The Crowd Without, Flax018, poetry from Flax

For three and a bit years I have worked part time with Litfest, a literature festival and literature development agency in Lancaster. They have underpinned my freelance business, but now, as I've moved to Edinburgh, I've had to make the difficult decision to leave the warm comfort of the organisation.

Above is the final item I produced for Litfest, The Crowd Without, an anthology of new poetry. Working with editor Sarah Hymas, I've helped create six anthologies. In our efforts to create a comfortable, online reading experience with added bells and whistles– like links to audio files of the author's reading from the work and to online biographies – we've asked questions, experimented, got it wrong, got it right and started all over again. The most recent pair – though I never intended them to be pairs – are the one's I'm most proud of. They are clean, a little edgy and mysterious and read well without being stuffy.

Thanks to Sarah for her help and support on this and their predecessors, as well as Jonathan for his photography work and confirming eye and Andy for his hands off guidance of the process.

The Crowd Without and the short story anthology Unsaid Undone are available for free download from the Litfest website, on the Flax page. They are well worth a read, featuring some excellent new voices from the North West of England.