About WordAid

WordAid is a Kent-based collective of published poets dedicated to fundraising for charity. As of March 2012 we have raised over £8000 for various charities.

WordAid members are: Patricia Debney, Jo Field, Nicky Thompson Jen Kahwatte and Vicky Wilson.

Vicky Wilson is a poet and non-fiction writer. Her poems have been published in her collection Line Dancing as well as in magazines and anthologies and she has performed her work in venues in Kent and London. Vicky has worked in book and magazine publishing for 30 years and has a track-record of organising events and producing publications for arts and educational institutions and to raise money for charities. Her guidebook London’s Houses (3rd edition 2014) is available from Metro Publications. You can find out more at www.vickywilson.org

Nicky Thompson has just completed an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Kent. Her poems have appeared in various publications and online. She was part of the Canterbury Laureate Wise Words project, running intergenerational poetry workshops for young people with special needs and older people, and she was also fortunate enough to have a writing residency at the Little Blue Hut in Tankerton.  She works as a Community Development Officer, running projects that make a difference to local communities. She lives near the sea in Whitstable, where she walks on the beach every day. www.pebblepress.co.uk

Jo Field moved from London to Deal in Kent in 2002.  Her work has been published in magazines and anthologies and has been successful in one or two competitions. Her collection of poems The Space Beyond on the theme of ageing and memory is a WordAid publication in aid of Dementia UK. Her slender pamphlet, The Anglesey Leg, a 'witty verse sequence', marks the bicentenary in 2015 of the Battle of Waterloo. It is published by HappenStance.www.happenstancepress.com






Jen Kahawatte recently completed her MA in Creative Writing at the University of Kent. She is a member of Deal Writers and several informal writing groups. Her poetry and short fiction have been published in anthologies and she was a Bridport Poetry Prize runner-up in 2008. She is currently collating a collection of prose poetry by fellow MA students, which is a WordAid project in aid of Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund (JDRF).

Patricia Debney’s most recent publication is a long poem, Gestation (Shearsman Chapbooks, 2014). Her recent collection of prose poems,Littoral (Shearsman Books, 2013), grapples with her son’s diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes, and was written while on a residency in a beach hut on the North Kent coast. Poems from this book appeared in The Sunday Times and were Highly Commended in the Forward Prizes. Her first collection, How to Be a Dragonfly (Smith Doorstop Books), was the overall winner of the 2004 Poetry Business Book & Pamphlet Competition. She has also published a novel, Losing You (bluechrome, 2007), and several of her short stories were shortlisted for the Asham Awards. She is currently finishing her next poetry collection, Baby, which explores mental illness, parenthood and fragmentation. Formerly a Canterbury Laureate, she is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Kent.