Malcolm Guite is a poet and priest, and Life Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge. He lectures widely in England and North America on Theology and Literature. He has published many books of his own sonnet form poetry. He has also published work on the life of Samuel Coleridge Taylor.
Sam Perry is a lecturer at Hull University, who researched the relationship between 20th-century poetry and Romanticism, with particular emphasis on Ted Hughes, R S Thomas and Philip Larkin. Chameleon Poet: R S Thomas and the Literary Tradition published by Perry was the subject of his lecture in our 2018 Festival. This year’s festival theme Childhood comes directly from Dr Perry’s five year’s of research exploring the representation of childhood in 20th century poetry. A chapter in his latest book [soon to be published] focuses on RS Thomas.
Phil Bowen was born in Liverpool in 1949. He taught at New Heys Secondary School from 1972-1979. Since 1994 he has been a full-time poet, playwright, biographer, lyricist, teacher and performer, involved in over 600 creative writing projects in schools and adult writing groups. In 2012 he came to live in the Conwy Valley of North Wales where he works with schools, theatres, festivals, and community groups. www.philbowen.co.uk
Susan Fogarty is a founder and current director of the RS Thomas & ME Eldridge Society, facilitating RS Thomas events in Aberdaron and on-line since 2013. She specialises in reading Thomas’s work: engaging her audience to move through the poetry, in churches and the natural environment. She co-leads RS Thomas retreats with her partner John McEllhenney in the UK and America. In 2022 she co-created a website dedicated to the life and work of M E Eldridge.
John Greening is a Bridport and Cholmondeley winner with over twenty poetry collections, he has edited Grigson, Blunden, and Crichton Smith as well as anthologies on music, sheds and country houses. Recent books include The Silence (Carcanet), The Interpretation of Owls: Poems 1977-2022 (editor Kevin Gardner, Baylor) and a series of essays: A High Calling (Broken Sleep).
Joanne Rush is a poet, a short story writer, and a debut novelist. Her first poetry pamphlet, Windblown, is forthcoming with Tiny Wren Press, and her work has been published in collections including Best British Stories, Northern Gravy, and Orca Magazine. Joanne has a PhD in literature from Cambridge University and is currently working on a second PhD in creative writing, funded by the Arts Council. www.joannerush.co.uk
John McEllhenney from Pennsylvania is a retired Methodist minister, trained historian, and lover of poetry and art, who began reading the poems of R S Thomas in 1973. He visited RS three times in the 1990s and published A Masterwork of Doubting-Belief: R. S. Thomas and His Poetry in 2013. Recently, he turned his attention to Thomas’s wife, the artist Mildred Elsie Eldridge. This focus led to a research trip to Italy in October 2017, during which he looked at art works that Eldridge had looked at in 1934. Now he is studying her illustrations for children’s books. He co-created a website dedicated to her life and work. www.meeldridge.com www.doubtbeliefrsthomas.wordpress.com
RS Thomas & ME Eldridge Poetry & Arts Festival 