J.S. will be one of the selected open micers at

photo by Colliding Lines

Word Salad (a @Colliding Lines production) on Saturday 17th January, beginning at 7pm. She will be reading a couple of her poems from Years Ago You Coloured Me.

This is the first time that Word Salad is being held at The Artyst, at 56, Chesterton Road, Cambridge, CB4 1EN. The Artyst is a new venue "honouring Syd Barrett’s Legacy with a New Arts Space, Café and Bar in Cambridge".

Welcome to 2026. 

J.S. has a growing number of short stories and poems scheduled for publication this year. They will be announced here when they become available. So do check back for further information as the new year gets into its stride.

You can also follow J.S. on Facebook and BlueSky to keep up to date with her activities.

      Whichever mid-winter festival you celebrate, may it be a good one for you.

Suitably in time for Christmas, J.S.'s  mid-winter poem, Falling Like Feathers, is one of two guest poems on the Acumen Poetry website, alongside Patrick Osada's The New Estate.

You can read both poems here for the next week or so, but if you are still in the mood for Christmas spirit after the guest poems change, you can read Falling Like Feathers on its own here.

J.S. is very pleased to have a new, darkly illuminating short story in the second Midnight Ink anthology. The story is "Candles" and you can find Midnight Ink 2025 on Amazon

A final opportunity to attend Word Salad at the Thrive Cafe, Norfolk Street, Cambridge. No, it's not the end of Word Salad, but sadly it is the end of the lovely Thrive Cafe, which will be closing its doors on the following day, Sunday 16th November 2025.

But back to the salad...

On Saturday 15th November, beginning at 6pm, at the Thrive Cafe (on its penultimate day) J.S. will be one of the selected open micers and will be reading a couple of her poems from Songs of Steelyard Sue and Underword.

So, it's that time of year already, and websites, magazines and literary organisations are preparing their best-of lists for 2025, even though there's two and a half months of the year left to go.