LAURA THEIS
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publications


​Publications

(selection)

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Winner of the 2022 Live Canon Collection Award.
Published by Live Canon, July 2023.
Available here.
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"Found a wind,
two ducks.

Fifteen clouds shaped like
questions containing their own answer..."




​​​My poem
​"I went out today looking for wonder"
published by 
Candlestick Press
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"mountains! forgive me
I wasn't made for climbing you..."
"



​


​My poem 'ode to june'
published by Candlestick Press
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"hush your blackest poems
as the ships around us sink..."





​My Poem 'Homeless Wind'
forthcoming in 2023
from Broken Sleep Books
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My poems 
Ameisenverteilungsmaschine
and miðnæturblár
in Poetry, April 2022
.

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​'how to extricate yourself'
my debut poetry collection,
published by Dempsey & Windle,
December 2020.
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My poem 'Supernatural'
​published in Rattle, April 2021.
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​My poem "flowers and space"
in Tyger Tyger,
The Colour Spectrum issue,
October 2022.
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​​My poem
"menagerie"
in 
Nightingale & Sparrow,
spring 2023

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"on your way to meet a stranger with a dead 
phone in your pocket and your unpredictable 
shadow in tow with its teeth and opinions you worry..." 






My poem "Eyrar"
in the 2022 Live Canon Anthology
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My poem 'neon skyline'
in Wayward & Upward (Off Topic Presss),
available here
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​My poem
'I will miss even the bindweed'
in No Place Like Home, (Macmillan),
available here
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​My poem "Tell Us About Yourself",
published September 2022, 
​ in ebook, softcover, and hardcover.
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My poem "Six Things Taygete
Had To Learn Without Being Taught"
shortlisted for the 
2021 Aesthetica Creative Writing Award,
​published in the Prize Anthology.
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​"Six Things Taygete
Had To Learn Without Being Taught" 
also won a
2022 Margaret Reid Poetry Prize
Honourable Mention.
Read the full poem here.
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My poem
'the bees' in the 
2022 Summer Issue
of the Caterpillar
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My poem
'the best years are the ones
you create space'
in Alchemy Spoon.
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Three poems of mine
in the 2022 Querencia
Autumn Anthology
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My Poem 'dwelling in a warm place'
published by Magma, 2022,
selected as a finalist for the
Magma Open Pamphlet Prize
​by Alycia Pirmohamed.
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"Gunner Tomlinson
is standing inside a lift
with a pounding heart,
a sandpaper mouth,
and a bulging bag-for-life
that he is not sure what to do with....
" 



My short story 'The Lift',
winner of the 2020 Mogford Prize
selected by Stephen Fry and Prue Leith.
​Read it here.
Listen to it here.
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''The Lift'
in The Oxford Collection
Food & Drink Stories
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"You begin with scavenger crows.
Unintentionally, more as a mind-calming exercise than anything, the way other girls clutch their keys and pepper sprays or pretend to be on the phone when walking alone.."
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My story "Bird Girl' in 
Mslexia Issue 85,
runner-up in the Flash Fiction Competition
judged by Kathy Fish
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My poem 'Raising Astaroth'
in the 2021 Summer Issue of Hecate.


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My poem 'concerning things...'
in the Summer 2022 issue of Asimov's.
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​My poem "I went out today looking for wonder"
in the 2022 Winchester Poetry Prize anthology,
selected by Jo Bell.
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My poem "a poem in which I use the word 'betoken' for the first time in my life", First Place Winner of the 2021 EAL Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize
and nominated
for the 2022 Forward Prize.

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""Della is not a good person. 
She is in fact not a person at all,
but if she were one,
she would not be a good one..."





My Story "Imaginary Company"
in  the Jellyfish Review
Memorable Characters Issue,
Spring 2022 
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My poem 'truth bomb'
in Ink, Sweat and Tears.,
​April 2022.
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"I am alone today
that is 
I’m not really alone..."








4 new poems in 
Fair Play -Poems for William Shakespeare ,
published by Dempsey & Windle
in 
May 2021.
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"reading this poem
will make you the kind of person mirrors
smile at approvingly..."





my poem 'false advertising' in 
WHAT THE MOON WAS TOLD,
edited by Janice Dempsey.
Published 1st May 2020.

(the poem is also featured in

The Auroras & Blossoms
PoArtMo Anthology
 2020...)



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"we can tell it is fairy water by the way
it appears and disappears
inside the bucket"






my poem 'water bucket' in 
Horses of a different colour,
the 2021 Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize Anthology
edited by Janice Dempsey.
Published May 2021.
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​
"...while I say nothing
morning lights itself"


my poem 'Salt Apples'
in Lucent Dreaming Issue 7
Spotlight interview here.
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"...on the first day the dragon moves in
don’t tell the neighbours but
take the batteries out of your smoke detector
you’ll thank me later…"
 


My poem ''advice from one who’s been burnt before"
shortlisted in the 
2020 Live Canon International
Poetry Competition 

(judged by Mona Arshi)
​Anthology available for preorder here.
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​My poem 'Sister' in Sylvia.
Published in January 2021.
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"at first no one noticed anything strange
about her language
when she talked about the house..."

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​My poem 'the dream house' in Sylvia.
Published in February 2021.
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My short story  'Name Change' in Sylvia.
Published in November 2021
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"Look up, up at us. Then look us up.
You will not find her...

"

My story "The Seventh Sister"
in an illustrated print edition
of "
Stargazers: Microtales from the Cosmos"
published by AE SciFi, Canada in 2020.
Available for pre-order here.
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​'agrypnia' and
'On Working In A Shop'
2 poems
in issue 6 of
harana poetry,
2020.
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​My poem 'for a spell' in the
Spring Issue of The Phare,
February 2021
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"somehow
I am still here..".






My poem 'aftermath'
in the 2020 VIVID poetry & art
anthology. Available here.
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My poem 'Storm Petrel'
in Whirlagust II,
the  2020 Yaffle Prize Anthology
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​Here's Paradise Instead. 
Blog Post
about my reading at the 1918 Allotment.
Published September 2021
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"You were so young the first time
​your parents tried to murder you.
Putting your trust in breadcrumbs
when you should have put your trust
in the birds...."






My poem
'Crumbs Triptych'
in Twisted Tales.
October 2021.
​Also available in the Makarelle Anthology. 







My poem
There's a Tyre Swing in Bagley Wood 
performed by
Oluwaseun Matiluko














​My poem
but the dancer 
performed by
Lorelei Piper







​​My poem
zombie apocalypse self-knowlegde
​
performed by
Edwin Roberts
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"​I hear your silence transform
on the other side of the wall

who has a mother?"

​
My poem 'family talk' in Strange Horizons

(also available as a poetry podcast)

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  • ​"...to live by a river or a lake of silver
  • ​​to own a boat and to float
  • through pearl-strings of afternoons...."
  • 'To Live by a River' in About Place
​

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"The monster moves in unceremoniously. 
It is simply there under your sofa,
when yesterday it was not..."



My short story 'The Monster'
on Manawaker's Flash Fiction Podcast 
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"look up: here I am my love
can you see me waving?
no of course not all you see is
a pale oval in your sky"



my poem 'writer in residence'
in Abyss & Apex
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"...we will not identify a lie/
when it unfurls its tendrils like poison/
ivy...
"

My poem 'truth or' in 
The London Reader Summer 2018 Issue


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"Oh take your pity elsewhere,
landlocked stranger,
I am still waiting to burn...."




My poem 'Storm Petrel' 
​in Tiny Seed Journal,
November 2020.

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"I’ve adapted well to the new situation
I say it and in the telling realize it’s a little lie
​
because that is not quite what happened..".






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My poem 'adaptation',
finalist in the
'Fruits of or Quarantine'
Competition. 
Print Anthology,
published Wingless Dreamer, 
November 2020,
available here.
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​My poem
“a sci-fi story about flying
urn hauntings that would make an excellent
Hollywood blockbuster” 
in Coastal Shelf
(Annual Spring Issue, 2022)

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My poem 'Windstille',
one of winners of the Oxford Brookes
November 2021 Poetry Challenge.


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"There is something I would like to tell you tonight.
A secret of sorts. Come a bit closer.
I’m going to have to whisper...
."


​​My story 
'A Lesson In Saying And Not Saying' 
 in  "Changelings & Fairy Rings'
​from Three Drops Press
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"...and the men here are boys
with tousled hair
and tea-steeped voices…" 



My poem 'Sehnsucht'
shortlisted in the 
2019 Live Canon International
Poetry Competition 

(judged by Zaffar Kunial)
​Anthology available here.
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"We came in from the dark,
and on our night-time walk
we had seen
so many spooky black trees
that ghosts seemed
a real possibility..."



My poem 'Tiny Choirboy',
for which I won
the 2018 Hammond House
​International Poetry Prize.
Anthology available here

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"I never knew my mother
almost dropped out of clockmaking
school when she had to admit to herself
there was something tick-ticking inside her"







My poem
'The Clockmaker's Daughter'
in issue 12 of  Tales from the Forest.
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"...I was always going to be 
a punctual baby…"
 


My poem
'The Clockmaker's Daughter'
shortlisted in the
Live Canon International Poetry Competition
(judged by Liz Berry)
​Anthology available here.













My poem
'The Clockmaker's Daughter'
performed by Nichole Bird 
(Live Canon Ensemble) 


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The 2019 Gloucestershire
Poetry Society Anthology
available here
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​
"we might call you magpies for all
you’ve taken from us but for everything
you took you also left something behind
like those birds who trade gold rings
for forgotten feathers..."



My poem 'give and take'
first published
in the spring 2019 issue
of Tigershark
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​"The dragon was a problem.
Everything else up to this point had gone according to plan...

The thorny vines with their poisonous blossoms, those hadn’t been a match for him and his trusty sword: he had slashed them into submission. He had braved the moat, scaled the castle walls, not without effort or injury, but certainly with unwavering confidence.

Somehow, he had expected things to be easy once he had managed all that, once he was inside, once he was standing in front of her enchanted bed, lips puckered.

Kiss the sleeper, break the spell, wedding bells. Now, however, there was the dragon. 

Dragons live to guard things. It’s their destiny. People have used them to guard treasure for centuries. This one was only a small, scrappy thing, thin and long, its scarlet scales impenetrable like chainmail. It had curled up on the sleeping girl’s pillow, and it had apparently decided that its job was to guard the girl’s innocence with its own eternal life.

Of course he had tried to stab it, that was his primal instinct - which was also why he no longer had a weapon, his sword shattered into pieces at the first attempt. Then he had tried to bribe the creature with gold coins from his pockets. The dragon had only stared at him, its golden eyes unblinking. Now he was trying to simply ignore it, and go in for the kiss regardless. But this was the worst strategy of them all, because now he had made the dragon angry.
It hissed and bared its fangs in warning, and when he did not back off, it spewed a scorching cloud of green fire in his direction. The heat and noxious fumes were enough to make him scramble into the corner of the room. He tried to still his racing heart. For the first time in his life, he didn’t know what to do. He did not cry, because no one had taught him how to. And he did not change his mind and go home, because that was not a thing one was allowed to do in his world. He had come to kiss the sleeping girl, this stranger, this was his quest, and he would die rather than give up. The small dragon was not one to suffer fools, and it knew what you have to do if you are small and vicious and in love. So it did.

When what once had been a prince and a hero was a mere wisp of smoke and ashes, the sleeping girl smiled without opening her eyes. She reached out a hand to pet the dragon’s scaly head. It nestled back against her soft skin, draped its tail around her slender neck and sighed, as they both drifted back into timeless sleep, happily ever after."

 My Fairy Tale Flash
'Love Conquers All' in Enchanted Conversations


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​'Quick Fix',
a ten-word-story,
first published in
Dime Show Review,
July 2018
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​'for soft long ears'
first published by Animal Magazine

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'The Haughty Gardener'
first published by allitera
in 'hingerissen in eurer mitte',
an anthology of female poets




Back issues
of the Catweazle Magazine
now available from the Oxford Poetry Library

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​​'winter spell', first published in 

Frozen Wavelets (Issue 4)
September 2020
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'but the dancer',
​first published
 Visual Verse 
October 2019
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'three lessons',
a tiny poem in response to a popular book,
first published in Little Rose Magazine 
in March 2018


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"...but upon returning
to my own shoebox room
that contains nothing
worth more than a fiver
a year’s worth of dust
and some mould
I surprise myself...."






My poem
'An Unexpected Fondness'
published by Dear Damsels,
November 2020.
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"It made her happy to see me eat.
It made me happy to watch her cook...
She never tried to teach me,
and I never thought to ask.
Until it was too late..."






My short story "The Sad Tagine", 
winner
of the Book a Break
Short Story Competition
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​'Harbingers of the Apocalypse',
one of my flash fiction stories
published on tinystori.es
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Badass Snow White
in Briar's Lit Volume I
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​
'prediction' 
​first published in September 2018
  by the Voices Project Poetry Library
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My Flash Fiction  in  Welter
2021 Micro Fiction Contest Honorable Mention
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"....Ich aber kämme
meine widergespenstischen Locken
süffisant lächelnd,
wie einst die Lorelei..."


'10 Years - Words and Question Marks',
bilingual chapbook publication
with Sophia Heyland,
available from the
Oxford Poetry Library Catalogue

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​'it's never one of the good ones',
first published
in the 2018 Summer Issue
​of Rise Up Review

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​Cuntry Living (feminist zine),
Summer 2017 Issue
available from the
Oxford Poetry Library Catalogue

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I see you fall.
You plunge from the desk and your white glass moon orb lampshade shatters.
An inexplicable suicide...



My flash fiction story Shard Luck
on Reflex Fiction
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"My back is itching.
I think I’m growing wings."


​'I dream of sharks again'
(an older story from 2014)
​up on Isis Lit




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​

Other new writing in 2021: Dreams and Nightmares, the Project Lockdown Anthology, Pause for Paws
and
 in 2022:
the AUB Prize Anthology, the Wildfire Words Anthology, 
the 2022 Hippocrates Awards Anthology, 
Ó Bhéal's Five Word Anthology, the Shelley Memorial Anthology, the Wild Word.

Forthcoming in 2023:


Gifted - 2023 O Bhéal Anthology
poem from a witch's pocket - Rothemere Institute Anthology
beholder, three in translation, furnishings - Poetry is not Dead Anthology
Lazy Clairvoyant - Wet Grain

walpurgis eve -Worlds of Possibility
Sito - Tinted Trails Anthology
dreams of flying - DREAMS anthology
A Flying Visit To The Writer's Zoo - Amsterdam Quarterly
​My shrink is a dandelion - Candlestick Press


...and my new collection A Spotter's Guide for Invisible Things from Live Canon!!





​
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have a look at my recurring themes...
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return to writing...
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