We are based in West Yorkshire, and will make a point of featuring the work of older women from the North of England.  We want to be inclusive, and it’s important to us that Grey Hen should play a part in sharing the wide range of women’s experience in our multicultural communities.

Our publications will include:

• poetry pamphlets
• poetry anthologies
• collections of short stories
• stories from personal history and heritage

Grey Hen was set up and is run by Barbara Burford and Joy Howard.

Barbara’s poetry and prose have been widely anthologised. Publications include A Dangerous Knowing: Four Black Women Poets (Sheba 1984) and The Threshing Floor, a short story collection(Firebrand Books 1987).  She was a co-editor of  Dancing the Tightrope: New Love Poems by Women (The Women’s Press 1987). A former research scientist and civil servant she now runs a business consultancy and is Deputy Director of the Centre for Inclusion and Diversity at the University of Bradford. And she’s trying to finish a novel.

Joy’s poems have featured in several anthologies: Beautiful Barbarians (Onlywomen1987), Dancing the Tightrope (Women’s Press 1987), Naming the Waves (Virago 1988), and Not for the Academy (Onlywomen 1999). She retired in 2005 after many years in social services, innovating and developing new approaches to fostering. She is now a freelance consultant, lecturer and editor. So only semi-retired. As far as poetry goes, she has in her sixties discovered renewed excitement in writing, reading and publishing. She is a contributor to Grey Hen’s first publication ‘Second Bite’, and is currently working on a first collection. Joy was a prizewinner in the Chapter One Promotions Open Poetry Competition 2007. To read her poem 'The Knife' click here. More of Joy's poems can be read on Poetry pf.