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Readings
Fear of Thunder
Poems from Fear of Thunder
Uncollected Poems
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About Andrew Forster

Andrew Forster is a poet, critic and literature development worker. Originally from South Yorkshire he lived in Scotland for 20 years. His poems have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies since 1993, including The Rialto, Acumen, Obsessed with Pipework, Cencrastus, Lines Review, Envoi and Poetry Nottingham, among others. Essays and reviews of poetry have appeared in The Dark Horse, Fife Lines and Lines Review. He was awarded Scottish Arts Council writer's bursaries in 1998 and 2002, and a sequence of poems based on the life of Lytton Strachey was published by Flarestack in 2000. In 2003 the poem Radnoti's Notebook was commended in the Bridport Prize. A full-length collection, Fear of Thunder is due from Flarestack in October 2007.

He worked in social care for 14 years, latterly managing housing projects for adults with learning disabilities. In 1998 he began a career in literature development, teaching creative writing for a range of organisations throughout Scotland, including the WEA and Community Learning departments for a range of councils. He also developed a range of community writing projects and edited/co-edited several community anthologies, included Midlothian: Faces, Voices, Lives (WEA 2000) He was instrumental in setting up The Portobello Poets, with Elspeth Brown and Martin Bates, who arranged regular poetry events just outside Edinburgh between 1999 and 2001. In 2001 he was Writer in Residence for North Lanarkshire council museum department, which lead to editing the anthology Imagining Industry (North Lanarkshire Council 2001).

In 2003 he became Literature Development Officer for Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association , and has been responsible for an extensive range of activity, including the ground-breaking Poetry Doubles readings, which pair emerging local writers with poets of international standing, and the Wigtown Poetry Competition , the largest poetry competion in Scotland. He was instrumental in organising the first Scottish Literature Development Forum, helping to create a network of literature development officers throughout Scotland, and is a Board Member of NALD, the National Association for Literature Development.

He is currently completing the MA in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. His current project is a new collection of poems exploring the idea of place and our relationship with it.

Recently he has returned to the North of England to take up post as Literature Officer with The Wordsworth Trust. He is responsible for the internationally renowned poetry programme and developing the Trust's other literary activities. More great things to come!