Dr. Josie Barnard SFHEA is Associate Professor of Creative and Digital Practice at De Montfort University, where she is School Lead for Digital Pedagogies and DMU UN SDG Fellow. She is the Betty Trask award-winning author of six books, extensive print and broadcast journalism and international academic articles and chapters. Her digital inclusion research, which is the subject of a Research Excellence Framework REF2021 Impact Case Study (Bridging the Digital Divide: Creativity research resulting in digital upskilling), is represented by her monograph The Multimodal Writer: Creative Writing Across Genres and Media (Bloomsbury, 2019) (https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/multimodal-writer-9781137607935/) and her BBC Radio 4 programme, Digital Future: the New Underclass (2019) (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000823p). She is, alongside writers including Dame Penelope Lively and Sir Roy Strong, the subject of a chapter in Sue Gee’s Just You and the Page: Twelve writers and their art (Seren, 2021). Josie is invited co-editor of a Special Issue of the international academic journal Writing in Practice (2022) on the subject of her multimodal writing research (https://www.nawe.co.uk/DB/current-wip-edition-2/editions/vol.-7.html). Her new digital for creativity research is represented by outputs including ‘Cyber Nuts and Bolts’ for Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies (2023) (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13548565221150343) and ‘Creating creativity for future-proofing digital engagement, an evidence-based approach’ in Palgrave’s Digital Inclusion: International Policy and Research (2024) (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-28930-9_9). She collaborates with government departments and other key stakeholder groups to inform policy and develop digital inclusion.
Dr Joanne (Jo) Dixon is a poet and senior lecturer in creative writing. She leads the BA Creative Writing Programme. Her poems appear in a range of journals and anthologies, including New Walk, The Interpreter’s House, Furies (For Books’ Sake), In Transit (The Emma Press, 2018), South Bank Poetry, Places of Poetry: Mapping the Nation in Verse (Oneworld, 2020), Modern Poetry in Translation (2022), The North (2022), Black Bough (2024) The High Window (2024), Dust (2024) and Lighthouse (2024). Her debut poetry pamphlet, A Woman in the Queue, was published by Melos Press in 2016. Her first collection, Purl (Shoestring Press) launched in July 2020. You can hear Jo reading from Purl, alongside her DMU colleague, Maria Taylor at an event hosted by Five Leaves Bookshop, Nottingham. Jo’s article on Alice Oswald can be found at C21: Journal of 21st Century Writings: https://doi.org/10.16995/c21.588. In 2024, Jo was commissioned to write an introduction to a critical survey of the works of Alice Oswald: ‘Alice Oswald, 1966-‘ in Criticism of the Works of the Most Significant and Widely Studied Poets of World Literature Volume 273 (2024), ed. by Carol A. Schwartz. Jo has also written on the work of Hélène Cixous: ‘Reading and Writing Index Cixous: Reflections on Creative Writing Research in the Academy’, Writing in Practice, Vol. 7, pp. 42-54 https://www.nawe.co.uk/DB/current-wip-edition-2/articles/5-reading-and-writing-index-cixous-by-joanne-dixon.html
Jo reads her work across the East Midlands and in 2018 she visited Estonia to present her poems at the Crazy Tartu Festival. She has worked on poetry projects with Bilborough Sixth Form College, Nottingham Contemporary, St. Ann’s Allotments and UNESCO Cities of Literature in Poland, Estonia, Ireland and the UK. Working with UNESCO Cities of Literature and Nottingham Trent University, she co-edited a collection of new writing from European writers: Writing the Contemporary (2019): Poetry and Postcards from UNESCO Cities of Literature (Trent Editions). In 2022, Jo collaborated with Dutch poet, Asha Karami, on a performance for the European Poetry Festival.
Professor Simon Perril is a poet, visual collagist and critic. His most recent book, Two Duets with Occasion is forthcoming: Simon Perril – Two Duets With Occasion (shearsman.com)
Other poetry publications include The Slip (Shearsman 2021) In the Final Year of My 40s (Shearsman 2018), Beneath (Shearsman 2015) Archilochus on the Moon (Shearsman 2013), Newton’s Splinter (Open House 2012), Nitrate (Salt 2010), A Clutch of Odes (Oystercatcher 2009), and Hearing is Itself Suddenly a Kind of Singing (Salt 2004). As a critic he has written widely on contemporary poetry, editing the books The Salt Companion to John James, and Tending the Vortex: The Works of Brian Catling. He has written many book chapters and articles on contemporary poets. Alongside his writing, Simon has developed a visual practice in collage and video. He is director of Leicester Centre for Creative Writing at DMU.
You can see some of Simon’s visual work, and essay on his practice ‘Good to think with: My Surrealism’, here: https://shuddhashar.com/good-to-think-with-my-surrealism/
You can see a performance / talk called ‘Synaptic Foliage’, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJoI30MzLGs
A review of his Archilochus poetry trilogy, can be found here: http://longpoemmagazine.org.uk/reviews/simon-perril-three-collections-from-shearsman-books-archilochus-on-the-moon-2013-beneath-a-nekyiad-2015-the-slip-2020/
Dr Sabrina Mei-Li Smith is an academic, writer, researcher and community arts practitioner. 
Her article Creating Space for Creative Voices was published in issue 91 of Writers in Education (NAWE, 2024). Her short stories Cities in Dust (WithinTensions, 2022), My Insatiable One (Ink Pantry Press, 2021) and I Wanna Be Adored (TigerShark, 2019) are all taken from her debut metafanzine novel, Zazen. In 2022, she attended Zines Assemble, a fanzine inspired conference to present Fanzines as Creative Form and her paper, Fanzines as a Form of Storytelling will be presented at the 27th Great Writing Conference in July 2024. Her podcast Nostalgia with Chris Deacy will be released in April 2024.
Sabrina has worked on various community writing projects which engage with marginalized voices in society, namely: Irish Travelers, ex-sex offenders, prisoners, street homeless people and those with long term and debilitating mental health issues. Her recent role as Lead Writer and Editor with Writing East Midlands’s Beyond the Spectrum project yielded two anthologies, which showcase the talents of autistic writers: Picking Out Thorns (Writing East Midlands, 2023) and Nelson’s Noises (Writing East Midlands, 2023).
Matt Kirton is an ITV / Red Planet Prize finalist and Liverpool Everyman Young Writers’ Programme graduate. He has had plays produced in London, Liverpool and at the Edinburgh Fringe.
In 2016, Matt’s TV pilot script SIN OF GOD won Write to Green Light with Green Door Pictures and Lionsgate UK. Since then, Matt has developed original shows with Expectation Entertainment, Two Cities Television, Leopard Pictures, Ferryman Films and Red Planet Pictures.
In 2020, Matt received a script and series bible commission with FilmNation UK for his show DESCENT.
Represented by Christian Ogunbanjo at United Agents, Matt’s work has been pitched to commissioners at Netflix UK, Amazon UK, Apple TV Europe, Channel 4, AMC, and the BBC.
Maria Taylor is a British Cypriot poet and reviewer. Her most recent collection is Dressing for the Afterlife (Nine Arches Press). Her debut collection of poetry, Melanchrini, was published by Nine Arches Press and shortlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize. She has performed at a number of literary festivals throughout the UK and taken part in media appearances on television and radio. She also works as reviews editor for Under the Radar. She is also a lecturer in Creative Writing at DMU.