Chrissie Gittins and Sonali Bhattaraya Set for Loose Muse, 6/9 Open Mic Spots Still Free

LOOSE MUSE - London's only regular event for women writers of all genres, will take place on Wednesday, June 9th at the Poetry Café, 22 Betterton Street, London WC2 (closest tube = Covent Garden). The event will be hosted by Sara-Mae Tuson and feature Chrissie Gittins and Sonali Bhattaraya. Come along and sign up for the Open Mic portion of the evening.

Summer is finally blooming- as we all whip out our summer clothes in heady anticipation of a few hours of vitamin D enhanced happiness, poetry is fairly well leaping out at us everywhere.

Our two guest writers are the wonderful Chrissie Gittins and Sonali Bhattaraya. Chrissie has apparently received ‘a hand-delivered letter from Windsor Castle the other day' from her right royal self...herself. She had sent the queen a copy of 'The Humpback's Wail' which includes the poem 'Dawn Meets the Queen'. Chrissie is a prize winning writer of poetry, plays and more, and she will be reading a selection of her work for us next week -so come along if you'd like to pepper her with insightful questions.

Sonali Bhattaraya has written plays for radio and theatre as well as for the BBC's most well known soaps and drama's. This is a great opportunity to talk to someone who has managed to become a professional in her field. An actor will be performing an extract from one of Sonali's plays-don't miss it!

Please don't forget the open mic portion of the evening-all you have to do is come early and sign up. Go on, you know you want to.

More information about our featured writers:

Chrissie Gittins was born in Lancashire and lives in Forest Hill in South London. She studied at Newcastle University and St Martin's School of Art. She worked as an artist and a teacher before becoming a freelance writer. She writes poetry, radio drama, short stories, and poetry for children.
Her first collection of adult poems is Armature (Arc, 2003). Her first children's poetry collection Now You See Me, Now You ... (Rabbit Hole, 2002) was shortlisted for the inaugural CLPE Award in 2003. Two of her children's poems won Belmont Poetry Prizes in 2002. Her second children's collection I Don't Want an Avocado for an Uncle (Rabbit Hole, 2006) was the Poetry Book Society's single poet collection ‘choice' for the Children's Poetry Bookshself, Autumn 2006; it was also shortlisted for the 2007 CLPE Poetry Award. Chrissie's second adult poetry collection I'll Dress One Night As You is published by Salt in April 2009.

She has read her poetry at the Royal FestivAl Hall, the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, The Edinburgh International Book Festival, the Hay Festival and the Poets House New York.

In 2005 Chrissie was awarded an Arts Council Grant for the Arts to complete her short story collection. Family Connections was published in April 2007 by Salt Publishing. She has read her stories at Manchester Central Library, at Newcastle and Salford Universities, and on BBC Radio Four. Her radio plays, which include Starved for Love, Life Assurance and Dinner in the Iguanodon, have starred Patricia Routledge, Jan Ravens and Sorcha Cusack.

Chrissie has received a fellowship at Hawthornden Castle, and awards from the Society of Authors, the Royal Literary Fund, and The Author's Foundation. She is included in the British Council Contemporary Writers database of the 600 writers 'regarded as the best of UK and Commonwealth writers.'

Sonali Bhattacharyya has written extensively for radio, stage, and television. Her Radio Four plays include It's Coming Home, Two Men in the Fog, and India-lite, and she's also written numerous episodes for award-winning BBC Asian Network radio soap Silver Street. Stage commissions include These Four Streets (Birmingham Rep), A Thin Red Line (Birmingham Rep, Black Country Touring and Kali Theatre) and the South Bank Show Award nominaTEd White Open Spaces (Pentabus Theatre). She was selected for the prestigious BBC Writers' Academy, and was subsequently commissioned to write for Doctors, Eastenders, Holby City and Casualty. She's currently working on Ping Pong Diaries, a new radio play, and a feature-length screenplay, On Air. Sonali is from Leicester and lives in Brixton.

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