Women Poets' Webinar: FUSION POETS

Part of the Rebecca Swift Foundation’s two-year By Poets, For Poets programme, these webinars are designed to support women poets at all stages of their journey toward building a fulfilling career.

Join the Women Poets' Network for an inspiring event that brings together poets and industry experts for a lively conversation on creativity, collaboration, and making work that resists categorisation.

Featuring Joy Francis, Alice Willitts, and Maya Chowdhry, our panel will explore the realities of building a fulfilling poetry career while pushing artistic boundaries.

After the panel, stay with us for a short practical workshop led by Maya Chowdhry where you’ll use web-based software to create a soundscape for one of your poems. Please note that the workshop will involve listening to and selecting audio clips provided by Maya Chowdhry. If this aspect makes the workshop inaccessible to you, please get in touch as we may be able to make adjustments so that you can still participate in the workshop.

What you'll need for the workshop:

• A laptop or desktop computer, though a tablet or smart phone will work too if you don't have access to a computer.
• Online audio editor - we'll be using https://wavacity.com/ during the workshop (you don't need to download anything or sign in to use it)
• A voice recording app e.g. Voice Memo or Voice Recorder  

SCHEDULE:

Panel: 7:00–8:00 PM
Workshop: 8:10–8:50 PM
Access: BSL interpretation and live subtitles
Can't make it live? No problem. Just choose the Replay option when booking your ticket. A recording will be sent to all ticket holders after the event, which will be available to watch for a limited time.

COST:

Free to Women Poets' Network members (join here if you're not already a member).

Thanks to Arts Council England, we are able to offer subsidised tickets for non-members. Our tiered pricing structure helps to make our events more accessible.

Pay What You Decide - £8/10/12 + booking fee

We invite you to choose the tier that you can comfortably afford:

• Getting by: For those on a tight budget
• Getting on: For those with a little more financial flexibility
• Getting ahead: For those with greater financial security

Please note that tickets are not refundable. 

OUR PANELLISTS:

Joy Francis is co-founder and executive director of Words of Colour: The Immersive Change Agency. The former journalist, academic and editor is a longstanding activist for racial equality and cultural inclusion in mental health, literature, publishing and the media. She co-founded the Poets of Colour Incubator for the North of England with Manchester Poetry Library at Manchester Metropolitan University and co-founded Remembering What's Forgotten, a citywide hybrid programme and digital exhibition centring mental health, racial justice and creative interventions in Leeds. The former judge for the British Book Awards was elected to the Royal Society of Literature as an Honorary Fellow in 2022. Her work on mental health inequalities and creative interventions as part of the Synergi-Leeds Partnership won the HSJ Award for Mental Health Innovation of the Year 2023. Joy is also an emerging, multigenre DJ (DJ Hybrid J).

Alice Willitts is writer, editor and plantswoman on the Fens. She is the author of six books, works extensively in collaboration with other writers and is commissioning editor of DIRT plantable poetry which models earth-positive publishing as well as nurturing writing partnerships. Kiss My Earth (Blue Diode, 2025) is her second poetry collection. She created and leads the 57 Poetry Collective, edited Magma 78: Collaborations, and is co-founder of the biodiversity project On The Verge Cambridge. www.alicewillittspoet.uk

Maya Chowdhry is a writer and interdisciplinary artist. She uses art to enable audiences to participate in her work in a way that activates them to question the world around them. Her artworks are often interactive and lean into her past work in theatre, radio, film, audiowalks and live art. Her practice interrogates themes such as world water scarcity, food sovereignty, and climate justice. Maya's poetry collections are The Seamstress and the Global Garment (Crocus) and Fossil (Inscribe/Peepal Tree Press). Her accolades include Kaahini – nominated for Best Children's Theatre, Writers' Guild Awards and Monsoon – nominated for the BBC Radio Newcomers Award. Maya's lyric essay In a Relationship with Sugar is published in Gathering: Women of Colour on Nature. She was a 2024 Factory International Fellow. Maya is currently creating sound experiences utilising biodata sonification; turning brainwaves into melodies and plant waves into soundwaves - seeking to find a shared language between the human and the more-than-human.