Stop Sharpening Your Knives


Stop Sharpening Your Knives
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Stop Sharpening Your Knives is an anthology series of poems and art founded by Sam Riviere and Jack Underwood in 2005. It seeks to capture a new generation of poetry talent at a point of emergence. The ever-expanding S/S/Y/K collective counts among its ranks a range of the sharpest emerging poets, illustrators, artists and musicians around.

S/S/Y/K has organised two fringe events at the Wells Poetry Festival, impromptu soapbox readings at private views, appeared at such prestigious events as the Troubadour readings, the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, London Wordfest, and done a live broadcast for Resonance FM. S/S/Y/K (1) was launched in October 2005 , followed by the sleeker and glossier S/S/Y/K/(2) in the spring of 2007, for which Nathan Hamilton helped organise ACE,E funding. The publications feature contributors hailing from such disparate locations as New York, Belfast, London, Norwich and Budapest.

2008 saw the release our first-ever limited edition S/S/Y/K CD release featuring artwork by Zoe Taylor and tracks from some of the charming and unusual musicians who play at S/S/Y/K events, including artists like King and the Olive Fields, Charly Morris, The Middle Ones, Miss Sills and many many more... You can buy it here.

2008 also saw Nathan Hamilton join the editorial team and 2009 sees the arrival of the keenly anticipated third installment of the S/S/Y/K legacy, with poems and illustrations from a wider range of the most exciting emerging poets and artists around...

S/S/Y/K has big plans for the future. Maybe too big. Who can say if history will hail them as visionaries or condemn them as fools? Whichever it will be, you can get involved and help them further the cause by signing up here.

UEA Creative Writing


UEA Creative Writing
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The Creative Writing MA at UEA, the first of its kind in the country, was founded in 1970-71 by Sir Angus Wilson and Professor Malcolm Bradbury in the belief that there were -- and are -- a good number of young (and not so young) writers of originality and potential who would welcome the chance to develop their work in a postgraduate course within a university which emphasized the importance of contemporary writing. Since then the course has gone from stregth to stregth and has regularly produced writers who have gone on to become household names. Most years, the Booker Prize has a former UEA Student on its shortlist. Read more here.

Vahni Capildeo


Vahni Capildeo
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Vahni Capildeo (b. Trinidad,1973) has lived in the UK since 1991. Completing a doctorate in Old Norse literature (Oxford, 2001) and holding a Research Fellowship at Girton College, Cambridge, she has worked at the _Oxford English Dictionary_ and as a crisis centre volunteer. She is a Contributing Editor and the UK agent and representative for the _Caribbean Review of Books_.

She is also a Contributing Advisor to _Black Box Manifold_, the University of Sheffield e-zine, and a member of the International Advisory Board for the _Journal of Indo-Caribbean Studies_. She held a Teaching Fellowship in Creative Writing at the University of Leeds (spring semester 2009).

Her poetry includes: books – _No Traveller Returns_ (Salt, 2003), _Person Animal Figure_ (Landfill, 2005), _Undraining Sea_ (Egg Box, 2009), _Dark & Unaccustomed Words_ (Egg Box, due 2010), _Utter_ (in progress); anthologies – _The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse_ (OUP, 2005), _In the Telling_ (Cinnamon, 2009), _Identity Parade_ (Bloodaxe, due 2009).

Capildeo also has a strong interest in prose writing, particularly non-fiction. Her prose has appeared variously online and in print, in Iain Sinclair’s _London: City of Disappearances_ (Penguin, 2006), Jeanne Mason and Lisa Allen-Agostini’s _Trinidad Noir_ (Akashic, 2008), and Chuma Nwokolo’s online _Journal of African Writing_. Current projects include facilitating a ‘South-South’ exchange between innovatory and progressive writers, initially from India and Trinidad.

A poem from _Undraining Sea_, ('From First to Last...') has been Highly Commended in the Forward Poetry Prize, 2009, and will be separately included in the Prize collection which will be released during Poetry Week in October.