Luke Thompson

Biography

I am a writer, publisher and editor who has recently joined Falmouth, my fields being poetry, publishing, short fiction, environmental literature and South West writers. I studied Philosophy in Wales, then later an MA in Writing, Nature and Place at the University of Exeter. I remained at Exeter to do my PhD, an AHRC-funded, archive-based biographical study of twentieth century deaf and blind syphilitic poet Jack Clemo. Recently, my biography of Clemo, Clay Phoenix, was published (Ally Press, 2016). I also edited Clemo's Selected Poems (Enitharmon, 2015), edited and introduced his dialect tales, A Proper Mizz-Maze (Francis Boutle, 2016), edited, introduced and published his The Clay Dump (Guillemot Press, 2016), and made an album of Clemo's poetry set to music by renowned folk musician Jim Causley. My first pamphlet of poetry, illustrated by Mairead Dunne, was published in 2016 by Atlantic Press and won the Michael Marks Award for Illustration 2016. I also co-curated and edited (with Jos Smith and Rose Ferraby) the community-rooted Tree Tales book and map, published by the arts and environment charity Common Ground. I am the founding editor of Guillemot Press, a small press for artistic pamphlets of poetry and prose. We've published (or are due to publish) work by a great variety of poets and artists, including Melanie Challenger, Rebecca Goss, Robert Lax, Mona Arshi, Sister Mary Agnes, Karl O'Hanlon, Kate Walters, Thomas A Clark, Peter Riley, Garry Fabian Miller and Rowan Williams. In 2012, I co-founded The Clearing magazine, for contemporary writing about landscape, nature and place, along with Jos Smith, Isabel galleymore and Ben Smith. As well as books and publications, I've recently enjoyed curating exhibitions, developing archives, organising events and performing at festivals. Recent media appearances have included Radio 4's Poetry Please (August 2016) and BBC 1's Inside Out (October 2016).

Research Interest

Research interests and expertise Poetry, publishing, South West literature, environmental literature, short fiction, landscape, nature and place.