About & Our Ethos
Learn more about founding and guiding principles of the broken spine
Staff
The team behind the scenes
Alan Parry
Co-Founding Editor
Alan Parry is a poet, playwright, and copywriter from Southport, near Liverpool, U.K. He is a teacher, a husband and father to three children. Alan is also an MA Popular Culture student at Edge Hill
University.
Alan is forward thinking and wants to spread the ideas of tolerance, love and hope as widely as possible.
In addition to his creative writing, Alan is a regular contributor to PlanetSlop.co.uk where he covers the local live arts scene, previewing and reviewing live music and comedy, interviewing artists and penning thought pieces.
Alan released his debut poetry chapbook, Neon Ghosts in June 2020 to critical acclaim, a collection of poetry which echoes the American beat poets and the subtle social observation of Northern, English writers.
It is a modern beatnik, noir collection, terribly bleak in places but redeemed by intense moments of light and stark beauty. Alan is working on his follow up poetry collection and is also exploring opportunities to take his semi-autobiographical play Sylvie to the stage.
Alan has been submitting his work to journals for two years and has had moderate success, seeing his work published in a range of international magazines/e-zines/journals including the following: The Literary Mark Review, Visual Verse, Peach Velvet Magazine – Junk Drawer, Black Bough Poems, Panning for Poems, Bonnie and Crew, Marias At Sampaguitas, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Streetcake Magazine, Panopolyzine, Re-Side, Night Music Journal, Wide Eyes Publishing Salt and Vinegar Zine, Poetica, Porridge, 3 Moon Publishing, eighteenseventy, Dust Magazine, Nightingale and Sparrow, Ghost City Press and Dream Noir.
Paul Robert Mullen
Co-Founding Editor
Paul Robert Mullen is a poet, musician, lecturer, traveller and sociable loner from Southport, near Liverpool, U.K.
Paul has spent a decade gradually moving around the world, having lived and worked in the UK, Australia, China and Spain.
Paul enjoys Leonard Cohen, bass guitar riffs, porridge, paperback books with broken spines, and all things minimalist.
He is a regular contributor at Marias at Sampaguitas and has published three poetry collections on Coyote Creek Books (San Jose, California): curse this blue raincoat (2017); testimony (2018); 35 (2018); and a poetry chapbook on Animal Heart Press: disintegration (2020).
Paul is widely published in a range of international magazines/e-zines/journals and anthologies, including the following: 3 Moon Independent Publishing, After The Pause, Allegro, Anti-Heroin Chic, Barren Magazine, Bees Are Dead, Bending Genres, Black Bough Poems, Blossom In Winter, Bonnie’s Crew, Borderlines, Burning House Press, Cephalo Press, Cleaning Up Glitter, Constellate, Crossways, Dear Reader, Decanto, Dodging The Rain, Dreamcatcher, Dream Noir, Elephants Never, Eunoia Review, Fevers of the Mind Poetry and Art Digest, Fire, Four X Four, Ghost City Press, Heron Clan, Iceberg Tales, Last Exit, Light Through The Mist, Marias at Sampaguitas, Mojave Heart, Poetry Pacific, Panning for Poems, Pendora, Reality Break Press, Re-Side, Selcouth Station, Silk & Smoke, Streetcake, Sub-Rosa, The Canon’s Mouth, The Fictional Café, The Fiction Pool, The Foxglove Journal, The Interpreter’s House, The Journal, The Mark Literary Review, The Pangolin Review, Three Drops From A Cauldron, Turnpike Magazine, Vamp Cat, Words For The Wild and Wellington Street Review
Elizabeth Kemball
Co-Fiction Editor
Elizabeth Kemball is a writer and illustrator from Stoke-on-Trent whose work has featured in journals such as: Black Bough, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Nightingale & Sparrow, The Broken Spine Artist Collective, and Iceberg Tales.
Her micro-chapbook A letter from your sheets // if your sheets could speak. was published by Nightingale & Sparrow in March 2020.
She is an Editor and Designer for the literary arts zine Re-Side amd is currently studying a Masters in Creative Writing at Cardiff University,
Lucy Aur
Co-Fiction Editor
Lucy Aur is a writer and social activist from Llanelli. Her poetry has featured in Re-Side and can be seen in their next edition in April 2021.
In addition to creative writing, Lucy is a keen volunteer, volunteering with DofE Wales for the past 4 years, the I Will Campaign since 2018, and in 2019 she launched her own mental health campaign called Renegades Foundation. Renegades Foundation produces an article every month with the aim of removing taboo and breaking down stigmas.
She is currently studying an MA in creative writing at Cardiff University where she is working on a piece of historical fiction, documenting the role of Wales in World War 2.
Ben McCurry
Regular Contributor & Live Stream Host
Ben McCurry is a writer and video games researcher.
He can usually be found hunched over OBS or Photoshop, and writes fiction roughly once every seven years.
Find him and his streaming project on Twitter.
Jay Rafferty
Regular Contributor & Discord Admin
Jay Rafferty is an Irishman, an eejit and the Social Media Manager for Sage Cigarettes magazine.
You can read some of his work in the Alcala Review, 3 Moon Mag, Dodging the Rain, Capsule Stories, on our website and in our journal.
Casey Bailey
Regular Contributor
Casey Bailey is a writer, performer and educator, born and raised in Nechells, Birmingham, UK. Casey is the Birmingham Poet Laureate 2020 – 2022.
Casey released his debut full collection of poetry, ‘Adjusted’ in 2018 with Verve Poetry Press and his second collection Please Do Not Touch is published by Burning Eye in 2021. Casey’s debut play ‘GrimeBoy’ was commissioned by the Birmingham Rep in 2020. Casey’s poetry has featured in a number of anthologies and he was commissioned by the BBC to write ‘The Ballad of The Peaky Blinders’ in 2019. In 2020 the poem was internationally recognised, winning a Webby Award. Casey has performed his poetry nationally, and internationally.
Casey was named as one of ‘Birmingham Live’s’, Birmingham ’30 under 30’ of 2018. Casey was also recognised in 2019 when he was made a Fellow of the University of Worcester. Casey was named the Greater Birmingham Future Face of Arts and Culture 2020.
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