Josephine Corcoran is a writer, originally from the north west of England and now based in west Wiltshire.
My poetry books are Love and Stones (Live Canon, 2023); One Deliberate Red Dress Time I Shone (Coast to Coast to Coast, 2023); What Are You After? (Nine Arches Press, 2018) and The Misplaced House (tall-lighthouse, 2014).
My radio play The Songs that Houses Sing – The House in Tamworth Park was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 4Extra, and a stage play Jocasta was performed at the Chelsea Theatre, London. My short story Algebra, winner of the Ian St James Award in 1996, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 4Extra.
I’m an experienced writing teacher and workshop facilitator. I’ve taught writing in universities, adult education classes, schools and community settings. From September, 2023, I’m teaching writing workshops in Bradford-on-Avon – find out about my latest workshops here.
My short fiction and flash fiction have been published in magazines and anthologies and many of my poems have been published in renowned literary journals, including Poetry Ireland Review, The Rialto, Poetry Wales, The North, Magma, The Manchester Review, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Under the Radar, Butcher’s Dog and elsewhere. I’ve won the Stafford Poetry Prize and Buzzwords Poetry Competition, and I was a runner up in the Bridport Prize, the Grist Poetry Competition, the Live Canon International Poetry Competition and the Teignmouth Poetry Competition. I’ve performed my work extensively across the UK and at leading UK poetry festivals including Ledbury and Aldeburgh. More details at at News.
I love working with different groups and I’ve blogged about workshops I’ve run in schools, museums, libraries and community settings.
I trained with and worked for The Reader Organisation (2013-15), facilitating read aloud groups for people living with dementia and memory loss which I wrote about here. I completed writer in school training with The National Literacy Trust. Young people I’ve worked with have been successful in several national poetry competitions, including the Betjeman Poetry Prize, Armistice 100, the Somerset Young Poets Competition, Live Canon Children’s Competition and All Write.
I also make collage-based text and image pieces and visual poetry (VisPo) which I post on Instagram. One of my visual pieces was made into a badge for The Printed Poetry Symposium organised by Angie Butler (Centre for Print Research) at the Arnolfini, Bristol in October 2021. Other visual work can be seen on the National Poetry Library’s website; The Poetry School’s website; and at Angel House Press.
I founded and, until 2023 edited, the online poetry site And Other Poems and I organise a poetry group, Trowbridge Stanza, at Drawing Projects UK, in Trowbridge. I have a SoundCloud page.
I grew up in a loving family entirely dependent on state benefits for income and I spent part of my childhood in foster care. I’ve written since childhood but I only began to write professionally in the 1990s, while a student at Bournemouth University and Chichester University, hugely encouraged by my tutors. I love supporting writers of all ages and experiences.
Jonathan Edwards reviewed my full collection What Are You After? (Nine Arches Press, 2018) at Poetry Wales. Anthony Wilson featured my poem about drones in his Lifesaving Poems series. Maria Taylor wrote about my first pamphlet here. Helena Nelson wrote about it here.
Recent poems and reviews I’ve written are listed on this site here.
If you’ve read this far, you know quite a lot about me! I’ve been blogging since 2010 so there are lots of articles and posts to read, take a look here.
Josephine Corcoran 