticipated in poetic form’ (Sarah James) and as setting up a world where ‘words slip away from their original meanings, become jargon, trademarks, or symbols on a broken keyboard’ (Tim Love).  What his poetry ‘does very well is convey the time lag, the stutter that any technology has (especially in its less mature phase) in trying to render reality’ (Rishi Dastidar).