Poetry scholarship winner has debut collection published

A talented MA Creative Writing alumnus from Edge Hill University who left the health profession to write has had her first collection of poetry published.

Former student Joanne Ashcroft, from St Helens, has come a long way since making up poems in her head on the way to school. A lifelong love of poetry, and a developing talent for experimental verse not only won her Edge Hill's very first Rhiannon Evans poetry scholarship last year but has resulted in news that her debut collection is to hit book shelves soon.

Unusually for debut writers, her collection - called From Parts Becoming Whole - was accepted by the first publisher she approached. She will be marking this success by taking part in a reading on 16^th July at Mello Mello in Liverpool from 1pm.

"When I got the email from the publishers in Newton called Knives Forks Spoon Press to say they loved my work and wanted to publish it, I had to read it several times before it sunk in", laughed Joanne.

"To be honest, I don't know if I'd have had the courage to approach a publisher about my work only for my tutors at Edge Hill who encouraged me to send off my collections. Their support and guidance has been fantastic and they are so knowledgeable within their subjects that it really spurred me on. To actually find out my work is being published has given me so much confidence, I actually feel like a writer."

Joanne only began to seriously write when she started her BA in Creative Writing at Edge Hill University. Inspired by the poetry modules, she started writing her own poems, experimenting with different techniques and using language in unusual ways. She then embarked on an MA to deepen her academic understanding of experimental poetry and hone her own developing skills.

A former trainee nurse, Joanne has been known to use medical dictionaries to inform her work. "I'm interested in words for the way they sound rather than their meaning," says Joanne, "so I use unconventional sources, like dictionaries or technical journals, as inspiration. I like to move away from the normal format for poetry and find different ways of constructing poems using sounds. It makes you look at language differently."

The mother-of-two based her first collection on personal experiences and impressions of moments within those times, which she uses within experimental sequences throughout the book.

Joanne is expecting to have her work on sale in local book shops in the autumn. It is currently available priced at £7 from www.knivesforksspoonpress.co.uk.