Drafting Table – Featured Poet Session

Welcome to Drafting Table, where we share our emerging poems with each other and provide feedback in a safe and inclusive environment.

Maybe you have been attending the Getting Started sessions and feel ready to edit your work and develop your ideas. Maybe you’re an experienced but unpublished poet who wants to take those next steps in your poetry career. Just bring a willingness to receive and provide feedback with the whole group!

Once a month, we invite a published poet to join us. There will be a short reading of their poems followed by a workshop where attendees can learn more about the creative process, get an insight into what it means to be a poet, and share our work with them.

This month’s poet is Sophia Blackwell.

Sophia is the author of five books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Her most recent book, The Poetry Writers’ Handbook, was published by Bloomsbury in 2022. Sophia has delivered several writing and publishing workshops for Bloomsbury, and has been one of the editors of the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook for over ten years.

As an editor, Sophia has worked with over fifty authors and edited books that went on to be published by Penguin, Bloomsbury, Oxford University Press, Duke University Press and Unbound. Sophia has lectured on writing, publishing and events for Falmouth University, University College London and Oxford University Faculty of Continuing Education.

When not writing or editing, Sophia makes work that explores the intersections between spoken word, theatre, music and radio. She is a presenter and producer on London station Resonance FM and The Polari Prize Podcast, and has featured on BBC and Virgin Radio. In addition to a twenty-year publishing career, Sophia has been a featured poet five times at Glastonbury Festival. In 2023, her electronica-backed poem The Beau Monde was commissioned for the Crown to Couture exhibition at Kensington Palace. She is currently working on her second novel.

Feel free to email any queries to opldraftingtable@gmail.com