Navigation [Mīkstie vāki]

Kate Carruthers Thomas was born in North Wales within spitting distance of the sea and Snowdonia. She grew up in Gloucestershire, close to the high limestone grasslands of Minchinhampton Common. She now lives in Sheffield, on the edge of the Peak District. Her poetry draws on our relationships with physical and emotional landscapes, on the interplay of space, place and emotion. This interest extends into her work as an academic; Kate specialises in interdisciplinary enquiry into the research fields of higher education and gender with a particular focus on space and mobility. The poetic and academic aspects of her life have collided a number of times: Kate has been invited to open several academic conferences with one of her poems, while 'Poisson', a commissioned poem about the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, appears on the British Sociological Association website. Kate's poems have won awards in the Kent and Sussex Poetry Society Open and East Riding Poetry competitions and been shortlisted in the Cinnamon Press Debut Collection Competition. She is a graduate of the Cinnamon Press Mentoring Scheme and her poems have been published in Envoi and the Cinnamon anthologies May Day and Trio. Navigation is her first solo collection.