Krystelle Bamford

As the daughter of a French nursery teacher and an American ex-Foreign Legionnaire, I bounced around a bit before making a lucky landing in Scotland twelve years ago.

In 2010, I was awarded a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award for poetry, and was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in 2011. My poetry and journalism have appeared in well-known US literary magazines like The American Poetry Review and The Kenyon Review as well as in Scottish publications like The Scotsman, The List and Neu! Reekie!'s inaugural anthology of new Scottish writing. I've performed here, there, and everywhere: Edinburgh International Book Festival, Shakespeare and Company in Paris, London's Rich Mix, Glasgow's CCA, and a Neolithic theme park in Erbil, Iraq.

I run poetry workshops for all ages and interest levels, building on my own experience to help open up poetry and the messy work behind it. Interactive, collaborative, fun and sometimes silly, activities aim to tear down the barriers surrounding contemporary poetry, help readers truly engage with a poem and inspire new creative projects. We take the time to feel sound, follow runaway trains of thought, and delight in the weird, the wonderful and the productively nonsensical.