I won this year’s Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize for my poem ‘Night Canoe on Lake Sandoval’! Thank you Deryn one of the judges & for these pics of the prize ceremony

A cropped frame from the 1984 film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, depicting a very young Jonathan Ke Quan wearing a backwards baseball cap and pointing viciously at someone off screen. He has a pack of playing cards in his other hand

HEY LADY! YOU CALL HIM DR JESUS!

#TheDeeperRead 11 drops tomorrow: a close reading of "Clearing Dad's Shed" from @matriches.bsky.social Collecting the Data from Red Squirrel Press. Great to feature a fellow drey-dweller! Please like and subscribe: substack.com/@suzannafitz...

Showtime! Helping at the @poetryschool.bsky.social
MA open day with a table groaning with tutor and graduate publications, and this is just a selection! Glyn Maxwell and Meryl Pugh are running sample seminars, Artistic Director James Trevelyan is here, and @tessafoley.bsky.social islogistics queen.

#TheDeeperRead 10 drops tomorrow, featuring Anne Stewart's "Body Language" from her Oversteps Books collection The Janus Hour. Please like and subscribe at substack.com/@suzannafitz..., it's free!

www.samszanto.com/blog
For those who don't know me very well, I'm Sam, a writer and PhD researcher. When I'm not doing those things, I have a blog helping indie writers promote their latest books, because as the author of 3 of them I know how hard that is! If you have one to promote, get in touch.

Agreed… outstanding!

Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted child sex trafficker, gets gardening time, sports, therapy dogs, and spa products in prison.

Migrant children in custody are sleeping on concrete floors without enough food or clean water.

Our priorities are so fucked.

This week's #TheDeeperRead drops 8am Friday and features "The family tartan" by fellow Poetry School MA graduate Kevin Scully, which won the inaugural Ashdown Forest Poetry Prize in 2024. Please subscribe and share if you like, it's free! open.substack.com/pub/suzannaf...

Black-and-white graphic of a vintage typewriter seen from above. Torn paper strips sit in the typewriter reading “£1200 RAISED” and “WIN CASH” in bold lettering. Below, the hashtags “#TheBrokenSpineAward” and “#ByPoetsForPoets” are printed. The overall style is gritty, high-contrast, and zine-like.

We know prizes are bullshit! They’re just taste cosplaying as authority. So we stripped away the lie & left the contradiction standing. No prestige. Just cash. We'll pick our favourite poems & won't pretend we're doing anything else!
#TheBrokenSpineAward #ByPoetsForPoets #PoemsAbout #LiftToTheSky

But… but is there *ANY* way this could be a woman’s fault…?

When your poetry reading was so bad Dracula refuses to bite you and throws you straight out.

Caley advice

I thought it was train interior with velour wall panel.

Surely. Especially with a former Home Secretary, however unpopular and scummy. I don’t know though, these grubs rewrite their own rules every ten seconds.

‘It’s the errr nationalist non-elite and errr anyone who laughs at detention centres party - join us if you hate what you see in the mirror’

One day, if we are lucky, the erasure of American history will itself be remembered as a shameful chapter in American history

"Let's go together" Explore how poets celebrate friendship—its quirks, flaws, and unique moments. We’ll read a diverse range of poets, write our own friendship poems through guided exercises, and share them with the grou...

TICKETS NOW ON SALE!

“Let’s go together”
A workshop on the poetry of friendship with Tessa Foley as part of Portsmouth Bookfest.

Friday 27th February, 2026
Start time: 2:00pm
18 and over

#portsmouth #portsmouthbookfest #poetry #poetryworkshop #friendship

wegottickets.com/event/682850...

Eliots hilarity.

Reckon there’s a reflex there too…

All your best angles, clearly.

Second poem in Ionosphere 3.1 from @ampliconpress.bsky.social, a great journal exploring the interfaces of science, technology and the human experience. A ghazal; yes, the use of a form traditionally used for love poems is deliberate!

So proud to announce the shortlist for the pamphlet/chapbook competition. Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to submit.

livecanon.co.uk/competitions...

PS if you are waiting on the collections shortlist, it will be live on Wednesday

Photo of poet Tessa Foley’s listing on Portsmouth creative directory

I have a brand new page on the Portsmouth Creative Directory.

So there is a brand new way you can contact me.

www.portsmouthcreativedirectory.co.uk/organisation...

#poetry #portsmouth #southsea

An amazing analysis of a poem of mine by Suzanna Fitzpatrick.

She share things that I see and I go ‘ohhhh yehhh!’…

Crazy when that happens. And joyous.

The Deeper Read is a new Substack series in which I close-read a contemporary poem - @tessafoley.bsky.social is up first. You can subscribe here if you're so minded. I had fun, hope you do, too! open.substack.com/pub/suzannaf...
Tessa's book available here: www.livecanon.co.uk/store/produc...