Jane Ayres

UK based neurodivergent writer Jane Ayres re-discovered the joy of poetry studying for a part-time Creative Writing MA at the University of Kent, which she completed in 2019 at the age of 57.

She is fascinated by hybrid poetry/prose experimental forms and has work published or accepted in Confluence, Postscript, Dissonance, The Agonist, Lighthouse, Viscaria, The Sock Drawer, Streetcake, The North, The Poetry Village, Scrittura, Door is a Jar, Marble, Agapanthus, Confingo, Crow & Cross Keys, Kissing Dynamite, Black Sunflowers Anthology, Ink Drinkers Poetry, Not Deer Magazine, (mac)ro(mic), Sledgehammer, Punk Noir Magazine, Versification, Ample Remains, Nymphs, Black Flowers, Divergent Femmes, The Chamber, Green Ink Poetry, Full House Literary Magazine, Honeyfire Lit Mag, Amberflora, Beir Bua, Shorts magazine, Resurrection, The Short of It, Words & Whispers Literary Journal, Selcouth Station Press, Gutsluts Bonemilk anthology, Half Empty Magazine, Ubu, Sylvia Magazine, Crow of Minerva, Acropolis Journal, Gutsluts Suicidal Aliens anthology, Feline Utopia anthology, Roots anthology (Green Ink Poetry), Footprints: an anthology of new ecopoetry (Broken Sleep), Purrfect Poems, Goats Milk Magazine, tiny wren lit, Fly on the Wall Press, I Write Her, Remington Review, The Joy of Living anthology (Dreich), Roi Faineant, Capsule Stories, Spoonie, The Pinch Journal, Ink Sweat & Tears, tiny frights, Passion Fruit Review, Pink Plastic House, The Storms, Panoplyzine, Magma, thimble, Rialto, Moss Puppy, Hyacinth Review, T’Art, Finished Creatures, The Friday Poem, Porkbelly Press Haunted anthology, Tears in the Fence, The Menopause Anthology (Arachne Press) and The Forge. Work has also been featured on podcasts Blue Door to the Cosmos and Eat the Storms and featured on BBC Radio Kent’s Upload. Guest poet for O Bheal, Cork, November 2022, and for Medway River Lit Fest finale, June 2023.

In 2020, she was longlisted for the Rebecca Swift Foundation Women Poets’ Prize, shortlisted for Battery Pack IV, and won Best magazine’s short story competition, as well as the non-fiction prize for the Dissonance Covid-19 Competition.

In 2021, she was shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Awards, Penguin’s Christmas Romance Novel Competition, The Poetry Business Open Submissions, Nine Pens Series Anthologies, highly commended in the Bridgend Writers Circle Fiction Competition and a winner of the Laurence Sterne Prize.

Her first short collection edible was published by Beir Bua Press in July 2022.

In 2022, she was awarded an honourable mention in the 2022 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest: https://winningwriters.com/past-winning-entries/not-coming

Her work was nominated for Best of the Net in 2021 and 2023, and for a 2022 Pushcart Prize. She was longlisted for the Kari Flickinger Memorial Prize for Chapbooks in 2023.

Jane’s micro-chapbook my lost womb still sings to me was published by Porkbelly Press in October 2023. https://porkbellypress.com/poetry/lostwomb

Jane was interviewed by Susie Bocks for anthology The Short of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUDoJ1tfrbg&feature=youtu.be and Kellie Scott-Reed, Roi Faineant Press https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgenf8x_UgQ

Jane is one of the poets featured in Wave 20 of https://www.iambapoet.com/wave/20-jane-ayres

Reviews: Review of Jane Ayres’ “my lost womb still sings to me” by Tiffany M. Storrs (roifaineantarchive.wixsite.com)

https://www.fullhouseliterary.com/reviews/edible

She tweets at https://twitter.com/workingwords50

(all images by Jane Ayres)

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Before rediscovering poetry, Jane was busy writing for children and teenagers. For more information go to https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jane-Ayres/e/B004MWCTD8 and The Beautiful Room (janeayres.blogspot.com)

She continues to enjoy writing short stories and articles for commercial magazines and her work can be found in The People’s Friend, Yours Fiction Special, Best, Planet Mindful, Woman’s Weekly, Best of Woman’s Weekly Fiction, Prima and Writers’ Forum.

For links to poetry and creative non-fiction see the list below.

LINKS

Three Interludes – The Forge (forgelitmag.com)

All Forms Welcome | Postscript Magazine

most fairy tales are pretty grim but they still ride us—Jane Ayres – Crow & Cross Keys (crowcrosskeys.com)

Appearing in The Chamber on September 3 | The Chamber Magazine

Jane Ayres: “Sunset, Muted — Green Ink Poetry

Toasting and Weighting Ash by Jane Ayres | (mac)ro(mic) (macromic.org)

https://www.fullhouseliterary.com/issue-3-pieces/syzygy-/-pareidolia-by-jane-ayres

https://www.greeninkpoetry.co.uk/poetry-submissions-all/jane-ayres-i-sing-youi-hear-them

https://www.tinywrenlit.com/blizzard-warning

https://iwriteher.com/2022/01/14/jane-ayres/jane-ayres/

https://crowcrosskeys.com/2021/12/04/two-poems-jane-ayres/

https://roifaineantarchive.wixsite.com/rf-arc-hive/post/never-more-indigestible-by-jane-ayres?s=03

Giving my ex-boss a hand job for £20 (mates rates)