We Welcome Ruth & Chloe to Our Board

With a big thank you to departing board member Jessica Wood and a good luck for her Portuguese adventures, we give a big welcome to Ruth Awolola and Chloe Elliott. Both members of our current Squad 10, Ruth joins as a full board member and Chloe is the first to enjoy our On-Board Experience. This is a year-long opportunity for a Squad writer to gain experience of being on an arts board while contributing fully to conversations and decision making.

Squad Chair, Sophie O’Neill says, ‘What started off as an objective – having 50% of the Squad board made up of our writers – has become fundamental to the way we operate, it is impossible to imagine talking about what we do and what we’ll do in future without them.” Director Steve Dearden adds, “We’re very lucky, our Squad writer board members bring us a wonderful combination of life experience, work experience and their own expanding networks as writers beginning of their careers.”

Ruth is an author, poet, workshop facilitator and Learning Officer at the Manchester Poetry Library. A winner of the National Youth Slam, Slambassadors UK and Say Owt Slam Champion, Ruth is an Obsidian Foundation Alumna. She writes for a variety of audiences including poetry for children and young people. In 2018 she was one of five contributors to Rising Stars: New Young Voices in Poetry and features in several anthologies including Ana Sampson’s She is Fierce: Brave, Bold and Beautiful Poems by Women and She will Soar: Bright, brave poems of freedom by women, She has forthcoming contributions in children and young people’s poetry collections in both the UK and the United States.

Chloe is a poet based in Durham. She is President of Durham University’s Poetry Society where she runs workshops and open mics. She is the Gold Winner of the 2020 Creative Future Writer’s Award and has seen her work published by Poetry Birmingham, The Gentian and Bedtime Stories for the End of the World, as well as in anthologies by Bitter Melon and Bad Betty Press. She is also on the Youth Advisory Board for Arts Council England.