Colin Brown is a qualified counsellor with a background in poetry, literature, disability arts and community education. Director of Poetry Can from 2003 to 2018, Colin has organised a wide range of poetry activities, including over twenty poetry festivals. He has helped to support and develop the work of hundreds of poets across the UK and the rest of the world. He’s worked closely with Arts Council England, Bristol City Council, Bath and North East Somerset Council, and South Gloucestershire Council to develop significant poetry projects across the region, and with Bristol University, the University of the West of England, Bath University, Bath Spa University, schools, organisations and groups to develop poetry activities in the community.
In addition to the Leaping Word’s poetry consultancy work, Colin offers counselling for adults, which includes a specialist service for writers and artists engaging with personal experience through their work. For more details, please visit longshipscounselling.com
Photograph by Alexander Turner for The Guardian
Deborah Harvey is a poet and novelist. She has five poetry collections – Communion (2011), Map Reading for Beginners (2014), Breadcrumbs (2016), The Shadow Factory (2019), and Learning Finity (2022), all published by Indigo Dreams and available from them or her, as is her historical novel, Dart, which appeared under their Tamar Books imprint in 2013.
Deborah has an MA in Creative Writing from Manchester Writing School. She runs workshops, judges competitions, and has read at many poetry festivals and events. Her poems have been widely published in magazines and anthologies, broadcast on Radio 4’s Poetry Please, and have been awarded several prizes, including runner-up in the 2022 Buzzwords Poetry Competition, the 2018 Plough Prize Short Poem Competition, 2016 Wells Festival of Literature Hilly Cansdale Prize, 2013 Buzzwords (Gloucestershire) Prize, 2012 Pre-Raphaelite Society Poetry Prize, 2011 Dor Kemmyn Poetry Prize and 2010 Wells International Poetry Competition.
In addition to her personal writing and poetry readings, Deborah is a member of the IsamBards, four Bristol-based poets who write site-specific poems and conduct poetry walks around the locality.
Poetry begins where death is robbed of the last word.
Olga Broumas
The Leaping Word 