Director

Aaron Kent

Aaron Kent is a working-class writer and award-winning publisher from Cornwall, now living in Wales. His debut poetry collection, Angels the Size of Houses, is out with Shearsman, and he was awarded the Awen medal from the Bards of Cornwall for his poetry pamphlet The Last Hundred. Gillian Clarke said, of his poetry, “Every poem is a dizzy word-dazzle, a dance of images, expressing a real life of work, babies, love and loss.” Andrew McMillan called it “Poetry that vibrates on its own frequency, and invites the reader into its own surreal soundscapes.” JH Prynne called his work “Unicorn Flavoured” and Vahni Capildeo said “Aaron Kent’s pages made me experience, for the first time ever in my reading, the spaces between words as rips in fabric that let skin show through in its bruised and tender luminosity”.

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Agent: Kate Rizzo @ Greene&Heaton

Chief Editorial Advisor

Charlie Baylis

Charlie Baylis is from Nottingham, England. He is the Editor of Anthropocene. His poetry has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and once for the Forward Prize. His most recent publication is Swimming (the Red Ceiling Press) He spends his spare time completely adrift of reality. 

Administrator

Emma Kennedy

Emma is the administrator of Broken Sleep Books, and ensures the daily running of the press goes smoothly. Emma likes to read tarot, and immerse herself in all things witchy, while making sure the Broken Sleep orders go out with a quirky sticker on the envelope.

Marketing Assistant

Day Mattar

Day Mattar is a cheeky queer poet and performer from Liverpool. They are the co-founder of Queer Bodies poetry collective, and facilitate poetry workshops with various art organisations in the UK. Their poetry pamphlet, Springing from the Pews, was published this May with Broken Sleep Books. Day’s poems come from the body, they use poetry as a tool to explore links between the psychological and the physical, the somatic and the sensual. Can a poem make you jump? Is your heart beating faster? Read more of their poems here: https://daymattar.wixsite.com/poet

Editorial Advisor

Suna Afshan

Suna Afshan is a poet and freelance editor from the Midlands. She is co-founder and Editor at Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, and Director of Pallina Press. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Birmingham City University. In 2018 she was awarded with the University's Mercian Prize. Suna’s work is concerned with the apotheosis of poetry, and her 2020 micro-pamphlet Belladonna was published with Legitimate Snack. 

Editorial Advisor

Jennifer Edgecombe

Jennifer Edgecombe grew up in Cornwall and now lives on the Kent coast and works in publishing. Her debut poetry pamphlet The Grief of the Sea is forthcoming from Broken Sleep Books in June 2020. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Ambit, Caught by the River, Lighthouse, PN Review, and Wild Court. 

Editorial Advisor

Jazmine Linklater

Jazmine Linklater has published the pamphlets Toward Passion According (Zarf, 2017) and Découper, Coller (Dock Road Press, 2018). She is a co-founder of the queer feminist reading series, No Matter, in Manchester, and in 2018-19 was a Poetry London mentee with Vahni Capildeo. A third pamphlet, Figure a Motion, is forthcoming from Guillemot Press in September 2020.

Editorial Advisor

Gurdeep Mattu

Gurdeep Mattu is a publisher and the author of Sons and Fascination (Paperbooks, 2011).  He is currently Publishing Director at SunRise Publishing, building lists in fiction, serious non-fiction and poetry.  His poetic influences include Walt Whitman, H.D. and William Carlos Williams.  Gurdeep is slowly working on his second novel and can be found blogging about books and change at changeinpublishing.com

Editorial Advisor

Jack Warren

Jack Warren is an environmentalist and poet from the South West. He has worked as a labourer and bartender for most of his career however he currently works in conservation. He holds an MA in Poetics from the University of York, an MSc in Applied Ecology from the University of Gloucestershire, and his poetry can be found in Magma, Anomaly, the Cardiff Review and others.