INTRODUCING OUR TEAM
WHO ARE THE PEOPLE BEHIND VERVE AND WHAT TO THEY DO?
FOUNDER/
DIRECTOR
STUART
BARTHOLOMEW
As well as heading up VERVE, Stuart is also Publisher at and Co-Founder of VERVE Poetry Press – an independent press that focusses on publishing poets from Birmingham and the wider UK and has thirty years experience as a bookseller and manager at Waterstones. His programming and publishing vision is to celebrate the full breadth of quality poetic activity – whatever the style or source – in colourful and exciting ways.
ADVISORY
BOARD
SABEEN
CHAUDHURY
Sabeen Chaudhry is a poet, lecturer, and producer at Ledbury Poetry. Rimming the Event Horizon (The 87 Press) is her first collection, poems from which have been longlisted for the Ivan Juritz Prize and highly commended in the Forward Prizes.
ADVISORY
BOARD
SHANTEL
EDWARDS
Shantel Edwards works for Writing West Midlands, programming the Birmingham Literature Festival which takes place in October each year. She is a proud Brummie and is passionate about platforming voices, and stories, from the region.
ADVISORY
BOARD
SUZANNAH
EVANS
As well as heading up VERVE, Stuart is also Publisher at and Co-Founder of VERVE Poetry Press – an independent press that focusses on publishing poets from Birmingham and the wider UK and has thirty years experience as a bookseller and manager at Waterstones. His programming and publishing vision is to celebrate the full breadth of quality poetic activity – whatever the style or source – in colourful and exciting ways.
Hayley Frances is a poet, creative practitioner, and therapeutic arts facilitator based in the West Midlands. Her work moves between poetry, creative non-fiction, and community practice, exploring grief, ecology, kinship, and the social conditions shaping contemporary life. She is the author of Administer the Laughing Gas (Verve Poetry Press, 2024), a debut collection rooted in birth trauma, loss and survival.
CO-DIRECTOR/
MARKETING
HAYLEY
FRANCES
CO-DIRECTOR
/FUNDING
RICK
SANDERS
Rick Sanders, aka Willis the Poet, is an established comedy stand-up poet based in the mighty West Midlands. He is a regular headliner and featured poet on the flourishing spoken word scene across the UK, his sticky sausage-fingers in as many pies as he can.
ADVISORY
BOARD
JANE
TREGLOWN
Jane Treglown's chosen career with Waterstones has encouraged her love of books and allowed her to be part of a community of book lovers for over 25 years. She has managed bookshops of all sizes and enjoys building and training a team; plus curating a book offer bespoke to each town. She has the operational and financial skills that come with running successful bookshops.
OUR PATRONS
Joelle Taylor is the author of five collections of poetry. Her collection C+NTO &
Othered Poems won the 2021 T.S Eliot Prize, and the 2022 Polari Book Prize for LGBT
authors. This was followed up in November 2025 by Maryville (Bloomsbury) which continues the story started in C+NTO. Her novel of
inter-connecting stories The Night Alphabet was
published by Riverrun in Spring of 2024. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and
has appeared at VERVE four times including our very first festival in 2017.
​
Imtiaz Dharker is a Pakistani-born British poet, artist, and video film maker. She won the Queen's Gold Medal for her English poetry and was appointed Chancellor of Newcastle University from January 2020. She is a prescribed poet on the British AQA GCSE English syllabus and her most recent collection is Shadow Reader (Bloodaxe, 2024). She received the Cholmondeley Award, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Imtiaz has appeared at VERVE three times including a career review interview event with Poetry Unbound in 2024.
Daljit Nagra is a poet, professor of poetry, presenter of a weekly poetry programme on Radio, former Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, and Lead Advisor to Poetry By Heart. He has won The Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem and Best First Book, the South Bank Show Decibel Award and Cholmondeley Award. His next collection, Yiewsley, is published with Faber in May 2026. Daljit has appeared at VERVE three times including our popular zoom workshop series and was the first poet to read at our very first festival in 2017.
Hannah Silva is a writer and performer working in sound poetry, radio, and experimental non-fiction. She has an MFA in Theatre Practice and a PhD on poetry in performance from Stirling University. She is currently a Leverhulme Early Career fellow at Queen Mary University, London. Her most recent work is the performative non-fiction book My Child, the Algorithm (Footnote, 2023). Hannah has appeared at VERVE three times, including the first festival in 2017 and always completely memorably.
OUR PARTNERS
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