“This is a book shaped by the bonds of kinship—the joy of authentic connection and the grief of sustained loss. By giving voice to memory and tradition, and by mourning and celebrating those who have gone before, these works explore ideas of belonging across time, even when they are speaking from places of pain and discrimination. In their rich and varied forms, they reveal what it is like to be ‘misplaced bodies in a misplaced city’ and yet to refuse to be silenced. It is impossible not to be carried to new worlds by this book, and to be transformed by the energies of its language.”

Lucy Collins

Associate Professor, University College Dublin

“KIN is a trail-blazing, diverse anthology of poetry and prose writings and artworks by roughly fifty women writers and artists from Romani, Traveller and Nomadic Communities with a most helpful editorial note by Raine Geoghegan and an enlightening introduction by Dr Rosaleen McDonagh. The editors and Salmon Poetry have done an invaluable job gathering the material for this book from contributors who are dispersed to places as far apart as Europe, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, the US and Europe—testimony to the transnational character of this ‘non-territorial cultural nation’ (Celia Grigore). Many of them are prize-winning poets, novelists and short story writers, academics, teachers, community workers and activists, taking to the page with confidence and stated pride in their Romani or Traveller origin, producing works of dazzling literary and artistic standard, thereby challenging stereotypical narratives that have been imposed on them.”

Eva Bourke

Poet and member of Aos Dána

“This is a book that bears witness to the intensity of experience shared by Romani communities worldwide—a glorious anthology which is both deep and mysterious, brimming with joy and sorrow as it celebrates a world and a way of life that has become marginalised—recapturing its passion and uniqueness. A book to treasure and to hold tight, mighty and kushti.”

Menna Elfyn

Welsh Poet, Bardd, Professor Emerita, UWTSD, President Wales PEN Cymru

“Romany and Traveller voices can often be overlooked. KIN is a long overdue collection of insightful and personal poetry that goes some way to collating the female experience of nomadic ethnicities both historically and in the present day.”

John-Henry Phillips

Author, filmmaker, and television presenter

Raine Geoghegan, editor & Fióna Bolger, co-editor

Editor: Raine Geoghegan, M.A. is a Welsh born poet, prose writer and playwright of Romany, Welsh and Irish ethnicity. She is a Forward Prize, twice Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net nominee. Her work has been published online and in print with Poetry Ireland Review; Travellers’ Times; Ofi Press; Under the Radar; The Clearing; SkyLight47; Fly on the Wall and many more. Her essay, ‘It’s Hopping Time’ was featured in Gifts of Gravity and Light (Hodder & Stoughton, 2021). Two pamphlets, Apple Water: Povel Panni and they lit fires: lenti hatch o yog are by Hedgehog Poetry Press. Apple Water was listed in the Poetry Book Society Spring 2019 Selection. She is the Romani Script Consultant for the musical ‘For Tonight.’ Her third pamphlet The Stone Sleep was published in January 2022 with Hedgehog Poetry Press. The Talking Stick: O Pookering Kosh was published in June 2022 by Salmon Poetry. She has read at the following festivals: Ledbury; Arundel; Festival of Chichester; South Downs; Winchester & other venues in both the UK and Ireland including Misleor, Nomadic Festival in Galway as well as the Poetry Lounge in Sydney, Australia.

Co-editor: Fióna Bolger is a poet, mentor and creative facilitator. Her most recent collection, Love in the Original Language was published by Salmon Poetry in 2022. Her facilitation and creative practice are polyvocal and plurilingual. She recently co-edited Dubylon (Intercultural Language Services/DCC). She is interested in the crossing of borders both linguistic and political and the spaces between. Her practice is rooted in a trauma informed, anti-racist pedagogy. www.fionabolgerpoetry.com

Biographies of the Contributors

Born in Upstate South Carolina, USA, Glenda Bailey-Mershon is a poet, essayist, novelist, cultural historian and human rights activist, who has explored in writing her mixed heritage. Her published works include a full length poetry collection, Weaver’s Knot (Finishing Line Press) set in Southern mill towns; a novel, Eve’s Garden (Twisted Road Publications) about three generations of Romani women living in the state of Georgia; and several chapbooks. She also edited four volumes of the Jane’s Stories anthologies by women writers. Her stories, essays, and poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and virtual publications. She writes the Substack newsletter, The Inspiration Shelf, about reading and the craft of writing.

Victoria Bennett is a disabled writer, carer and mother, and the founder of Wild Women Press and the Wild Women Writers’ Salons. Her poetry, non-fiction and memoir has received several awards, including the Andrew Waterhouse Award for Poetry, the Northern Debut Award, and the Nautilus Award for memoir. A firm believer in everyone’s right to write their own story, she has dedicated much of her working life to nurturing spaces where people can do just that. Her debut memoir, All My Wild Mothers, is published by John Murray Press (2023), and was longlisted for the Nan Shepherd Prize. After a lifetime of moving, she now lives in Orkney with her husband and son, close to where the wild things are.

Gonchigkhand Byambaa is a proud Mongolian nomad and migrant woman in Ireland. Even though she is not a Traveller, Gypsy, or Roma, she believes we share general knowledge of nomadism. In this modern world, nomadic people’s cultures should be acknowledged, celebrated, respected, and have space to thrive. Those two worlds should be able to live alongside and appreciate each other’s existence. She believes ancient wisdom, differences, and technology are the pillars of our world.

Nicola Chester is a nature writer and activist, school librarian and a descendent of the Romany Gypsy Lees of Hampshire. She is a Guardian Country Diarist and her work appears in Countryfile Magazine, the RSPB and several anthologies, including Wild Service, ed. by Nick Hayes (2024.) Her memoir, On Gallows Down won the Richard Jefferies Award and was Highly Commended for the Wainwright Prize. She lives in a tenanted cottage in the North Wessex Downs.

AJ Shelley Clayton is first generation Canadian Romanichal poet, photographer, musician and artist. Conceived in the Midlands, born in Ontario, Canada and raised in Minnesota, she added a five year stint in Northern California before returning to Ontario to raise her family. Current projects include educating people organically about the Romani people and their history and working to restore an old vardo gifted to her from a cousin in Ontario. Her poetry, she says, ‘often comes fully formed’. She has a vast collection of poetry, lyrics and music, ‘one by one they will be reworked in our standardized Romanes’.

Nora Corcoran is a passionate academic, children’s author, and poet who draws inspiration from her rich Traveller heritage. Her writing is a powerful tool for preserving and celebrating the unique traditions and culture of the Traveller community, ensuring that they are not lost to future generations. Nora’s poetry and storytelling offer a captivating glimpse into the experiences and perspectives of the Traveller people, helping to raise awareness and promote understanding of this vibrant and diverse community.

Louise Doughty is the author of ten novels, most recently A Bird in Winter. Her previous books include the bestseller Apple Tree Yard, adapted for BBC One; and Whatever You Love, nominated for the Costa Novel Award and the Women’s Prize for fiction. Her two Romany novels are Fires in the Dark, set during the Second World War, and Stone Cradle, about her English Romanichal ancestors. Her work has been translated into thirty languages.

Dr. Karen Downs-Barton is an award-winning, neurodiverse Romani-Gypsy poet. Her pamphlet, Didicoy, won the 2022 International Book and Pamphlet Competition and is a Poetry Book Society recommendation. Her collection, Minx, will be published in March 2025. Karen was commended in the AUB International Poetry Prize, winner of the Cosmo Davenport-Hines poetry competition, and Creative Future Competitions. Her work can be read in Wagtail: The Romani Women’s Anthology; The North; Rattle; Ink, Sweat, and Tears; Tears in the Fence; Night Picnic Journal; The High Window; The Fem Review; Riggwelter; Persian Sugar in English Tea; among others. Chatto and Windus have acquired her first collection for their 2025 catalogue. https://karendownsbarton.com

Corrina Eastwood is an artist, art psychotherapist, lecturer, writer and activist. She is a Romani woman and has been prompted by personal experiences of marginalisation and oppression felt at the intersect of being both Romani Gypsy and a woman, to develop an interest in the privileging of marginalised voices and the challenging of social disparities and normative power, through art, activism and education. She has exhibited her art works extensively both in the UK and internationally. Lines in the Sand, Corrina’s first short film as both director and writer, previewed at Cannes film festival 2012 and was also selected for Raindance film festival in the same year. Her short documentary The Baby and the Snake which was completed in 2017, explores patriarchal roles within Romani Gypsy culture and the impact of social exclusion and racism on her community.The film won Best Documentary in the London Independent Film Awards in 2018.

Born in Birmingham, UK, in 1959, Nettie Edwards was named as a contemporary experimental photography reference in the 2019 A-level Art & Design paper for Pearson Edexel. She received a Wingate Scholarship for her Traveller history and reminiscence project All Those That Belong To Us (2001) Her exhibition A Traveller’s Trail, Gloucester Folk Museum (2012) won an ENGAGE award. Her Arts Council funded video work Always In Our Hearts documented English Gypsy mourning traditions. Her work also includes for Rural Media Hereford, Traveller’s Remember, digital storytelling DVD; membership of Editorial board, Travellers’ Times magazine; for Tewkesbury Abbey and Commonland, Sway Arts, New Forest Hampshire We Are Here! and Shave Green Shrine, Hampshire. lumilyon.co.uk

Janna Eliot, a Londoner with roots in Eastern Europe, is an author and translator. Her work concentrates on Romani themes. She’s translated Settela by Aad Wagenaar. from Dutch, and Gunilla Lundgren’s Sofia Z-415 from Swedish. Both books deal with the plight of the Sinti and Roma in the Holocaust. She’s published Settela’s Last Road, a novel for teenagers based on Wagenaar’s historical account, and two collections of short stories featuring Romani characters from various lands, Spokes and The Gypsy Piano Tuner.

Christine Ford’s family is from the Scottish borders, referred to as ‘border gyspies’ by Gadjo. Today she lives in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Her father taught her some Romanes and had a story about his life, his travels, their culture and the people in it for every occasion. When she talked about feeling ‘other,’ he told her that was the Roma’s natural state. Living on the fringe, he said, was the safest place to be. He stressed the safety of hiding—not only their identity—but the secret parts of their culture. He helped her understand who she is, and encouraged her to paint their stories and culture. You won’t find any Romany secrets in her paintings, but you’ll see her best attempt to tell stories that are meaningful to her—and that show what that world has so generously given her.

Amanda Garrie has a PhD in creative writing with the University of Portsmouth and, having taught the subject academically, now works on commissioned projects out in the community. She was privileged to be Portsmouth City Council’s Library and Archives’ Service Poet in Residence for 2019, funded by Arts Council England. She is the lead facilitator for ‘T’Articulation’ a troupe of fifty Portsmouth based spoken word artists. Amanda has been published in a variety of anthologies, including by The London Magazine, and internationally. She is proud of her Romany heritage and delighted to be included in this volume of work.

Delia Grigore was born in 1972 in Galati, Romania. She is a Rroma writer, researcher and activist. She is the president of the Association of Rroma Centre ‘Amare Rromentza’. She has worked in the Rroma movement for more than 25 years. She is a lecturer and coordinator of the Rromani Language and Literature Study Programme of the University of Bucharest and holds a PhD in visual arts-ethnography-ethnology (2004) from the Romanian Academy. She’s a member of the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture’s Barvalipe Academy and of ‘Costache Negri’ Writers Society. She was the overall winner of ‘Amico Rom’ Creation International Contest (2023) in Italy. Author, co-author and convenor of many conferences, articles, studies and books regarding Rromani culture and literature, poet and editor of Rromani literature anthologies (2018-2022). She has written three books: Introduction in the Study of Traditional Culture Elements of the Contemporary Rromani Identity (2001); Rromanipen-Keystones of Rromani Culture (2011); Contemporary Rromani Identity-between Ethno-type and Stereotype(2017.

Kelly Marie Horsley lives in Gloucester, in the UK. She is an English Romany Gypsy who celebrates her culture by curating and exhibiting photographs of the Gypsy community. In July 2023 she curated an exhibition called ‘Kushti Divvus’ (Good Day), funded by Voices Gloucester, the Forgotten Stories of Gloucesters Romany Gypsy community. She is the winner of the 2024 Friends, Families & Travellers (FFT) ‘Arts, Culture & Heritage Award’.

Allison Hulmes is a Welsh Kale Gypsy, her Lovell/Lee/Herne/Braddick family have lived and travelled in Wales for over 300 years. Allison is a social work academic and is co-founding member and director of the Romani and Traveller Social Work association/ Community interest Company and a co-founder of the Coalition for the Rights of Travelling People. Allison has been a registered social worker for twenty-two years and has extensive experience in children’s and adult safeguarding with a research focus on safeguarding Romani and Traveller citizens. Allison is an activist and committed to preserving the Welsh Kale dialect along with her family heritage for future generations, as a fundamental human right to access one’s indigenous language and knowledge, as a means of authentically continuing ethnic identity, culture and history. She is currently developing resources for the new schools’ curriculum.

Helen Hutchinson is an Irish Traveller poet. Her family were one of the first Traveller families to be housed under the Itinerancy Act of 1967. They had no idea that it was in fact assimilation. This cost her family a lot, six suicides: two brothers, three nephews and a niece. She now writes through poetry of their journey of oppression, discrimination and racism. She tries give a voice to other Travellers and at the same time is therapeutic for her. A book of her poems is coming out soon, which highlights all the above issues Travellers still face to this day. While a lot of our young Traveller people are out there representing the community there's a lot more to be done at government level as well as at local level. Through her poetry she tries to break down barriers and at least get Travellers talking about improvements which they themselves could make. Her poetry chapbook From the Dirt Lane Back to the Open Roads (2024) is published by Tipperary Education Board.

Lynn Hutchinson Lee was first place winner of the 2022 Joy Kogawa Award for Fiction, with her literary fiction shortlisted for three other awards, including the Guernica Prize. Her writing appears, or is forthcoming, in Canadian and international publications, including Room, Prairie Fire, Fusion Fragment, Food of My People and CliFi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change (both from Exile Editions), Northern Nights (Undertow Publications), Wagtail (Butcher’s Dog), State of Matter, and elsewhere. She is co-editor of the anthology Through the Portal: Stories From a Hopeful Dystopia (Exile Editions). Her novella Origins of Desire in Orchid Fens comes out with Stelliform Press in 2025, and her novel Nightshade (Assembly Press) will be released in 2026. Lynn lives and writes in Toronto, Canada. Find her at www.lynnhutchinsonlee.ca and on X @LhutchinsonLee

Samantha Joyce, is a twenty-five year-old Irish Traveller. She does a lot of work within her community supporting Irish Travellers and advocating for their rights She is part of the Irish Traveller Movement’s Youth Forum as a youth leader, and has worked with Kilkenny Traveller Movement and the Traveller Health Project in Kilkenny as a wellbeing & awareness worker. She enjoys writing poetry and loves being creative through her work. She is passionate about working towards a better future for herself and everyone around her. Writing for her can be an escape and a safe haven. She finds that everyone has their escapes and hers has become her poetry. Her only wish for her pieces is that they reach the right people and have the right impact. She was Writer in Residence at Butler Gallery, Kilkenny in Summer 2024.

Jane Kelton is a writer and traditional Irish flute and whistle player based in New York City. Travelling intermittently to and from Ireland since the 1970s, she lived and worked in Galway in the late eighties and early nineties and participated in the arts community. She was a performing member of MACNAS theatre company and was an administrative aide at the Galway Arts Centre, where she produced concerts of traditional Hungarian, Rumanian and Bulgarian music. She also was active in traditional music sessions, occasionally led some, and worked as a street musician (busker). After completing an M.Phil in Theatre and Anthropology at NYU, she worked for a Russian Kalderash family in NYC as a jack-of-all-trades: seamstress, tutor, babysitter, writing coach, and household helper. She is grateful to the Romani people and Irish Travellers she knows for their friendship and tries to be a useful ally.

Ozgecan Kesici is a writer and translator whose short stories and poetry have appeared in Stadtsprachen, Banshee Press and Poetry Ireland Review, among others. She is a recipient of the Irish Arts Council Agility Award and Literary Bursary, as well as the Berlin Senate Literature Work Stipend. She translated Rakhymzhan Otarbayev's Kazakh short stories (Dagyeli Verlag, 2022) and received a German Translation Fund Initiative Scholarship to translate Ozan Zakariya Keskinkilic’s debut poetry collection, Prinzenbad (Elif Verlag, 2022). She holds a PhD in sociology from University College Dublin.

Alunica Lepadatu is a Romanian Roma, who was raised in a traditional Roma household. From her childhood she was surrounded with relatives. That is where she was taught about Romanipe—love towards family and pride of being Roma. She started writing poems about the Roma life in different languages (Russian, Romanian and Romanes), praising the culture, and willing to share with the world the beauty of Romanipe. This willingness led her to gain a BA degree in Journalism and work for the Roma Radio and TV programs. Facing the injustice that Roma tackle in every aspect of their life, Alunica decided to fight for the rights and freedoms of her nation. She started actively engaging in Roma Rights activism, working with Law companies, governmental bodies, and civil society sector. Alunica gained her MA in Political Science and moved to the UK, where she continues promoting the Rights of Roma.

Alison Lock lives in North Wales. She grew up in the Southwest of England and has Cornish and Irish ethnicity. She has an MA in Literature Studies and Creative Writing and her stories have won prizes in The London Magazine, The Conference for the Short Story in English at Shanghai, and The Segora International Short Story Prize 2020 amongst others. Her poetry has been widely published and anthologised, with the publication of four collections and several pamphlets. Her latest book of poetry, Thrift, published by Palewell Press in 2024, reflects the natural world and the current state of loss due to climate change. Her narrative poetic sequence of self-transformation, Lure, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s Between the Ears. Her research into the lives of 19th Century Roma and Romani Ryes forms the basis of her novel-in-progress.

Oksana Marafioti is an American writer and activist of Romani, Armenian, Greek, and Ukrainian descent. She aligns strongly with all of her cultures and often explores themes of identity, belonging, and multiculturalism in her writing. Oksana is the author of the bestselling memoir, American Gypsy (FSG, 2012) and the urban fantasy, Donatti’s Lunatics (WRP, 2018). Her works have appeared in Rumpus, Slate, LA Times, and Time Magazine, as well as in a number of literary journals and anthologies. Oksana was the 2013 BMI—Library of Congress Kluge Center Literary Award recipient and the 2020 recipient of the Picador Guest Professorship Award from the University of Leipzig, Germany. In 2022, she was awarded a literary grant from the Nevada Arts Council and The National Endowment of the Arts.

Gina Merino is a Muchwanka (Rromani) born and raised in California. As a child she was raised in the Gypsy culture and left her family at nineteen. She married outside of her culture and has two adult children and a beautiful grandson. She has been in the real estate profession for twenty years. She was featured in the L.A. Times podcast, Foretold. Currently she is writing a memoir and putting together a podcast based on her experiences growing up as a Gypsy woman; health care, education and discrimination.

www.sharybari.com @offical_moderndaygypsy

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Shannon Nolan is a wife and mother of two from London. She is a former actress from an ethnic minority background, Irish and Romany Travelling community. Shannon has managed to stick it out through education and training, both acting and writing being her main passions, providing her many opportunities to give back to other Travelling girls.

Ildiko Nova is a local multi-disciplinary artist. Her artistic background includes various mediums and experiences from painting to design. She loves to paint portraits, city scenes and animals. Her illustration work is about storytelling and juxtaposition, she enjoys putting elements together that are unusual or unexpected. She asks questions about the growing urban setting and its effects. Trained as a community worker, her activism includes giving voice to the lives of underprivileged people and addressing societal issues. In the last decade she successfully learned digital design and beaded embroidery. Her work is published worldwide, she has achieved several awards.

Lavie Olupona is an Irish Traveller-Nigerian spoken word poet from Cork, Ireland who is often found annotating a secondhand book with a hot chocolate. In 2022, Lavie was invited to the Dáil to share her poem 'Let our Voices be heard'. To date, she was selected along with 14 other teenage writers, for the Edna O'Brien Bursary (Young Writers Award), performed at Misleór (Festival of Nomadic Cultures), Many Tongues of Cork, Africa Day Cork and the Outsiders Club ‘Let the Pen Speak’ events. She likes to write about her rich heritage, issues facing young people today and (slightly exaggerated) romance.

Julie O’Leary is an Irish Traveller writer. She is from a long heritage of old Irish storytellers. She comes from Westmeath in the heart of Ireland. She has worked with Maynooth College as a guest speaker on her current novel. She has been recognised by the Arts Council of Ireland as a suitable candidate for peer panel reviews. She was awarded the Tyron Guthrie Centre Bursary Award by the Irish Writers Centre. She was published in the Traveller Times in 2019. She is hoping to publish her novel in the near future.

Mary Foley Olupona is a West Cork, Irish Traveller native who holds a Bachelor’s degree. Since a young age she has had a passion for poetry. She is the mother of four ‘forevermore’ and spends her days writing poetry about injustice, spending time with her kids and dog. She is an active member and worker at the West Cork Traveller Centre and loves working with people.

Rosemary Omar lives in Christchurch, New Zealand with her husband and one son. She originally trained as a registered nurse. But loves to write. She has had a short story published in a New Zealand Anthology of short stories. She has Romany ancestry, on both sides of my family, related to some well known families. Her paternal grandmother was Romany, migrating to NZ where she kept her ethnicity secret due to prejudice. Her mother's family was very open, and practiced many Romany customs, such as reading palms, tea leaves and cards. She met and married her husband, Rashid, in Singapore, they had four children, two daughters and two sons. Their oldest son Tariq was particularly keen on exploring his Romany ancestry when he was murdered in a white supremacist terrorist act on March 15, 2019. He was twenty-four years old. She was in the middle of the shooting outside. The poem represents Tariq on that day. She is blessed to have three surviving children, a son-in-law and two grandchildren.

Chris Penfold is English Gypsy (Romanichal). She was brought up in Wiltshire and the Forest of Dean. After having four children she began writing her father’s life story and Romani poems which she read on Jake Bowers’ Rokker Radio show. She continued writing and her work has been published in various magazines. She continues to be passionate about the Romani language. In April 2024 she was awarded the Susan Alexander Lifetime Achievement Award at the Friends, Families & Travellers Awards.

Delia Pring M.A. has Romanichal English Gypsy, and Irish Traveller heritage. She is creatively active and her poetry and has been published in multiple journals. Her first collection of creative non-fiction Making Marks: Musings of a Curious Mind was published in 2022. Delia is currently working on a collection exploring her hometown and how it has influenced her travel, creative practice and her need for a nomadic lifestyle.

Ella Shaw is from North Yorkshire, living in Italy. Her mother came from Romany Shaws and her father from Harris Romanies. Her great granny was born and raised in a vardo. She is a poet and painter. She has travelled many countries including Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Austria and France. Her earliest memories are in caravans and seeing deer and foxes out of the window. She comes from a big family. She always had many cousins to play with as a child in Cumbria where they all met as one big family to spend the springs and summers in their caravans by the sea and mountains. They still go there, it’s their atchin tan. She has always been inspired to write poetry because of her travels and what she has seen and experienced. She has published a book called A Million Eyes under the penname Ella May Sophia. She is currently working on a new publication and continues to write almost daily.

Candy Sheridan was born in Bristol, educated by the Sisters of Mercy. Her family moved every year or so. From Bristol, to Europe, through Africa, back to Ireland, London and now Norfolk. People always query her accent, ask where she is from. She is from nowhere, from the M4 that the Irish Travellers, like her father, built. Hers is a free-range family, scattered across Ireland, the American west coast and Australia. Her name remains her passport, identity and heritage. She is not a writer, she is a storyteller. She was the child who sat with the adults, soaked up the stories about animals in the old farmer's house, the banshee, the wakes, who fell out with who, the old ways entered her heart at a young age. She found her writing self in her shop where she stopped and settled. She heard people's stories and then began to write my own.

Jess Smith, at the ripe age of 50, took a leap of faith, to write about her life on the road, living in a bus with seven sisters, loving parents and her jugal, Tiny. Would she find a publisher? And how much interest would there be in her Travelling culture? Three autobiographical books, one of tales, a novel and a book of facts around the culture, have taken her on a wonderful journey around the world.

Paulina Stevens grew up in an insular Romani American family and is the subject of Foretold, a podcast produced by the LA Times. She owns a holistic healing store, Romanic Holistic in California. Together, Jezmina (aka Jessica Reidy) and Paulina co-host Romanistan, a podcast celebrating Romani culture.

Jezmina Von Thiele (they/she) is a writer, editor, educator, podcaster, and fortune teller. They write poetry, fiction, & nonfiction published in Prairie Schooner, The Kenyon Review Online, Narrative Magazine, & elsewhere, and some of this work is published under Jessica Reidy. Jezmina reads tarot, palms, and tea leaves in their Romani family’s tradition, both online, and in-person. Jezmina specialises in teaching creativity, art, writing, and literature workshops; divination; and other spiritual topics. Jezmina also tells fortunes and performs with The Poetry Brothel—Boston. They are co-host of Romanistan, a podcast celebrating Romani culture, alongside co-host Paulina Stevens. Jezmina and Paulina authored their debut book, Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling. They are also owner and operator of the online vintage Etsy shop, Evil Eye Edit.

Chrissie Donoghue Ward is writer and human rights activist for more than 40 years. Most of her work has been trying to get better rights for Travellers. She speaks at events related to this as she is very passionate about this subject. As a result of doors being shut in her face around Travellers rights she began to write poems and short stories despite being illiterate. She taught herself to read and write watching her children do their homework. She’s had poetry published and is currently working on a children’s book for settled children to learn about Traveller children and for Traveller children to see something on a book shelf they can relate to.

Winnie Ward is a thirty-five years old Irish Traveller from Sligo. She grew up there with her parents and six siblings. When she was eight years old the family moved to Newbridge, Co. Kildare where they lived for the next five years. When she was thirteen they moved back to Sligo and settled there. She left the family home in 2017 when she married a Roscommon man, however the marriage was cut short after one month due the abusive nature of the marriage. After six months back in the family home she moved out and began living on her own. She ended up on the wrong side of the law and went to prison in 2018 for ten months. In prison, she started writing poetry out of boredom but it soon turned into a hobby and now it's a passion. She is hoping to get a book of her poetry published someday soon.

Claire Wimbush works as an International Tracing Service Archive Researcher at The Wiener Holocaust Library in London. Claire’s poetry has been published in the Erbacce Press and Wagtail: The Roma Women’s Poetry Anthology (Butcher’s Dog, 2021). Claire was shortlisted for the Emerging Writers Award in 2022 and awarded the bursary position on Imogen Hermes-Gowers ‘Writing the Past’ course in the same year. Her first love is prose and she is always in the middle of writing too many novels and short stories.

Sarah Wimbush is a Yorkshire poet. Her collection STRIKE (Stairwell, 2024) was shortlisted for the 2024 Forward Prize for Best Collection. Her first collection, Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands, was published with Bloodaxe in 2022. She is the author of prize-winning pamphlets: The Last Dinosaur in Doncaster (Smith/Doorstop, 2021) and Bloodlines (Seren, 2020). Her poetry has been included in Wagtail: The Roma Women’s Poetry Anthology (Butcher’s Dog, 2021) and most recently appeared in PN Review, the Morning Star and Poetry Wales. She is the recipient of awards from the Society of Authors and New Writing North and co-edited The Poetry Business anthology, COAL (Smith/Doorstop, 2024).

Cecilia Woloch is the author of a novel and six collections of poems, most recently an expanded and updated edition of Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem, which has been given multi-lingual, multi-media performances in Los Angeles, Paris, Warsaw, Athens and elsewhere; a poem from the new edition was also included in a memorial exhibit at Auschwitz -Birkenau in 2021. Her honours include fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, CEC/ArtsLink International and the Center for International Theatre Development. Her work has been published in translation in French, German, Polish, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Hebrew and Romanes. She collaborates regularly with musicians, dancers, visual artists, actors, and filmmakers. Born in Pennsylvania and raised in rural Kentucky, she has travelled the world as a poet, writer, teacher and performer.

Vanessa Wood-Davies’ Gypsy heritage comes from the family of Abram Wood, who is her five times great grandfather, and John Roberts, Telynor Cymru, who is her three times great grandfather. Her grandfather William was the last in their line to live in Wales with the Gypsy family in Newtown. She lives in Norfolk, but spends time in Wales in her caravan regularly. She spent most of her working life working with horses, and has three of her own. She plays the harp, writes tunes, makes jewellery, draws and generally creates things. She’s even designed and built two harps and hopes to make more.

Chrissie Ward

Where were you born?

Where were you born, it doesn’t matter I’m sure

born to a mother on the side of the road

gave birth to a baby in winter winds

they moved her wagon with nowhere to go

packing her extra bundle just a day old.

Walking the road in winter winds,

in her body so much pain.

Ireland never worried

only the lord the lord.

Where were you born, it doesn’t matter I’m sure

born to a mother on the side of the road.

The trouble you get when you’re born to a clann

a tinker, a Traveller with stars in your heart,

moving around with a jolly sound

blocking the pain away from your heart.

* * *

Karen Downs-Barton

Meum et Tuam

Two found poems (immuring text) The Gypsy Problem in Victorian England, George Behlmer; (sonnet text) The Care System and Gypsies, Roma and Travellers: an investigation, published by The Traveller Movement.

Colporteur you are clouds on the far horizon of the earth’s eternal out-

casts, the Egyptianis. Their lure is a wandering life in velgoroos and vans

of polished mahogany, trimmed with lace, in which an uncle named Plato

in the light of concern that year on year travelled rural from fair to fair

there has been an increase of GRT transporting prey and magical beliefs.

children in care, forcibly adopted, Gypsy children, those fashioned from

this briefing concluded that overall stolen reeds and willow twigs find

the Gypsy / Roma children living in a state of half-hatched blackbirds /

difficult circumstances in receipt of feather brushes—share folktales of

a Child Protection Plan or looked after kidnapping and gluing paled lips

we might have expected a higher number together with rustic bird lime

nationally, investigations increase to stop the hawkers’ talk of steel pens.

common in all communities are The Oriental love of an artful duker’ing

emotional abuse is a fortune teller predicting a silver ring and future dress

and poverty in folk-songs to share with an epic of ale among wanderers.

still, numbers remain low For the cult of those who speak for themselves

there is no evidence of disproportionality in a Dodo language—the wool

in ballad throats—is sung in a mash of hop-pickers’ patois to a harvest of

souls and Ryes, for child vagrants packed in casual wards, natural nomads

who mingle in barns, a midnight dance warping to a satanic Windyghoul.

ISBN	978-1-915022-70-7
Pub Date	Friday, September 27, 2024
Cover Image	Ildiko Nova
Page Count	192
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KIN - An Anthology of Poetry, Story and Art by Women from Romani, Traveller and Nomadic Communities / Raine Geoghegan, editor & Fióna Bolger, co-editor