Biography

Born in Stockport and now living in Congleton, Cheshire, John Lindley’s poetry has appeared widely in magazines as well as being broadcast on radio.

He has run creative and critical workshops on poetry for all ages and abilities, including writers’ groups, U3A groups, at writing festivals and in universities, schools, prisons, youth clubs and day care centres. He also runs workshops for those with learning difficulties.

An experienced performer, John has read at pubs, clubs, theatres and at the Buxton and Edinburgh fringe festivals. He staged a self-written show, Screen Fever: Movie Poems, at Congleton Library in September 1999, which married poems written on the theme of cinema to film music and dialogue. The show has since been performed for arts groups and at the Jon Silkin Memorial Festival in Camelford, Cornwall and at Ledbury Poetry Festival.

John has won the Words of Silk Open Poetry Competition, been a runner up in the Jackson’s Arm Poetry Pamphlet Competition, a three times prize-winner in the Lancaster Literature Festival and a prize-winner in the Manchester Open Poetry and the Blythe Spirit Open Poetry competitions.

Two booklets of his poems appeared in 1976 and 1982 and were followed by his first full-length collection, Stills from November Campaigns, which was published by Tarantula in 1998. This was followed by Scarecrow Crimes, published by New Hope International in 2002, Cheshire Rising, published by Cheshire County Council in 2005 and House of Wonders published by Riverdane in 2008.

John was appointed as the literary ‘Arts Form Specialist’ by Congleton Borough Council to work on their 18 month Imprints Community Arts Project. Recent commissions include running workshops for Radio Stoke, for Flintshire County Council's Heritage Alive project on myths and legends in Wales, for Ellesmere Port’s Fusion project and in day centres for Age Concern for both the WearPurple arts project and the BBC’s People’s War project. He also provided distance learning workshops for writers in Africa as part of the British Council’s Crossing Borders project and travelled to Kenya to run workshops and give a reading.

He was appointed Cheshire Poet Laureate for 2004.