The Braag CIC is a production company for literature and performance that supports underrepresented artists in the North East of England* We publish poetry and speculative fiction pamphlets, run the micro-journal Carmen et Error, and host occasional events including Poetry Murder Mysteries, Workshops and meet-ups.
We were established in October 2020 in a moment of dazzling common sense and against government advice to retrain as something practical—such as an umbrella, or an exceptionally short lamp post.
2024-5 Publishing Schedule
“Children gather birch-brush for my bed. Cradlewood. I lie naked in the cave, poppymilk bitter on my tongue.
A spiderwoman spins a swaddle-cloth, a shroud. A skein to lead me through the maze of dreams. I follow till she speaks a single word.
At sunrise I blink like a newborn. Lace my lop-stitched gown. Birds sing welcome—sister, daughter, bride—as I step into the light.”
In October 2024 we will be publishing Sarah Royston’s prose pamphlet, Fernseed: A Collection of Tales.
2024-5 Authors
Poetry
Kirsten Luckins is a poet, performer and creative producer based in Hartlepool, currently artistic director of the Tees Women Poets. she’s has been published widely in magazines such as Butcher’s Dog, Strix, and Magma. Her third collection Passerine (Bad Betty) was longlisted for the Laurel Prize for Ecopoetry. This is her first pamphlet.
Timothy Fox is originally from Texas. He received a Houston Press Theatre Award for his play ‘The Whale; or, Moby-Dick’, and a Vault Festival Spirit Award for his play ‘The Witch’s Mark’. His writing has appeared in, among others, Denver Quarterly, Funicular Magazine, and New Writing Scotland. He is an alumnus of the London Library Emerging Writers Programme.
Micro-Chapbooks
Joe Pickard, originally from York, currently works as the editor for a magazine based in London. He has had writing published or forthcoming in The Dawntreader, Erato, Confluence, and elsewhere. He is the founding editor of Pulp Poets Press, which is always looking for submissions.
Bruce Rimell is a visual artist and poet, whose work explores lost human voices in ancient landscapes, gay/Queer sexual dynamics, and the challenges of living with ADHD in a neuronormative world. He lives in Bradford with his husband: mostly self-published, his poetry is adorned with his own visually engaging artworks. This will be his first conventionally published work.
Susie Wilson is an auDHD Scottish writer, living in Sheffield. Half poet, half tutor, half clown. Poems currently in Propel, Ink Sweat & Tears, Northern Gravy, Black Bough and Envoi, forthcoming in Carmen et Error. Her Disabled Poets Prize 2024 winning pamphlet, Nowhere Near As Safe As A Snake In Bed, dealing with living with stage 4 melanoma and the cutting-edge science used to treat it, is out in November with Verve Poetry Press. Please say hello @concordmoose or via www.susiewilsonpoet.com
V Garmon Koski is an Atlanta-born author of poetry and microfiction. She isn’t really sure how she got here. Her work appears in Maudlin House, The Gorko Gazette, Roi Faineant, and others. Her dog, Buddy, is on top of her as she writes this.
Molly Knox is an MA Ethnomusicology student at Durham University and works in theatre and arts producing, programming and facilitating. They are a poet, theatre-maker and critic. Their recent work can be read in Magma issue 88, Stone of Madness, and Ink, Sweat and Tears. She is a Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net nominee. Her recent co-written and directed play Too Close to the Sun recently performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Speculative Fiction
Sarah Royston’s writing draws inspiration from queer ecologies, plant-lore and the landscapes of southern England. She embraces the Hookland motto: re-enchantment is resistance. Her work is published in Dark Mountain, The Rumpus and Crow & Cross Keys, among others. She lives in Hertfordshire and works at Anglia Ruskin University.
Anthony Cartwright’s five novels centre on the lives of working-class families in the Black Country in the English West Midlands Most recent are Iron Towns (2016) and The Cut (2017). He has been the recipient of a Betty Trask Award and had work shortlisted for The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, James Tait Black Memorial Award, Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Gordon Burn Prize. Growing up in Dudley, working in East London schools for nearly 20 years, he now lives in Cardiff with his family and teaches on the Creative & Professional Writing Programme at UWE, Bristol.
Please subscribe to our mailing list to get infrequent updates about our publications, launches and submissions opportunities, as well as updates from our journal, Carmen et Error.
If you want to support us in making weird art in the north OR if you miss indulgences and wish to use money to smudge away some of that sin*, you can donate here.
*smudging away sin not guaranteed.
*Note: while we have a North Eastern outlook, fear not, we work with artists and writers from other geographic locations too!
© The Braag CIC 2024