Issue Eight Launch – Photo Gallery
Photos from the launch of Issue Eight of The Lonely Crowd at Little Man Coffee, Cardiff. Photos by Michou Burckett St. Laurent.

Philip Gross reading his three poems from Issue 8.

Durre Shahwar reading ‘Nowadays’

Tony Curtis reading his poems from Issue 8.

Christopher Cornwell reading The Hidden Orchard and The Uninvited, two poems in Issue 8 that are taken from his forthcoming collection Ergasy.

Marc Hamer reading his poems from Issue 8

Jane Lovell reading a selection of her poetry including her two poems from Issue 8.

K M Elkes reading ‘Whale Season’ from Issue 8

Stephen Payne reading a selection of his poetry including his two poems in Issue 8

Editor John Lavin.

Jenn Ashworth reading ‘The Least of These’ from Issue Eight.

Philip Gross reading his three poems from Issue Eight.

Jenn Ashworth and Marc Hamer
The Lonely Crowd in Cardiff were
Jenn Ashworth‘s debut novel, A Kind of Intimacy won a 2010 Betty Trask Award. On the publication of her second novel, Cold Light, in 2011, she was featured on the BBC’s Culture Show as one of the UK’s 12 best new novelists. Her fourth novel, Fell, was published by Sceptre in 2016. Jenn’s short stories have appeared in the The Big Issue, The Lonely Crowd, MIR, The Manchester Review and Short Fiction Journal. Jenn lectures in Creative Writing at Lancaster University.
Christopher Cornwell lives, studies & works in Swansea, his poetry has been featured in The Lonely Crowd, New Welsh Review, The Crunch, The Lampeter Review & Wales Arts Review for whom he also contributes criticism. He is the current head editor of The Gull online magazine. The Lonely Press publish his debut collection Ergasy in late November, 2017.
Tony Curtis is Emeritus Professor of Poetry at the University of South Wales where he developed Creative Writing. His New & Selected Poems: From the Fortunate Isles was published by Seren in October 2016 and his Selected Stories: Some Kind of Immortality by Cinnamon Press in 2017. He has written and edited over forty books and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
KM Elkes has won or been placed in a number of international short fiction competitions including the Fish Publishing prize, the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, the Bath Short Story Award, the Prolitzer Prize, the Labello Press Prize and the Short Fiction Journal competition. His work has appeared in literary magazines including Structo, Synaethesia Magazine, Brittle Star and Litro. He the Editor of The A3 Review and is working on a debut collection.
Philip Gross is a poet, librettist and writer for children. He won the T.S. Eliot Prize 2009 with The Water Table and Wales Book of The Year 2010 with I Spy Pinhole Eye. Deep Field dealt with his Estonian refugee father’s final years and loss of language, an exploration into our place in the world broadened steadily through later collections, most recently A Bright Acoustic. His collaborations include A Fold in the River with artist Valerie Coffin Price on The King in the Car Park with composer Benjamin Frank Vaughan.
Marc Hamer has worked in art galleries, marketing, graphic design, as a magazine editor & taught creative writing in Cardiff Prison before becoming a gardener which he’s enjoyed being now for many years. A great deal of the inspiration for his poetry comes from spending most of his time outdoors. Mark is a member of The British Haiku Society. He is working on a debut collection of poetry.
Jane Lovell has had work published in a variety of anthologies and journals including Agenda, Earthlines, Poetry Wales, Mslexia, Magma, the North, the Honest Ulsterman, Dark Mountain, New Welsh Review and Zoomorphic. She won the Flambard Prize in 2015 and was recently shortlisted for the Basil Bunting Prize. Jane is currently working on a collection for Agenda Editions.
Stephen Payne is Professor of Human-Centric Systems at the University of Bath and lives in Penarth on the Vale of Glamorgan. His first pamphlet, The Probabilities of Balance, was published by Smiths Knoll in 2010. His first full collection, Pattern Beyond Chance, was published by HappenStance in 2015, and was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year.
Durre Shahwar has an MA in Creative Writing & was commended for the Robin Reeves Prize for Young Writers 2015. She was published in the anthology How to Exit a Burning Building & in various magazines including The Stockholm Review of Literature & Halo Lit Mag. She is an Associate Editor at Wales Arts Review & the co-host & organiser of Where I’m Coming From an open mic series aimed predominantly, but not exclusively, at the BAME population in Wales.