Jane Thomas

Hello // Currently, I'm excited about:

- Working on my eco-poetry collection, Nix, with support from Arts Council England

- Developing my YA book with Curtis Brown after being awarded a place on their mentor scheme

- Launching 'My Oxford Weekend' creative writing retreats at the University of Oxford this spring

- Doing final edits on my collection Coracle, using Alzheimer's and care as a lens on life.

- Completing my term as reader for The Oxford Flash Fiction Prize

- Continuing as a NED at NCCH, and volunteering at PEN

-Doing poetry workshops with the wonderful early onset dementia group and Age UK

Some recent feedback from poets I admire about my latest work:

Helen Mort: 'This is a collection we urgently need, examining the politics of care with nuance and generosity. Jane's work is certain to touch (and change) the lives of many.'

Caroline Bird: ‘How do you find a poetic form for Alzheimer’s? Jane Thomas takes on this challenge with all of the seriousness, playfulness and mental elasticity required to care for a loved one. Like the brain itself, her poetic forms melt and shift; words slip away or bubble to the surface, images disintegrate yet find new meaning within that dissolution, and beauty is salvaged from the fragments. A work of huge invention and heart.’

Amy Wack: 'This new collection is beautifully empathetic, imaginative, and original. She joins her father on his journey through Alzheimer’s, his once keen code-breaking intelligence slowly eroded by the illness. She artfully evokes the specific impairments, and the way society deals with and sometimes denies the illness. More than merely memoir, this collection reaches out from the personal while remaining warmly within the family circle'.