Biography
Rosemary Dun had a promising career as a health policy researcher (working with health authorities, the voluntary sector, and the World Health Organisation – see links), when she returned to her true love – writing. "When I was at school," she says, "writing was just something I was good at, not something I was expected to do! Then, following a family tragedy, I don't think it's too strong to say that my writing 'found me'."
Now, Rosemary is a successful freelance writer, poet, performer, and tutor. She regularly hosts 2 poetry & music nights in Bristol, U.K.: Big Mouth Cabaret and Folk House Open Mike Night.
Performance
She has won poetry slams, performed with Stroud Football Poets, and in her own right. She has a collection of poetry Born Lippy and has been widely published in magazines and anthologies including Short Fuse: The globalanthology of New Fusion Poetry.
Rosemary has strutted her performance poetry stuff at venues in and around Bristol, Bath, Stroud, London, Brighton, Cheltenham, Glastonbury, Ledbury, Tiverton, Manchester, New York and others; as well as performing her poetry on BBC radio and iTV television. She has supported leading poets such as John Hegley and Attila The Stockbroker. In August 2003 she was commissioned to write a poem for ITV1 programme "The Trouble With Love". One of her football poems is on the school curriculum in Finland!
Writing
Rosemary also writes stories, novels and plays. She has twice been short-listed for the Ian St. James Short Stories Award. Recently she performed her own short stories with the group Words Allowed and is featured on their CD Words Allowed Live!
She has also performed standup comedy and is a regular MC in Bristol.
Rosemary has an MA in Creative Writing - and City Guilds 7407 in Teaching Continuing Education, and teaches highly popular short courses and workshops in the writing of fiction, novels, poetry and performance. She has run workshops in creative writing and/or performance at The Annual Writers Conference, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Stroud Fringe Festival, at the Women's Institute, and in schools. This year, together with another football poet, she jointly ran several schools workshops held at Chelsea Football Club. She has judged writing competitions for The Evening Post and W.I She has been a guest editor for the internationally acclaimed arts fusion e-mag Fusebox.
Big mouth Masterclasses
Rosemary hosts and facilitates a series of master classes for up and coming performance poets – Big Mouth Poetry Master Classes – whose leaders include Chloe Poems, Rosie Lugosi, Philip Gross, Peter Finch, Attila The Stockbroker, Todd Swift, Phil Norton, Paul Stones, Francesca Beard, Diké Omeje. She runs the poetry tent at Euope's biggest (almost) free festival – Ashton Court Festival – where she launched a poetry installation: The Poetry Jukebox.
Rosemary Dun also organises a writers café in Bristol and is in the process of getting together an anthology of poetry and short stories from her creative writing students - past and present.
She lives in Bristol with her 2 teenage girls. Two of her novels - 'Long Shadows' and 'The Trouble With Love' - are with her London literary agent.
Where to go next
See What they say - Rosemary's peers, students and co-performers give their take on Rosemary Dun.