IPN Online LGBTQ+ Poetry Salon

Contact: Cherry Potts

Website: https://www.outsavvy.com/event/33638/indie-press-network-lgbtq-poetry-salon

Join Indie Press Network publishers: Arachne Press, Renard Press, and Dialect Press for a celebration of LGBTQ+ History Month. Celebrate some of our Queer poets, and listen to readings and chat queer poetry. The Poetry Salon format is intended to be a place to exchange ideas and have a bit of a gossip, as well as the more traditional readings from featured poets. We havent tried it online before, so this is going to be experimental!

To this end, Arachne Press will be revealing the final line up of their forthcoming (October) Queer poetry anthology, Up//Roar Poems of Queer Resistance, with readings from Jane Aldous, Simon Maddrell, Arun Jeetoo, Gwenhyfar Ferch Rhys and Rachel Brook, plus Jeremy Dixon, who has a new collection out in June (The Beat the Pulse the Wave) and Hannah Hull whose collection Home is a place that visits me was recently published.

Renard Press bring us Beth Train-Brown Salmacis: Becoming Not Quite a Woman

And Dialect Press are introducing us to Elvire Roberts and her collection Knee to Knee written in collaboration with Rachel Goodman

find out more about the books here:

https://arachnepress.com/New-and-upcoming-titles-c155561252

https://www.dialect.org.uk/bookshop/p/knee-to-knee

https://renardpress.com/books/salmacis/

Arun Jeetoo is a multidisciplinary artist, performer and English teacher with Mauritian heritage based in London, UK. Arun’s debut pamphlet I Want To Be The One You Think About At Night was published by Waterloo Press (2020).

Elizabeth Train-Brown is a poet and writer whose work has been published internationally in various anthologies and journals. Their journalism on discrimination, asexuality, transgender issues and polyamory has also received widespread recognition. Outside of writing, Elizabeth follows in her parents’ footsteps as a circus performer and fortune teller.

Elvire Roberts is a Queer poet and sign language interpreter who lives in Nottingham, UK. She is widely published in journals including Dark Mountain, Finished Creatures, Magma, Reliquiae, Tears in the Fence, Tentacular, and the anthologies Ten Poems About Getting Older and Apocalyptic Landscape. She has two recent publications: her individual pamphlet North by Northnorth (Five Leaves Press) and Knee to Knee (Dialect Press), which is a collaborative, synergetic poetry book, each poem co-written with Rachel Goodman. Website: www.elvireroberts.co.uk

Gwenhyfar Ferch Rhys Growing up in Scotland, Gwenhwyfar Ferch Rhys performed as a Young Makar at festivals such as StAnza, Wigtown, and Dandelion. Since moving to Wales, she has featured on Literature Wales ‘Speak Back’ programme and written journalism for QueerAF. Her debut spoken word show ‘[ac]quiesonce’ debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe last August.

Hannah ‘Hunter’ Hull (they/them) is an artist and musician living in Yorkshire. Their debut poetry collection Home is a place that visits me, published by Arachne Press September 2025, is a companion to Close to Home, a collection of songs released under the alias Burning Salt.

Jane Aldous is an Edinburgh based poet who returned to writing poetry later in life. She has been commended in several competitions and her poems have been widely published in magazines and anthologies. She has had two collections published by Arachne Press, the second of which was a lesbian love story set in 1960s Edinburgh told in 70 poems. She is currently working on a third series of poems which tell a more contemporary and mysterious tale.

Jeremy Dixon is a poet and maker of Artist’s Books. His poetry has appeared in Butcher’s Dog, Found Poetry Review, HIV Here & Now, Impossible Archetype, Lighthouse Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, Roundyhouse and other print and online magazines. He has been published several times by Arachne Press, including his debut pamphlet IN RETAIL (2019) and in the recent bilingual Welsh/English anthology, A470: Poems for the Road/Cerddi’r Ffordd (2022). Arachne Press published Jeremy’s first full collection, A Voice Coming From Then in August 2021 and it WON the poetry category for Wales Book of the Year English Language Poetry… Jeremy is the co-editor of Arachne Press Queer POetry anthologies, Joy//Us Poems of Queer Joy, and forthcoming Up//Roar Poems of Queer Resistance.

Rachel “Rach” Brook (she/they) is a writer of personal essays, poetry, and marketing copy. They won the creative non-fiction prize of the 2025 South Warwickshire Literary Festival, and have writing published or forthcoming in City Lit anthology Between the Lines, Bi Women Quarterly, Penstricken, and Thorn & Bloom Magazine. Rach is based in London, UK, where she performs at open mic nights and facilitates a queer and trans-centring writers’ workshop. You can also find them on Substack as @rachbwrites.

Simon Maddrell appears in & Change, AMBIT, Acumen, Gutter, Magma, MODRON, Poetry Wales, SAND, Southword, Stand, The Gay & Lesbian Review, The London Magazine, The Moth, The Rialto, Under the Radar., and others. Their sixth pamphlet, Patient L1, was published by Polari Press in Feb 2025. Out-Spoken Press published Simon's debut collection, lamping wild rabbits, in Feb 2026.

Entry: free

Time: 3:00pm (prompt start)