It’s January, we know. But it’s nearly not January! And see how we’re gaining a wee snifter of light by the day. Most importantly, Shore Poets is back from the festive break and bouncing to go with a fantastic first line-up for 2025. Come shuck your winter coat off in the cosy atmosphere of The Waverley’s upstairs room, and thaw your fingers, toes etc. with readings from Maria Sledmere and Vik Shirley, open mic performances, and music from The Self-Righteous Brothers – plus, of course, a glass or two of whatever constitutes your nice. We can’t work actual miracles, so we can’t promise natural light. But we can promise you’ll be having too much of a good time to notice the lack of it. Further details below … ✨🎊🎉💖💝🎠
The When & the Where:
Thursday 30th January 2025
7.15pm – 9pm (doors open 7pm)
The Waverley Bar, 3-5 St Mary’s St, Edinburgh EH1 1TA
Admission: Our standard entrance charges are £7.50 (waged) and £5 (concession). This includes one raffle ticket, which will also be your receipt of entry. For those keen to increase their chances of a raffle win, we’ve also introduced a Golden Ticket: at £10, this covers entry plus five raffle tickets. Entry is payable by either card or cash, but it’s worth bringing the latter so as not to miss the opportunity to buy a book from one of our readers.
The Readers:
MARIA SLEDMERE
Maria Sledmere is a Glasgow-based poet from South Ayrshire. Spanning creative, critical and visual practice, her work explores environmental degradation, sleep deprivation, dreams and the digital age. She is lecturer in English & Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde and her latest book, an experimental monograph titled Midsummer Song (Hypercritique), was published by No University Press in 2024. Other publications include Cinders (Krupskaya, 2024), Woundscape (Osmosis Press, 2023), An Aura of Plasma Around the Sun (Hem Press, 2023), Cocoa and Nothing – with Colin Herd (SPAM Press, 2023), Visions & Feed (HVTN Press, 2022) and The Luna Erratum (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2021). In 2023, Maria was included in the Saltire Society’s ‘40 under 40’ list celebrating ‘outstanding Scottish creatives’ and her work has been profiled on BBC Radio and in The Guardian, The Poetry Review, Dazed, It’s Nice That and other places. Maria is also director of SPAM Press and founding editor of Gilded Dirt zine. Her next book is a collection of Celtic sci-fi poems co-written with Ian Macartney, forthcoming with Tapsalteerie in spring 2025.
VIK SHIRLEY
Vik Shirley is a poet, writer, critic, and educator from Bristol now living in Edinburgh. Her books include Corpses (Sublunary Editions), Notes from the Underworld (Sublunary Editions), Disrupted Blue and other poems on Polaroid (Hesterglock), One by One (No Press), Poets (The Red Ceilings), Strangers Wave (zimZalla), The Continued Closure of the Blue Door (HVTN) and Cassette Poems (above/ground press). Her most recent publication is Some Deer (Broken Sleep Books). Vik’s work has appeared in Poetry London, PN Review, The Rialto, Magma, Gutter and Dreaming Awake: New and Contemporary Prose Poetry from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom (MadHat Press). A regular performer at the European Poetry Festival, Vik is a Poetry School Tutor (teaching on the surreal narrative, absurdism and the grotesque). She co-edits Firmament online and Surreal-Absurd at Mercurius. Vik has a PhD in Dark Humour and the Surreal in Poetry from the University of Birmingham.
Signing up for the Open Mic:
We have four open mic spots each month. These are booked in advance. To request an open mic spot in the future, please email us at shorepoetsedinburgh @ gmail.com (remove the spaces)
The Raffle:
Entry includes a raffle ticket; additional tickets are also available to buy when you arrive, should you wish to increase your chances of winning this month’s scrummy lemon cake. Or you can boost the odds of snaffling that piece of home-baked glory by purchasing one of our Golden Tickets (further details above, under ‘The When & the Where’). The raffle also frequently boasts other no less wonderful but definitely less edible prizes, in the form of pamphlets or books.
See you there!
Shore Poets 
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