Blood & Cord

A child is born and everything is made anew. In this blur of new beginnings there are tears and laughter, new words and new silences: this is an unmaking and remaking of the self.From short stories about unnerved fathers and lost mothers, to poems about 'half-built Lego palaces' and friends who share their deepest secrets, Blood & Cord is a raw exploration of new parenthood. Voicing silenced conversations about loss, grief, and loneliness, as well as the joys and laughter that are part and parcel of becoming a parent, the stories told within offer a refreshingly honest account of life after new life.This collection is a hand in the dark, offering comfort and solidarity to any new parent.Edited by Abi Curtis, with prose pieces from Naomi Booth, Jennifer Cooke, Rebecca Goss, Daisy Hildyard, Caleb Klaces and Malcolm Taylor, and poems from Liz Berry, Rachel Bower, Tommy Brad, Janine Bradbury, Ruth Charnock, Abi Curtis, Paige Davis, Gail McConnell, Elizabeth Hogarth, Alex McRae Dimsdale, Sandra Simonds and Sylvie Simonds.

'Many kinds of parenthood are presented in this superb new collection of poems and stories. Mothers and fathers convey the spectrum of ways in which the self is remade by parenthood, the 'complete subjugation' of this task - bodily, mentally, spiritually - tearing apart the boundaries of love for which new language is required. Thankfully, the writers herein are more than up to this otherwise monumental task. New and experienced parents alike will find solace and resonance in this wonderful book.' - Carolyn Jess-Cooke

Abi Curtis is Professor of Creative Writing at York St John University. She has won an Eric Gregory Award and Somerset Maugham Award for her poetry collections, Unexpected Weather (Salt, 2009) and The Glass Delusion (Salt, 2013). She has a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing and is inspired by art, psychology, science and the environment. She has written on such subjects as mushrooms in Freud, the uncanny, elegy, squid in literature, and pollination and enjoys collaborations with artists, musicians and scientists. Her first novel, Water & Glass, a speculative climate-change fiction was published by Cloud Lodge Books in 2017 . In 2022 Abi's short fiction was commended in the Bridport, Fish and Alpine Fellowship Prizes, and a poetic sequence on the subject of a medieval anchoress, set to music by David Lancaster, was performed by the Ex Corde Vocal Ensemble. After having children, Abi developed a particular interest in the relationship between creativity and parenthood. She lives in York with her husband and two sons.