We are delighted to announce the poetry assessors for the 5th Edition of the creative wellbeing resource The Yellow Book!
We send our gratitude and our #NotesOfThanks to Adam Horovitz, Josie Dom and Joy T Chance for all their time with the project!
Adam was part of the assessment team for the 1st Edition of The Yellow Book. Josie and Joy helped to support the assessment in 1st Edition of The School Yellow Book. We are delighted that Adam, Josie and Joy have chosen to join the team and help select the entries for The Yellow Book 5th Edition.
Learn more about the assessors below:
Adam Horovitz is a poet, performer, teacher and editor. He has released three collections of poetry, Turning (Headland, 2011), The Soil Never Sleeps (Palewell 2018) and Love and Other Fairy Tales (Indigo Dreams, 2021), a memoir, A Thousand Laurie Lees (History Press, 2014) and a CD of poetry and music, Little Metropolis (2015). He has been the poet in residence for the county of Herefordshire and Pasture for Life, and had written poems for two series of Archaeology of the Ear for Resonance FM, He has also co-presented The Thunder Mutters, a podcast celebrating the poetry and music of John Clare, and appeared on an album of poetry and music by Cerys Matthews, We Come From the Sun (Decca, 2021).
Website – Adam Horovitz
Josie Dom is a children’s author with a charitable mission to support good causes through the sales of her books. Since 2015, Josie has donated 15% of profit to children’s charities, and is currently supporting Read for Good. Having worked through her own mental health difficulties, it gives Josie great pleasure to once again be involved with The Yellow Book project.
Josie writes stories from her heart without any particular theme in mind, but looking at her body of work as a whole, the underlying theme comes through as ‘kindness’. Josie hopes to inspire future generations to develop their kindness-muscle whilst they read for pleasure.
Josie’s books include Lum, Lum’s Mum with the intention to publish more stories about Lum and his adventures. Her most recent book Animalympics tells the crazy story of animals taking over the Olympics and Paralympics in a fully rhyming and colourful epic.
Website – Josie Dom
Joy T Chance is first generation Windrush, Hertfordshire Hedgehog. One of seven children growing up in Welwyn Garden City she would say that her “life was a cultural mix of West Indian and British values”. Her parents had high aspirations for her and her siblings and were strict about education and their public conduct.
However, Joy’s childhood was not as idyllic as her small-town environment; life threw some nasty curveballs which had devastating consequences in later life. She did not have the tools or support to address her childhood problems so built walls to protect herself to survive the trauma.
Years of ignoring the effects of childhood trauma culminated in psychotic episodes of paranoia, resulting in complete breakdown. It was only then that her mental health was addressed and through the help of Harrow Mental Health Services; the support of Harrow Women’s Centre and six years of counselling Joy has been able to heal.
Now in her sixties Joy has achieved amazing progress, living with PTSD is a proud single parent who has put her son through University. Joy is building a career as a performing poet and is training to be a psychotherapist. Writing poetry has helped Joy to face the demons of the past and see the beauty of a life worth living. Hence why it was such a pleasure to be asked once again to be an assessor for the not-for-profit ‘Rethink Your Mind’ and its creative wellbeing resource: The Yellow Book.
Enjoy the poetry here:
Our #NotesOfThanks to all the assessors and to everyone involved thanks for the fantastic creative entries inspired by gratitude!
Meet the Art & Photo Assessors Click Below to Learn More:
Find Out About the Project Click Below to Learn More:
