Authors line up
CAL WENSLEY
Cal Wensley is a Bristol based writer, performer and educator, originally from Watford.
They hold an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and a BA in Drama with Creative Writing from UWE. Cal has been an active presence in Bristol’s poetry scene since 2017, hosting and producing events including Satellite of Love, Tonic and New Grounds Poetry Open Mic, as well as regularly hosting the Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival Slam.
Their work explores grief, mental health, family, gender and loss, often using humour as a way of moving through difficult experiences.
For Assembly of Words, Cal will share poems from a collection due to be published in March 2027, exploring grief and the strange, sometimes necessary role humour can play in surviving it.
ZARA PROSPER
Zara Prosper is a poet whose work is often centred on self agency.
Her poetry explores what it means to find, claim and use your own voice, moving through questions of identity, personal autonomy and the ways we understand ourselves.
At Assembly of Words, Zara brings poetry that places the individual voice at its centre, creating space for reflection, recognition and personal expression.
JUICY FRUITION
Juicy Fruition, Fern Enley, is an AuDHD radical being and poet, and a survivor of the American psychiatric and special education systems.
For Fern, poetry becomes a way of liberating the self from oppressive structures and reclaiming the body, voice and imagination.
Fern does not simply read poems. They embody them.
Raw emotion, spoken word and interpretive dance become part of the same performance. Their background as a musical composer also shapes the rhythm and physicality of their work.
Their poetry uses accessible, heartfelt and everyday language, often interrupted by absurdist turns. Their work moves through inner divinity, the wonders of the natural world, trauma, survival and what might exist beyond it.
ERYN McDONALD
Eryn McDonald is a poet, performer and theatre maker from Gloucestershire, now based in Bristol.
Their work moves between tenderness and anger, exploring gender, sexuality, politics, identity, relationships and the complicated idea of home.
Eryn has performed at events and festivals including Nozstock, Open Collab, Soft Butch and Green Gathering. They have been a Lyra Festival Slam finalist, a two time Milk Poetry Slam winner and winner of the Mind Over Slammer Bristol Heat in 2024.
Their first pamphlet, Friezewood, explores the search for home within a trans, neurodivergent body and within a house that is slowly falling apart.
As Ygor Macleod wrote, Eryn’s poems capture both the quiet beauty and sharp cruelty of the world, leaving the reader anchored and outraged.
THE MENOPAUSAL POET
Amanda Ward, The Menopausal Poet, is a Liverpool born writer, poet and former journalist based in Bristol.
She studied English at Bristol University and worked as a journalist for more than fifteen years in London and Bristol, writing for local and national publications before returning to creative writing after more than twenty years away from it.
Her poetry approaches menopause, ageing, identity and everyday life with humour, honesty and a willingness to talk openly about experiences that are often hidden or left unspoken.
Her book, Flushed Away: Menopausal Musings from My Last Brain Cell, combines comedy, vulnerability and lived experience, moving from the absurdities of menopause to more intimate reflections on identity and change.
As The Menopausal Poet, Amanda brings lived experience, humour and honesty into the room, turning poetry into conversation.