Our Team
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Siobhán Campbell
Siobhán Campbell is a poet and literary activist. She is author of six collections of poetry and co-editor of Eavan Boland: Inside History. Her work combines social engagement, poetics of activism and commitment to the natural world. She has developed Expressive Creative Writing workshops to provide an adaptable resource for survivors of conflict. Inspired by Campbell’s post-conflict poetry and her research with veterans in the UK and USA, the methodology is the basis for programmes in countries including Iraq and Lebanon. She currently co-leads the MA in Creative Writing for The Open University.
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Ruth Carr
Ruth Carr edited The Female Line which challenged the imbalance of female to male published writers of poetry, fiction and drama, and co-edited The Honest Ulsterman for nearly twenty years. In 2020, she co-edited the anthology Her Other Language. She has assisted editorially in the production of many community publications, co-founded Word of Mouth Women’s Poetry Collective, and co-edited the publications Word of Mouth and the bilingual anthology When the Neva Rushes Backwards. She has three collections: There is a House, The Airing Cupboard and Feather and Bone.
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Natasha Cuddington
Natasha Cuddington is a poet and critic. Her translations, essays and reviews have appeared variously. An assistant editor at Cyphers, she co-curated Of Mouth and was a Belfast Book Festival Associate in 2022 and 2023. She leads workshops at Crescent Arts Centre, Open Arts and collaborates with disability arts charities. With Ruth Carr, she co-edited Ann Zell’s posthumous Donegal is a red door and Her Other Language: Northern Irish Women Writers Address Domestic Violence and Abuse. Her debut Each of us (our chronic alphabets) was published in 2018.
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Shannon Kuta Kelly
Shannon Kuta Kelly is a writer, translator, and musician. Her work has been published in an array of international journals, including Poetry Ireland Review, the Irish Times, and the London Magazine. She has collaborated with the Romanian ConTempo String Quartet for events such as the Dublin Enescu Festival and performances in conjunction with the Embassy of Romania in Ireland. She is a doctoral researcher at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast.
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Kathleen McCracken
Kathleen McCracken is the author of eight collections of poetry including Blue Light, Bay and College, shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Poetry. In 2016 a bilingual English/Portuguese edition of her poetry entitled Double Self Portrait with Mirror: New and Selected Poems, was published by the Brazilian press Editora Ex Machina. A collaboration with filmmaker/photographer John T. Davis premiered at The Art Gallery at Ulster University in 2024. From 1992-2022 Kathleen was Lecturer in Creative Writing and Contemporary Literature at Ulster University.
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Alanna Offield
Alanna Offield is a poet and PhD candidate at Queen’s University Belfast with a focus on New Mexican and indigenous poetics. Before opening her business Seaside Books, a travelling and independent bookshop, she worked as a community organiser and lobbyist for various non-profit organisations in the United States. Her poetry has been published in several magazines and journals and her debut pamphlet, They Wish They Had What We Have, Kid was published with VIBE Press in 2024.
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Lorna Shaughnessy
Lorna Shaughnessy was Lecturer in Spanish at the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of Galway for 30 years, where she specialised in literary translation and modern Hispanic poetries. She was Co-Director of Emily Anderson Centre for Translation Research and Practice and Coordinator of the poetry translation network, Crosswinds. She has published four collections of her own poetry and four translations of Spanish and Mexican poets. Her recent publications include Lark Water (Salmon Poetry, 2021) and (as co-editor) A Different Eden: Ecopoetry from Ireland and Galicia (Dedalus, 2021).