Joanna Guthrie
I studied English Literature at the University of York 1989-92, completed a diploma in Print Journalism at Cornwall College in 1997, thinking that I would go into newspaper journalism, and then I did an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Exeter, graduating with Distinction in 2005. My dissertation was in Life Writing.
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My first collection, Billack’s Bones, was published by RIALTO in 2007.
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“In this extraordinary first collection, the poems have a startling clarity, a way of illuminating and re-inventing the physical universe.” - Catherine Smith
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“This is writing that freshens up your vision, and refreshes your mind.” - Michael Mackmin
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“Exceptional humanity...this remarkable first collection cuts across accepted and expected boundaries and dimensions, directing us towards a physical world of overlooked riches.” - Michael Tolkien, Ambit Magazine
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“Language...that shimmers with that strange extra clarity. There is tenderness and depth and understanding in Guthrie’s work...that commands admiration.” - George Szirtes
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My non-fiction manuscript about the Florida Keys, Hurricane Season, was shortlisted in the New Writing Ventures award 2006, run by Writers Centre Norwich (now National Centre for Writing) - judges Ali Smith and Edward Platt. As part of the prize, I had a year of being mentored by the writer William Fiennes.
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I was awarded a Society of Authors grant in 2009, in order to return to Florida Keys and research Hurricane Season.
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Read an extract from Hurricane Season here.
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In 2012, I was commissioned by Waveney and Blyth Arts to write a libretto for two East Anglian rivers, in collaboration with composer Karen Wimhurst and nature writer Richard Mabey. Translated by Reeds, the resulting choral piece, was performed in 2012, by community choirs across East Anglia.
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Watch a short film about this here.
Hear extracts from Translated by Reeds here:
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I was selected for Aldeburgh Eight in 2014. This was an accelerated development scheme for emerging poets, run by The Poetry Trust.
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I was awarded an Arts Council England grant in 2015, to complete my manuscript for
Water Person Kit. My mentor on this collection was the poet Gillian Allnutt.
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"Music is perhaps the most individual element in a poet’s work and the hardest to pin down. Guthrie’s work is full of such music: apt matches between the meaning and the movement of a line – and there’s an almost wilful loveliness in the way the lilt will carry feeling as it moves through the fair of the poem.
Think of Hardy, Gurney, Jamie; and keep the ear of your heart attuned. You’ll be aware of the water-diviner in her: that gift for turning water into words as if it were ‘a body of thought in movement" - Gillian Allnutt on Water Person Kit
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I have been recently published in Poetry Review; The Rialto; Poetry Ireland Review; Magma; Butcher’s Dog; Under the Radar ; Salzburg Review ; Poetry News and, for non-fiction, The Guardian.
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I was commended in the Resurgence/Poetry School Ecopoetry prize in 2017 (judge Lavinia Greenlaw), and in 2019 I was commended and also won joint fourth prize in the Gingko Ecopoetry Prize (judge Jen Hadfield).
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I was shortlisted for Climate Change in Residence: Future Scenarios 2016, I am involved in Poets for the Planet, Extinction Rebellion / XR Writers, and Climate Cultures, a network of artists, curators and researchers which holds an online space to share our responses to our ecological and climate predicaments, and to hold ‘creative conversations about the anthropocene’.



