Graham Mort – författare

From England to Europe, Africa to South America, this collection from prizewinning short-story writer Graham Mort explores fraught relationships, parenthood, love affairs, sexual provocation, terror and terroir are all lit by a vivd sense of history and location.

Longlisted for the Edge Hill PrizeLike Fado consists of thirteen individual stories that culminate in the extended novella-like story, ‘Whitethorn’. Each story takes us into the lived experience and psychological dilemmas of its characters, dissolving certitude in favour of richly ambivalent and suggestive endings as storylines merge and diverge, enriching each other through their narrative resonance. The natural world is brought to life in vivid detail in locations that range from the North-West of England to Europe and Africa, whilst the interior lives of characters form the dramatic locus of each piece, rendered in language that is precise, lyrical and evocative.

''Cusp'', this new collection from Graham Mort, features many of the qualities readers have come to admire; keen observation, a feeling for the natural world that echoes and enhances the human interactions in his poems, the sense of the individual as part of a larger society of which we are implicitly responsible. New here is a different sort of line, which alternates short and longer lines in a step-like formation, a terracing which propels the narratives along. Also included is the remarkable, ambitious long poem, ''Electricity'', fizzing with riffs on its theme. Morts formal rigour, instinctive compassion, and warm humanity shine through in this new book, the first since his acclaimed Visibility: New and Selected Poems.

Mort writes subtle, deft, beautifully observed poems aswell as prize-winning short stories. Black Shiver Moss, his masterly 10th collection of poetry, is packed with poems about his native northern counties of Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cumbria, as well as stunning evocations of elsewhere: Africa, Southern Spain, France, Italy.

This new collection from Graham Mort selects work from five previous collections and adds a substantial section of new poems. From early lyrics focused in the natural world, he quickly developed his own distinctive narrative style, encompassing a sharp eye for detail, an acute grasp of character, and a wonderful ability to evoke atmosphere and situation. A distinguished and intellectually sustaining body of work, it does not forget that we also think through feeling, seeing and touching. Those qualities are augmented by a challenging moral heft and a sense of the consequence and implications of our actions in both personal and political domains."Mort is prepared to employ rhyme, half-rhyme and internal rhyme, and there are a couple of sonnets here. His control of the verse-line and the verse-paragraph are as impressive as his incisive way with words and images."Planet on A Night on the Lash"Mort has always been a master of technique, of 'show not tell', and his poems evoke the noises and smells of other countries, the unique atmosphere of other lives and times"Edinburgh Review"Graham Mort is acknowledged as one of contemporary verse's most accomplished practitioners... A master technician, Mort forswears flash and glamour in favour of an architectural attention to the relationship between form and language, fitting words to lines with a dexterous fluency."The GuardianGraham Mort has had a lengthy career as a freelance writer and artist in education, specialising in innovative combined arts projects. He has taught writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and Taliesin Trust and was director of studies for the Open College of the Arts. He lectures in Creative Writing at Lancaster University where he directs the Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research and develops writing projects in Africa for the British Council. Amongst his many awards are the Cheltenham Poetry Competition first prize (twice), a major Eric Gregory Award, two Duncan Lawrie prizes in the Arvon Foundation International Poetry competition, and a Poetry Book Society recommendation.

Winner of the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2011.From the balmy heat of Africa to the snowbound dales of northern England, this is an assured and absorbing short-story collection. Including the Bridport prize-winning story 'The Prince', Touch spans twenty years of short-story writing from author and poet Graham Mort. Be it a young child adrift on an ice-filled lake, or an ageing farmer facing life alone, these twenty-one stories display a deep sensitivity to both the natural world and human relationships. In skilfully crafted prose, vivid with detail, Mort examines the strength and fragility of life and the ties that hold us within it."I chose 'The Prince'… because the writing is word-perfect… with the story quietly remarking on how something out of the ordinary both does and doesn't affect daily life.... I was enchanted…"Novelist and Bridport judge Tracy ChevalierGraham Mort has had a lengthy career as a freelance writer and artist in education, specialising in innovative combined arts projects. He has taught writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and Taliesin Trust, and was director of studies for the Open College of the Arts. He lectures in Creative Writing at Lancaster University, where he directs the Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research and develops writing projects in Africa for the British Council. Among his many awards are the Cheltenham Poetry Competition first prize (twice), a major Eric Gregory Award, two Duncan Lawrie prizes in the Arvon Foundation International Poetry competition, and a Poetry Book Society recommendation.