Patience Agbabi "Renowned for her live performances. Drawing on rap, jive and disco rhythms but using traditional poetic forms like the sonnet" her poems have been broadcast on television and radio all over the world.
Her work has also appeared on the London Underground and human skin. In 2004 she was nominated as one of the UK's Next Generation Poets.

She was born in London in 1965 and educated at Oxford and Sussex universities. She has lectured in Creative Writing at several UK Universities.

She has published three collections of poetry, R.A.W. (Gecko Press, 1995) and Transformatrix (Canongate, 2000). Her third collection is Bloodshot Monochrome (Canongate, 2008).

Jo Bell is a poet, poetry professional and the co-ordinator for National Poetry Day.
Formerly an archaeologist of 18 years'standing (and digging), She lives on her narrowboat Tinker which in 2007 moved very slowly around the Cheshire Ring and is currently sinking.
She was Cheshire Poet Laureate 2007 & toured as one fifth of the Poetry troupe Bunch of Fives. Her first full collection is Navigation.

www.bell-jar.co.uk

Frank Dullaghan was born in Dundalk, Ireland.  Lived in Essex for more than 20 years before moving to Dubai in 2006.  MA (Distinction) Creative Writing from Glamorgan University.  Edited Seam for many years and was one of the founding members of the Essex Poetry Festival and lead the panel of judges for the Young Essex Poet of the Year.
'Frank Dullaghan's quietly spoken poems move between tenderness and terror with a humane warmth' George Szirtes.
1st Collection On The Back of the Wind published by Cinnamon Press 2008.

Adrian Green lives overlooking the sea at Southend, Essex. He is a former editor of SOL magazine, reviews editor of Littoral, and has published 2 earlier pamphlet collections as well as poems and reviews in a number of magazines and anthologies. He has degrees in psychology and general arts as well as a post-graduate diploma in humanities
His poems have been published in Acumen, Chimera, Envoi, Essex Countryside, In Praise of Essex, New Essex Writing, Poet’s England – Essex, Southend Poetry, The Interpreter’s House, The Unsaid Goodnight (Stride) and many other magazines and collections.
www.greenad.co.uk"
His latest collection “Chorus and Coda” is available from the Littoral Press.

Estill Pollock Estill Pollock's publications include the book cycles Blackwater Quartet (Kittiwake Editions 2004), and the Relic Environments trilogy, Relic Environments, Available Light, and Designs for Living (Cinnamon Press 2005, 2007, 2008).
Visit www.estillpollock-poetry.com.

In 2004, his collection Fields and Standing Waves was the Poetry Book Society pamphlet choice.

Maggie Freeman was one of the founders of the Essex Poetry Festival, and edited the poetry magazine Seam for five years. She teaches creative writing in community education, and has written six primary educational books, for Collins and Oxford University Press.

Alex Smith has lived in Saffron Walden with his wife since 1982, won the New Essex Writing Competition in 1993 and the London Barbican 'Blue Nose Poets of the Year' Competition for his sequence of poems, Fenland, in 2001. As well as appearing regularly in a wide variety of poetry magazines and literary journals, he has published four volumes of poetry including The Appetites of Morning, the Languor of Afternoons (1996, Salzburg University); Kayserling (1997, Oversteps Press, Salcombe); Histories, with Anne Born (1998, Salzburg University) and Ocean Myths, illustrated by Beatrice Brandt (Ino Press, 1999). He gained a masters degree in Creative Writing at Glamorgan University in 2001 and has taught creative writing at Essex University and Cambridge Regional College.

Dorothy Turner has been published in Chimera, won the Colchester Poetry Competition and had a poem commended in the Shrewsbury Competition which was included in their anthology. She started writing poetry in the 90s while living in Italy, joined Southend Poetry Group on her return to England and is now Chair.

Derek Adams is professional photographer and one of the organisers of the Essex Poetry Festival.
His chapbook,'Postcards to Olympus', was winner of the Poetry Monthly Booklet Award 2004 and was named "Best Individual Collection Of Poetry For 2005" in Purple Patch Magazine's annual Best of the Small Press list.
A collection 'Everyday Objects, Chance Remarks', Littoral Press 2005.
A new collection 'unconcerned but not indifferent - the life of Man Ray' is now available from Ninth Arrondissement Press.
He is BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year 2006
www.derek-adams.co.uk

Philip Wilson lives in Colchester, has been widely published in magazines, including: Magma, The Wolf, Rialto, Seam & Smiths Knoll.
His first collection 'Blessed But Not Broken By The Fall' is now available from Ninth Arrondissement Press.
www.philipwilson.co.uk