My earliest reading\u00a0memory
I was around five when my mum first pulled out Clement C Moore\u2019s\u00a0The Night Before Christmas, a bumper blue book with\u00a0vivid illustrations. There\u00a0was such suspense in the poem, such inexorable music, the sonic possibilities matching the mystery.<\/p>\n
My favourite book\u00a0growing up
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner. I used to spend every spare moment in\u00a0Bacup library, Lancashire, bag of sweets to the right and a\u00a0book open before me. I\u00a0had read all of Enid Blyton\u2019s Secret Seven books, thought Famous\u00a0Five were all a\u00a0bit dry, and picked up Weirdstone in a swoon of nine-year-old despair. The darkness was delicious, exciting because many of the landmarks in the story were from my local area.<\/p>\n
The book that changed me as a teenager
I was the first of my family to attend university, where I was introduced to books by black female writers for the first time. The one that has influenced my writing the most is probably For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide \/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange. Its fusion of narrative, poetry and choreography is seismic. Both political and personal, it left its\u00a0watermark on me, hinting at the sheer possibilities of poetry and literature.<\/p>\n
The writers who changed my mind
They were the ones who published in fanzines like Shocking Pink or in the feminist magazine Spare Rib.<\/p>\n
The book that made me want to be a writer
There was never a moment when I didn\u2019t want to be a writer but The Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich showed me how.<\/p>\n
The book I came back to
The Waste Land by TS\u00a0Eliot. As a young woman I couldn\u2019t understand how anyone could connect with these old white men of\u00a0poetry \u2013 and then a\u00a0couple of years ago I\u00a0finally sat alone with it.\u00a0I\u00a0was astonished at the\u00a0immediacy and expansiveness of the world building: it\u2019s cinematic imagery.<\/p>\n
The book I reread
Another Mother Tongue\u00a0by Judy Grahn. I\u00a0shoplifted this book in the late 1980s, compelled by discovering the etymological origins of\u00a0the words used to describe the queer community.<\/p>\n
The book I could never\u00a0read again
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, a\u00a0classic lesbian text (you must read it to get your certificate). While it seemed incredible in my mid-teens to find women like me, the book itself is harrowing, formed mainly of striding across moors\u00a0and thrilling unhappiness. I\u2019d like us\u00a0to have more positive introductions to queer\u00a0culture.<\/p>\n
The book I discovered later in life
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.<\/p>\n
The book I am currently\u00a0reading
RABBITBOX by Wayne Holloway-Smith, which\u00a0is out next year\u00a0and will change everything we believe is\u00a0possible in poetry.<\/p>\n
My comfort read
Strangely, ghost stories\u00a0of any kind. I\u2019m\u00a0particularly drawn to the English ghost story, the idea of the phantom as the past constantly intruding on the now, the mythic weather, the intricate architecture, the tweed. I like a story that follows me.<\/p>\n