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Although I have written in almost every genre except the novel, I am primarily a poet with roots deeply planted in the theatre. My work is published in magazines and anthologies worldwide, has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and performed across the UK and in Festivals and venues in France, Germany, The USA, Canada, Finland, India and Australia. Poems have been set to music by several composers and translated into a number of languages including French, Romanian, Finnish and Arabic. I have written four full poetry collections and five pamphlet collections along with numbers of books and plays for both radio and theatre.
I have been the recipient of bursaries and awards (various) including a National Media Award, an Arts and Business Award and a Fringe First at the Edinburgh Festival. In 2014 I received a Creative Scotland Bursary to finish my collection Dancing on a Rock (Pub: IDP) and another in 2016 to research my most recent collection Skookum Jim and The Klondike Gold Rush (Pub IDP 2020) in The Yukon.
In 2019 I was awarded an International Travel Grant to perform at The Tasmanian Poetry Festival where I was their International Poet 2019, followed by an extensive reading tour up the East Coast of Australia.
I am Artistic Director of The Bakehouse Community Arts (www.thebakehouse.info) a flourishing arts venue in SW Scotland and BIG LIT: The Stewartry Book Festival ( www.biglit.org) an annual four day literature Festival that takes place in Gatehouse of Fleet.
In 2014 I was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for Services to The Arts and was listed in Who's Who.
On this website you can see and hear samples of my work, buy my books and contact me about residencies, workshops or readings.
FOR INFORMATION ABOUT FORTHCOMING READINGS AND FESTIVALS GO TO MY NEWS PAGE.
Awards, and Residencies:
National Media Award (CRS) New Writing Bursary (English Arts Council) Work Development Grant (Scottish Arts Council) Fringe First (Edinburgh Festival). Writer’s Residencies include Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (London University) and Poitou Charente Region (France 2009). The Bakehouse has been nominated three times for an Arts and Business Award with its corporate partners The Crichton Development Company and Bibilographic Data Services.Winner of Arts and Business Award 2012 with corporate partner WeeSleekit
Weaver of Grass ( Pub: Hatterick's House. Artwork Deirdre Carlisle) shortlisted for The Callum Macdonald Memorial Award 2014
Awarded a Creative Scotland Writing Bursary 2014 to finish my penultimate collection Dancing on a Rock and another in 2017 to visit The Yukon to pursue research into The Klondike Gold Rush for my most recent collection Skookum Jim and The Klondike Gold Rush (Pub: IDP 2020)
The Burning from GRASS (Pub IDP 2012) was selected for the Scottish Poetry Library's Best 20 Scottish Poems 2012 Anthology alongside Liz Lochhead, Kathleen Jamie, Vicki Feaver, John Burnside and other lovely work. See www.spl.org.uk
My trip to Australia as International Poet at the Tasmanian Poetry Festival with an adjacent tour of venues up the East Coast was funded by Scottish Books Author International Travel Fund.
Skookum Jim and The Klondike Gold Rush (Pub: IDP 2020)
ISBN: 9 781912 876297 (Price £10.00)
– a colourful condemnation of human greed, but a testament to the survival instincts of individuals and cultures.
Martyn Crucefix
Now available from Central Books: 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN Tel: 44 (0)845 458 9911 Fax: 44 (0)845 458 9912
https://www.indigodreams.co.uk/chrys-salt-skookum/4594876233
The Punkawallah's Rope (Pub: IDP 2017)
ISBN: 9 781910 834596 Price £6.00
These remarkable poems should be read by anyone contemplating (or sentimentalising about) a visit to the subcontinent.They cut to the heart. Peter Marinker ( actor/director)
Now available from Central Books: 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN Tel: 44 (0)845 458 9911 Fax: 44 (0)845 458 9912 http://www.indigodreamsbookshop.com/#/chrys-salt-doar/4588125073
Email: orders@centralbooks.com
Indigo Dreams Bookshop www.indigodreamsbookshop.com
Dancing on a Rock (Pub: IDP 2015)
ISBN: 978-1-909357-69-3 Price: £9.99
'Chrys Salt, a wonderful and unique poet, reaches her zenith. The past comes alive again, where dreams and desperations come hand in hand. Her work is poignant, full of anger, desire and dreams that entice you to enter that world. This book touched deeply.
Bernard Kops
Dramatist, poet, novelist
Now available from Central Books: 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN Tel: 44 (0)845 458 9911 Fax: 44 (0)845 458 9912 http://www.indigodreamsbookshop.com/#/chrys-salt-doar/4588125073
Email: orders@centralbooks.com
Indigo Dreams Bookshop www.indigodreamsbookshop.com
Amazon
Home Front/ Front Line by Chrys Salt (Pub: Roncadora)
Price: £8.00
On the tenth anniversary of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Home Front/ Front Line records a moving dialogue in poetry and prose between the poet and her son, who, as a Territorial Army Paratrooper with the 7th Royal Horse Artillery (PARA), was mobilised to Iraq in February 2003 and spent 5 months in action. Published by Award Winning Publisher Roncadora, it is a hand- made limited edition, its publication timed to coincide with the 10th Anniversary of the conflict.
An interview with Iraqi TV December 2013 can be found on YouTube.
Review of Home Front/Front Line: Andy Croft (Smokestack Books)
It would take a hard heart to ignore the appeals of Chrys Salt’s new book Home Front/ Front Line (Roncadora, £8). Published to mark the tenth anniversary of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is an extraordinary and moving dialogue in poetry and prose between the poet and her son, a Territorial Army paratrooper who in 2003 spent five months in Iraq with the 7th Royal Horse Artillery.
It is a brave, beautiful and deeply unsettling way of making the reader look again at long-familiar events, as though the mother of Wilfred Owen or Edward Thomas had kept a verse-diary during the First World War.
https://dura-dundee.org.uk/2015/12/24/the-fields-of-war/
Grass: by Chrys Salt (Pub: Indigo Dreams 2012)
ISBN: 978-1-907401-85-5 Price: £7.99
Chrys Salt's poems, not least the familial ones, have a wonderful vitality, warmth and immediacy, those threaded with elegy imbued with humour as well as humanity. They are also a perfect prelude to the celebratory sequence 'Weaver of Grass' which portrays Angus MacPhee with such empathy and descriptive richness as to conjure up his interior and exterior realities both astonishingly and movingly.’
Stewart Conn: poet and inaugural Edinburgh Laureate
Now available from Central Books: 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN Tel: 44 (0)845 458 9911 Fax: 44 (0)845 458 9912
Email: orders@centralbooks.com
Indigo Dreams Bookshop www.indigodreamsbookshop.com
Amazon