Andy Humphrey

Biography

I was born and raised on the Wirral, and have been writing and telling stories for as long as I can remember. I started experimenting with poetry while at university in Edinburgh in the mid 1990s. Since then, I have belonged to writers' groups in Durham, Milton Keynes and York (where I'm now based) and have won prizes in several poetry competitions as well as having 80+ poems published or accepted for publication in magazines, anthologies and e-journals. My debut collection, "A Long Way to Fall", was published in May 2013 by Lapwing Publications (http://www.freewebs.com/lapwingpoetry; email lapwing.poetry@ntlworld.com for more details). My second collection, "Satires", was published in 2015 by Stairwell Books (http://www.stairwellbooks.co.uk) as part of York's Arts Against Homelessness initiative. Profits from sale of the book (which is now out of print) went to support the work of local charities working with people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness. I was MC and co-organiser of the Speakers' Corner spoken word night in York until 2018. I MCed at York's first Poetry Slam in 2011 and have performed at spoken word nights, literary meetings and arts festivals around the north of England, including the Ilkley and Harrogate Fringes, York Festival of Rivers, the Beverley Folk Festival and the Galtres Festival. "Telling the Fairytale", my collaborative poetry and storytelling venture with the wonderful, and much missed, York-based storyteller Helen Sant, premiered in York in September 2011 and was a sell-out feature at the 2013 York Literature Festival. I ran regular writing and critique workshops for the York Writers group and have judged several poetry competitions, including the Speakeasy Open Creative Writing Competitions (4 times) and the Ryedale Book Festival Poetry Competition. In 2011 I originated the unique "Whisky and Words" events, combining the sensory experience of a tutored tasting of malt whisky with the creative input of a writers' workshop. I'm also responsible for The Poet's Soapbox (http://poets-soapbox.blogspot.com), a now very occasional opinion blog based on my once-regular column for the National Association of Writers' Groups' LINK magazine. I write to try and make sense of a crazy world around me, and the strange people that inhabit it. I love poetry that tells a story and I love to be around other people performing poetry. My favourite things include twilight, fairy stories, folk music and single malt whisky (not necessarily in that order), and my favourite colour is Indigo. My ambition is to prove that dragons really did exist and, in fact, quite possibly still do. Please see my blog entries for sample poems.

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.

Blog entries by Andy Humphrey

Golem (27/01/2020)

Dealing with the Dead (11/11/2018)

Jackdaw (01/01/2018)

The Birkenhead April Fools (01/04/2017)

Why I Will Not Keep Calm and Carry On (09/11/2016)

Why Do Poets Like Autumn? (20/10/2016)

I Will Not Drink in Wetherspoon's (10/09/2016)

Pre-Erection Promises (10/09/2016)

Blog link: https://www.writeoutloud.net/blogs/andyhumphrey