WRITE BLOODY UK
Bold Voices. Beautiful Books.
Write Bloody UK is an independent poetry press located in London.
We publish poetry that feels lived-in. We love fearless writing - the kind that stays with you long after you've closed the book.
Founder, publisher, editor and author Fern Flourentzou, hunts for poets with a love for sharp craft and real presence. Write Bloody UK supports poets who speak with clarity on the page as well as the stage.
If you're looking for language that cracks you open then holds you tight, you're in the right place.
New Titles
Meet our latest titles - lovely, underground poetry.
Every book here has something true at its centre - whether whispered or declared - so take your time!
Click on the book, read a few sample poems, and feel some things.
““Tender, visceral, beautifully vulnerable.””
““A new fan. I am hungry for more.””
““Faulkner is a poet’s poet, an inventive and deft wielder of language...””
Meet the poets
These writers come from different places, backgrounds, and traditions, but they all carry presence and power on the page. Some have shared stages. Some are just beginning. All have something worth hearing.
Find one who resonates with you.
Our Press
Write Bloody UK is an independent poetry house based in London, publishing bold, contemporary voices with beauty, precision and gumption.
Founded and run by Fern Flourentzou, the press is devoted to poets who are as strong on the page as they are compelling aloud — writers who respect craft yet carry electricity.
We publish 4–8 titles a year, intentionally curated, each one designed to endure.
We look for poets who write with emotional clarity and who are ready to share their work aloud to the public. We believe in helping poets build a fanbase.
Our books are made with care — designed to be read, kept, and returned to as medicine.
We believe poetry should be well-crafted, feel personal, and give a nice punch in the gut. Write Bloody UK is a branch of Write Bloody USA.
Coming Soon
A glimpse of what’s arriving next. We only publish a handful of collections each year, and each one is chosen with intention. If something here draws you in, secure it early — before it becomes someone else’s favourite first.
Releasing 1st February 2026.
Would he ever say, ‘I love you’?
Would she ever say, ‘You were right about historical materialism’?
The poems in My Marxist Valentine chart a relationship of contradictions between an idealistic and romantic narrator, and her eponymous antagonist, a man of science, study and silence, at least where love is concerned.
Seeking answers in the relationships of revolutionaries like Eleanor Marx, Rosa Luxemburg and Emma Goldman, and attempting to extract dating advice from Marx’s Capital, poet Deborah Finding invites the reader to consider if, when, and how love can be truly radical. It calls on a wide cast of characters, where Jane Austen goes up against Karl Marx to provide some critiques of leftwing hypocrisy, and a communist Mr Darcy finds himself referencing both Judith Butler and Taylor Swift on his search for the ideal anti-capitalist comrade to join him in the good fight.
The big ideas are presented with humour and generosity, achieving depth without sacrificing accessibility - making My Marxist Valentine a challenging, darkly funny and unexpectedly touching poetry adventure in search of solidarity and the true meaning of love.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Deborah Finding is a queer feminist writer with a background in academia and activism. She is the author of two poetry pamphlets, ‘Vigils for Dead and Dying Girls’ (Nine Pens, 2023) and ‘Amortisation’ (Live Canon, 2024), which won the Live Canon pamphlet prize. Her other publications include fourteen poems, Propel, Poetry Wales’ ‘How I Write a Poem’ series, Anthropocene, berlin lit, The Alchemy Spoon, iamb, and The Friday Poem, and she has also been widely anthologised. Deborah won the Write By The Sea single poem prize and the Indigo Dreams Spring Prize, and has been placed, shortlisted or commended for the Troubadour, Goldsmith, Live Canon, Hexham, Hammond House, Oxford Poetry Library, and Ver Poets Prizes . She has also written for The Guardian, Huffington Post and DIVA magazine. Originally from the North-East, Deborah now lives in London where she is the inaugural poet in residence at the Soho Poly.
Releasing 2026.
Surreal, sensuous, and hungry for connection, Fried Eggs in Bed satiates the reader with poems that dig into the communal messiness of crushes and falling in and out of love. A sense of self- discovery, queer joy and finding comfort in being alone brews throughout the collection and the mirroring of dreams and memories spill across the pages. Griffith-Jones’ debut is ripe for reading.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
L.J. Griffith-Jones is a performer, gardener and artist working in South East London. Their writing is inspired by their experiences of growing up gay and and a love for cooking, eating and growing food. Queerness and sensuality weave in and out of their work as they lean in to seeking comfort and pleasure. Griffith-Jones lived and loved in Berlin for several years before returning to London, where they’ve hosted and performed regularly at poetry, music and comedy events throughout London and the UK. Their work has appeared in DIY publications such as Nothing To See Here (2020) and others. You can find out more on via Instagram: @l.j.griffithjones or their website: ljgriffithjones.com.
Releasing 2026.
Some books feel like an open wound.
Here, set down in exquisite poetry, is a young man’s story told with such devastating intimacy that reading The Map of My Vanishing feels like an act of trespassing - for inside is one’s own exposed and beating heart.
Our protagonist’s journey begins brightly – a young boy standing at the edge of the world, eager and expectant, studying its beauty, revelling in the potential within himself. But drenched in feeling, he finds our world a violent home. Slowly, the body weakens, and the mind turns inward.
What follows is both brutal and beautiful: a spectacle of suffering, a study in soul, poetry as both wound and salve. The autopsy is performed in devastating precision; deeply personal, and in so being, strikingly universal. At once painful and breath-taking: The protagonist’s journey through joy, loss, and self-doubt will leave you changed.
In clear reverence for the writers who raised him – Plath, Sexton, Nabokov, Woolf, Pessoa – James transforms his most private journals into a study of the modern mind at its most honest. It feels like a diary that was never meant to be shared. The Map of My Vanishing is fearless; this is poetry that does not flinch.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard James is a British poet whose work interrogates melancholy, identity, and existence through an enchanting confessional style. Inheriting the tradition shaped by Plath, Woolf, and Sexton, James’ poetry uses formal precision and emotional intensity to reshape private experience into a universal meditation on living and peace, and articulating a contemporary queer perspective that is both unflinching and necessary.
Submit Your Work!
Do you have what it takes to be a Write Bloody UK poet?
Write Bloody UK publishes 4–8 poetry collections each year, each one selected with care.
We seek poets who are exceptional on the page and compelling aloud — not for theatrics, but for presence.
If your poetry lives both quietly in print and confidently in a room, we invite you to submit.
FAQs
WHEN IS YOUR SUBMISSION PERIOD?
Submission times and dates are in our submission page above, along with a lot of cool info. Feel free to download our free sampler in the shop to see our style.
I LOVE POETRY BUT I HATE READING IT OUT LOUD. IS THIS PRESS A GOOD FIT?
Probably not. We are looking for that unique unicorn of a writer who writes well on the page and reads well out loud. Not a slam or spoken word press. But we love a good, solid reading.
I’M NOT GAY. MAYBE. CAN I STILL SUBMIT?
Absolutely! Many of our authors may be, but you don’t have to be!
I LIVE FAR AWAY FROM THE UK. CAN I STILL SUBMIT MY POETRY?
Yes! But can you tour? A small amount of touring is needed to promo the book. It isn’t that crazy expensive if you sign with us and use our tips and insights.
IS THIS A VANITY PRESS?
No. We are a small independent press, a sister company of Write Bloody Publishing and WB Publishing USA. We have another sister company, Write Bloody North in Canada.
I WRITE SCIENCE FICTION. CAN I SUBMIT HERE?
I'm sorry, but no. All poetry, all the time. The average poetry manuscript is 40-60 poems.
Contact us.
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London, UK.
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Say hello.
fern@writebloodyuk.com
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fern@writebloodyuk.com