Annie Clarkson

The impulses behind my writing are small everyday moments; the unusual or dysfunctional; the complexities of relationships; memories from the past; jealousy, loss, loneliness and all those other difficult emotional states that we strive to understand.
There is something about writing about childhood that evokes so much emotion in me as a writer and a reader. It is a time where everything is ahead of us, and yet our whole lives are impacted on by what happens in these years. Much of my writing that focuses on adult experience has echoes of an unwritten past.

Biography

Annie Clarkson is a poet, social worker and fiction writer who was born in Kendal in 1973, grew up in an East Lancashire mill town, and now lives in Manchester with her cat. She keeps a regular blog, forgetting the time, and you can also read more about her on her Myspace page.

Publication History

Chapbook collection:
Winter Hands (Shadowtrain Books, 2007)

Short fiction:

• Okarito was published by Flax as an A1 poster, 2008
• Lindy in Brace (Comma Press 2008)
• Red Leg and Silence in Your Messages (Bluechrome, 2007)
  The Towpath in The Big Picture (Litfest, 2005)

Magazine and Online Publications:
Poems, short stories and prose poetry have been published in the following magazines:

Succour, Transmission, Sleepingfish, Mslexia, Dreamcatcher, Tears in the Fence, Stride Magazine, Ginosko Issue 4, Shadowtrain, ouroboros review, pank magazine and cake

Book Reviews:
Book reviews and author interviews have been published in Transmission, and online at Bookmunch, Stride Magazine, and The Short Review.

Reviews of Winter Hands

• Annie Clarkson versets shapes where poetry and prose meet, declare a truce and mingle generate so much heat and tenderness in equal turns; they read like reports from a twilit, overlooked world, writ in vinegar on chip paper that will stay news. ~ Paul Farley
• ''Winter Hands is the book equivalent of half-caught glimpses from a fairground ride, fleeting for sure but enough to create an indelible impression'' ~ Darran Anderson, Bookmunch
• ''They vibrate like poems do, they leave resonances like poems do, they leave mysteries, they make you want to go back and reread them. Annie Clarkson is a brave poet; and these are brave poems.'' ~ Steven Waling, Brando's Hat
• ''Her writing makes you ache, long after you have closed the book.'' ~Tania Herschman, The Short Review
  
• ''Winter Hands is a remarkable first collection'' ~Paul Sutherland, Dreamcatcher

Readings

Annie has read her work at various events and venues around the North West, including:

• Solfest, Manchester Book Market, Word Soup, No Point in not being friends, Apples and Snakes, Words on the Water Festival in Keswick, Poets and Players, Whitworth Art Gallery, November 2008. Watch this, Alchemy at the Globe Café in Prague, October 2008, Lancaster Litfest in 2005 and 2007

Listen to Annie read from Unsaid Undone

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• or Out Dancing, from This Road We're On
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Awards/Prizes

2nd Prize in Ilkley Literature Festival Short Story Writing Competition 2005 for her short story Clearing Out

Personal Reflection

The industrial North West features in much of my writing - its landscapes and people. I have many stories that describe particular canal towpaths or mills, or are built around characters I have met. My stories are grounded in many of my own experiences: in childhood, in relationships, and in my work as a social worker. They are all fictions, but are created around my own struggles and contain emotional truths. I want to keep exploring as a writer.

I love collaborating with other writers, artists, and photographers, and would love to do this more often, sharing and experimenting with ideas. I hope to finish a novel.