“The verses come alive in the accretion of telling details” Jane Harris
Mary-Jane Holmes is a writer, teacher and editor dividing her time between the UK, Ireland, Spain and the Tex-Mex border of the USA. Since 2009 she has been chief editor of Fish Publishing, a publishing house dedicated to supporting emerging writers and is the director of the creative writing program at the retreat and writing centre: Casa Ana, Spain. She is also editorial consultant at The Well Review, an international poetry journal based in Cork, Ireland that has published poets such as Anne Carson, Vona Groarke, Matthew Sweeney and John Burnside and guest editor at V.Press
She completed a masters in creative writing at Kellogg College, Oxford with distinction, has been accepted as a Hawthornden Fellow in 2019 and her debut poetry collection is published by Pindrop Press
Mary-Jane is reading from the collection on 21st May at Kellogg College, Oxford, 8th June in Settle, North Yorkshire, Bantry, West Cork on Wednesday 18th July and O’Bheals, Cork City, Ireland on 1st October. On 27th October she is running a workshop on alternative narrative structure in short fiction at the Press Club, Geneva for the Geneva Writers Group where she is a mentor: Geneva Writers Group
In 2019, she will be reading and running a workshop at the Swaledale Festival, North Yorkshire, and running workshops at the Flash Fiction Festival, Bristol and Malham Tarn Field Centre. Please see the teaching page for other courses available.
Publications and Competitions
2018
Accepted by Newcastle University as a PhD student in creative writing starting 2019. Supervisors are Bill Herbert, Tara Bergin and Sinéad Morrissey
Shortlisted for the Magma Poetry Journal Changeling Issue
Shortlisted for the Doolin Poetry Competition
Longlisted for the Poetry Book Society and Myslexia Women’s Poetry Competition 2018.
Application to be a Hawthornden Fellow accepted for 2019
Translation of Hungarian poet Margit Kaffka: Modern Poetry in Translation
Modern Poetry in Translation Journal – Translation of Latvian poet, VIZMA BELŠEVICA: Offspring
A winner of The Best Small Fictions Anthology 2018. Best Small Fictions Listed as one of the most anticipated books of 2018: BSF Most Anticipated List
Recent essay on poetry can be read here: Love the Blank Page
Disciplining the Modern Satyr shortlisted in the Five Word International Poetry competition and is published in the Five Words XI Anthology. Mary-Jane will be reading at Ó Bhéal, Cork later in October.
Work published in Ash Magazine
2017
Winner of the Bridport Prize for Poetry: testimonial
First Prize in the Bedford International Poetry Prize
Winner of the Martin Starkie Prize for Poetry
Shortlisted for the Doolin Poetry Prize
Commended in the Settle Poetry Prize
Shortlisted for the Penfro Poetry Prize
Nominated for a Forward Prize
Weather Vane published in Flash Fiction Magazine Here:
Letter from a Mercury Prospector to His Wife in the Durham Dales. 1904 published in Myslexia Issue 76
Reflex Fiction: Postpartum
2016
Published in Best Small Fictions 2016 edited by Tara Masih and Stuart Dybeck. Review can be found here: https://cecileswriters.wordpress.com/
Shortlisted for Bridport Poetry Prize
Work published in Lute and Drum poetry journal
Work Published in The Oxonian
2015
Flash Fiction published in The Tishman Review
Flash Fiction published in The Lonely Crowd
Flash Fiction published in The Incubator
Short Story published in Prole Literary Journal
Triptych published in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts
Flash Fiction published in JMWW Journal
Long listed for the Kathy Fish Fellowship
2014
Winner of the Dromineer Prize for Fiction
Shortlisted for the Bridport Prize for Flash Fiction
Interviews and comments:
Lemn Sissay’s judges report for Bridport 2017 : The winning poem is ‘Siren Call’. I am drawn to a bleak coastal town. I am drawn by sound. It is like a short film. Unsentimental. Brutal even. The writer draws us to sound from the outset. I am lured into listening. Through aural sensation the picture unfolds. It has all the detail of La Cite Des Enfants Perdus. Listen as the writer instructs “no not the familiar sounds”. The writer shakes the reader from complacency and into a Sirens Call. There’s a confidence of line. I am hypnotized by The Siren Call.
http://poetrysociety.org.uk/news/mary-jane-holmes-wins-bridport-prize/
http://www.kellogg.ox.ac.uk/discover/news/mary-jane-holmes-wins-martin-starkie-prize-for-poetry/
https://www.hysteriauk.co.uk/2017/05/09/short-story-generator-from-mary-jane-holmes/
http://www.damyantiwrites.com/2016/12/16/flash-fiction-writing-tips-2/
http://cafeaphrapilot.blogspot.com.es/2014/05/interview-with-mary-jane-holmes-of-fish.html
