“I write for enjoyment, mine as well as others’; to make sense of the world and all that’s going on in it.”
Valerie Bloom MBE is the author of several volumes of poetry for adults and children, picture books, pre-teen and teenage novels and stories for children.
Surprising Joy
After their school holidays, Joy and Nadine head into the bushes in Jamaica where they can cook breadfruit, swim in the river and surrender to joy, unbound by adults.
Valerie Bloom in conversation with Trish Cooke
Talking about her passion for writing and the art of performance.
Biography
Valerie Bloom MBE is the author of several volumes of poetry for adults and children, picture books, pre-teen and teenage novels and stories for children. She has also written articles for teaching periodicals and newspapers such as the Guardian and The Independent. She has presented poetry programmes for BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4 and has contributed to other radio and television programmes such as Fine Lines, Woman’s Hour and The Verb. Her poetry has been featured in ‘Poems on the Underground’ and included in the GCSE and Caribbean exam syllabuses and in the literature component for secondary schools in Malaysia.
Her books Let Me Touch The Sky, Hot Like Fire and Whoop and Shout were all Poetry Book Society choices. Fruits won a Nestle Smarties bronze award and Américas Honorable Mention 1997. Her novel Surprising Joy was shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award. She presently lives in Kent and performs her poetry and runs writing workshops in primary schools, secondary schools, libraries, and universities.
