About

Writing and performance:
Kat is a Bristol-based writer and performer, working mainly in the field of spoken word poetry. They are the curent Bristol City Poet (2022-2024) and were nominated for the Jerwood Poetry in Performance Award 2022. Kat has performed at poetry events and festivals across the UK, including WOMAD, Shambala, Lyra: Bristol Poetry Festival 2020 and the Eden Project. Their poetry has been featured in Under the Radar, Ink Sweat & Tears and Bath Magg and their debut collection Love Beneath the Nails is published by Verve Poetry Press. Kat has recently finished their UK tour of Dry Season – a multi-year spoken word theatre show/project exploring age, identity and menopause.

Facilitation and consultation:
As well as co-hosting Raise the Bar, Kat is the creator, producer and host of SpitFire, an intermittent online spoken word event curated to highlight the voices and talent of older women. As part of their commitment to enabling others to realise their own creative potential, Kat facilitates creative writing, performance and theatre creation/production workshops for adults and young people, both as an individual and with other members of Raise the Bar. They also offer private mentoring and editing, as well as Outside Eye and consultation sessions for artists and shows- most recently Manic by Raina Griefa.

Collaborations and commissions:
Kat collaborates with other artists in a variety of ways, and recently scripted the thoughts of trees and fungi for Little Lost Robot CIC’s Wood Wide Web– a series of interactive sculptures at Wakehust, Kew. Other commissions include a performance piece exploring climate change and equitable transition for Bristol Green Capital Partnership, a site-specific performance for The Cemetary Club based on research into Bristol’s hidden queer history, and a video poem exploring the impact of covid as one of 5 artists chosen for The Arts Institute Covid-19 commission.

Artist residencies and festivals:
Kat was recently poet in residence at the Medical Humanities Bodies conference. They have also had artist’s residencies with Artspace Lifespace (2019, 2021)
and Shoebox Theatre (2020), and shown work at theatre festivals
including ‘Calm Down Dear’ (London) and Brighton FemFest (Brighton).

Storytelling, conferences, panel discussions, other:
In 2023, Kat was asked to sit on the discussion panel for Slapstick’s Gender Rebels film festival exploring Queer representation in silent/classic movies. As a performance storyteller, Kat has told stories for adults and children, worked with mycologist Rich Wright to create site-specific explorations of myth, science and fungal folklore, created mushroom-themed cabaret, and presented at the University of South Wales’ symposium on Storytelling and the Environment. They once dressed up as a space explorer and rode around on an electric stegosaurus harassing the public. This was a ridiculous amount of fun and they still can’t believe it counted as ‘proper paid work’.