cj cooke

Welcome to The Seren Poetry Podcast, a series of conversations and readings with Seren poets.

 In this edition we speak with poet and novelist Carolyn Jess-Cooke about her third collection We Have to Leave the Earth which considers themes of the environment and motherhood.

Carolyn Jess-Cooke was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and is currently reader in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. She has published 15 books in 23 languages and won numerous awards, including an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors, a Tyrone Guthrie Prize, a K Blundell Award, and she has won a Northern Writer’s Award three times. 

Carolyn has a prestigious parallel career as the novelist C.J. Cooke. Her first novel The Guardian Angel’s Journal was an international bestseller. Her book The Lighthouse Witches was published in October 2021, was nominated for numerous prizes, was an international best seller, and is soon to be a major TV series. Her latest novel The Ghost Woods was published in 2022.

 The podcast is presented by Rhian Edwards  

The interviewer is Chris Gregory  

Recordings, production, sound design and editing are by Chris Gregory of Alternative Stories 

Recordings of Rhian Edwards are by Sarah Johnson 

This conversation was recorded on location at Carolyn’s home near Glasgow.

You can find out more about Carolyn’s poetry and fiction on her website https://carolynjesscooke.com/ 

 Find out more about Seren and purchase books featured in this podcast by visiting the Seren website here https://www.serenbooks.com/ 

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Contact them by email at seren@serenbooks.com 

This podcast is produced by Alternative Stories, a spoken word production company specialising in literary podcasts and radio programmes. To find out more about Alternative Stories, follow or hire them please follow the links below 

https://linktr.ee/AlternativeStories 

Contact them by email at  office@alternativestories.com

 Please join us next week for a conversation with Ben Wilkinson, about his collection Same Difference, which will be released on Thursday 10th November. Subscribe in your favourite podcast app to have all future editions delivered to your podcast feed the moment they are released.  

Don’t forget to leave us a review is you like what you hear. 

Our twelfth preview podcast features Carolyn Jess-Cooke reading her poem 'Now' from the collection 'We Have to Leave the Earth'.   The poem was read by Carolyn and recorded on location at her home in Scotland.  

Listen to our in-depth interview with Carolyn in which we discuss the climate crisis ,  the late 19th century feminist activist Josephine Butler, family and Carolyn's juggling of being a poet with her career as a successful novelist, academic and mother in our next episode which will be release on Thursday 3rd November 

The Seren Poetry Podcast is a new podcast dedicated to poetry and poets.  Over 9 weeks we’ll speak to 9 poets and hear them read their work.  We’ll talk influences, writing techniques and inspiration.  Focussing on recent Seren collections, we’ll go in-depth with our poets on the themes they have chosen to write about and the people, events and other elements that have influenced them. 

Recorded on location in our poets homes, at Seren’s headquarters and from the Wordsworth Centre in Grasmere, you’ll hear from some of the most important poets in the UK, each with an extended interview and a selection of their verse in high quality audio.  We’ll speak to Polly Atkin,  Kim Moore, Carolyn Jess-Cooke, Rhian Edwards, Eric Ngalle Charles,  Ben Wilkinson and more.

 The Seren Poetry Podcast is available now on all podcast platforms.

It’s time for book club! This month we read The Lighthouse Witches by CJ  Cooke and, wow, there was a lot to say about this book.

Thanks to everyone who joined in on the discussion on Instagram and Facebook! If you  still want to get in on the discussion, it’s never too late! Everything is saved in the highlights on our Instagram page so you can head over there to weigh in on any of the books we book club! 

If you’re interested in reading this one for your own book club, head over to our website to download the free book club kit which includes all our discussion questions. 

We are letting you all decide which book we do for May! The choice is between The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers or Sundial by Catriona Ward.  So send us an email to let us know which one you want to book club or head over to Instagram where we've posted a poll in our stories!

Special shout out to a few loyal book clubbers  @deereadsfordays and @bookwormandcoffee over on Instagram.  Thanks so much for joining us so many times.  We love seeing your names pop up in our messages and we always look forward to finding out what you thought of the books! We invite everyone to head over and check out their Bookstagrams!

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