About Tom Chivers

‘Dark London history, dredged and interrogated, spits and fizzes with corrosive wit. Tom Chivers understands the risks he risks, the play in a taught rope.’
Iain Sinclair

‘Chivers’s writing feels refreshing and necessary, a genuine, lyrical appraisal of contemporary life.’
Luke Kennard

Tom Chivers is a writer, editor and live literature producer. Born 1983 in South London, he currently lives in the East End. In Spring 2008 he was the first ever Poet in Residence at The Bishopsgate Institute. His books include How To Build A City (Salt Publishing, 2009), The Terrors (Nine Arches Press, 2009) and, as editor, the anthologies Generation Txt and City State: New London Poetry (Penned in the Margins, 2006 & 2009).

Tom has appeared on BBC Radio 3 and 4, BBC London and Resonance FM. He is Editor-in-chief of new online literary review Hand + Star, and Associate Editor of journal Tears in the Fence. In September 2009 Radio 4 broadcast his documentary about the poet Barry MacSweeney. He is Director of the live literature producer and small press Penned in the Margins, and co-Director of London Word Festival.

Events

Tom is a regular reader of his poetry at venues, festivals and spoken word nights in London, the UK and internationally including the Battle of Ideas, Birmingham Book Festival, Essex Poetry Festival, Hackney Literature Festival, Musuem of London in Docklands, Poetry Hearings (Berlin), Poetry International at the Southbank Centre, Spitalfields Festival, Utter, Whitechapel Gallery and Wurmfest (Dublin). To book him for an event, please email tom (at) pennedinthemargins.co.uk

Published work

Tom’s poems have been published in: The Alchemy of the Verb, The Argotist, Babylon Burning: 9/11 Five Years On, Charm Offensive, Dawntreader, The Edgeless Shape, Fire, Fuselit, Gists & Piths (online), Isis, Keystone, Likestarlings (online), The London Magazine, Nthposition (online), Smoke, Tall Lighthouse Review, Tears in the Fence, The Reader, Trespass and X Magazine.

His reviews and articles have appeared in: Arts Professional, CEN Magazine, Culture Wars (online), Incorporated Writing (online), Inprint, Poetry London, Poetry News and Tears in the Fence.