Adam Lowe is a writer, publisher and producer from Leeds, who now lives in Manchester. In 2009 he received four Lambda Award nominations and three British Fantasy Award nominations. In 2008, his magazine, Polluto, was awarded the Spectrum Fantastic Art Silver Editorial Award. In 2011, he was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award in Best New Writing.
He is particularly involved in the intersections between literature and other artforms, including art, graphic design, multimedia, music and performance. For example, in 2011 he worked with composer Nikki Franklin to adapt a poem into a 'jazz lieder' performance for Leeds' classical music festival, Leeds Lieder+. The result combined jazz sensibilities, classical composition, spoken word and theatrical performance into a five-minute 'epic'.
A guerilla literature activist, he believes in bringing literature to unusual spaces. He has performed and appeared in a wide range of settings, including: as Amy Wino, in a beehive wig made from tabloid newspapers, at Contact Theatre with Amy Lamé; at universities, festivals, colleges and schools; in bars, cafés and shopping centres; outside the DSS building and Harvey Nichols in Leeds, as part of a West Yorkshire Playhouse commission for Night Light; in museums and historic gardens; in marketplaces, the high street, and shop windows; in a church; at the seaside; in a number of tents; outside a Chinese takeaway; and in Jack Fulton's Frozen Foods, between the Weight Watchers' ready meals and the frozen oven chips.
In 2012, he will be project manager for To Market, To Market, an ambitious site-specific intervention in Leeds Kirkgate Market, which will involve interactive websites, a promenade performance, poetry carried on canvas tote bags, and a 'storytelling' stall to trade stories with the venue's users. He will also be lead artist and consultant for the Grammar School at Leeds' War of the Words creative writing festival, which brings together various primary schools with the Grammar School, in order to build relationships, integrate creative writing into the curriculum in a meaningful and long-term way, and share resources and best practice between teachers and schools.
Adam enjoys bringing the everyday world to life through words. He was one of the 2010 young writers in residence at the I Love West Leeds Arts Festival, where his poetry tour of Armley was a crowd-favourite that took in Alan Bennett, prehistoric fish, wild cherry picking by the roadside, tea with Mr Tumnus the Narnian faun, and a local cruising ground for doggers. He also writes for Bent, where he writes a column as his semi-fictitious alter ego Beyonce Holes, and does promotions and marketing for Peepal Tree Press. He is co-founder and co-host of Bookmarked Literary Salon, based at Waterstones Deansgate.
Adam is a graduate of Street Voices 2, which saw him work with the Bush's Josie Rourke, and is an active member of Young Inscribe, housed by Peepal Tree Press. In the past he has been a part of Critters.org and Orson Scott Card's Hatrack River Writers' Workshop. Adam regularly delivers workshops for young people and adults, and runs an annual writer development programme for new writers who specialise in 'weird' and cross-genre writing. Because of this, he was made a Youth Ambassador for the Cultural Olympiad in Yorkshire. In 2009 his short play 'Boys' was produced at Theatre-in-the-Mill, Bradford, and previous theatre work was showcased in 2008's New Stages Festival at the University of Leeds.
He has appeared in print and online in such anthologies and magazines as Word Riot, Unlikely Stories, The Cadaverine, Chimeraworld, Leeds Guide, WAMACK, Saucytooth's, Kaleidotrope, PoetCasting.co.uk, and Ex Plus Ultra, with work forthcoming in Trespass. Adam's academic writing has appeared at eSharp and is forthcoming Queering the Fantastic. Last year his debut novella, Troglodyte Rose, was also released in limited edition hardback by Cadaverine Publications. An expanded novel-length paperback is due out in 2012 the other side of the Mayan Apocalypse (if the world lasts that long).
Currently he is attached to a young writers' group at West Yorkshire Playhouse, and his BBC-commissioned short play 'Deep Blue Skin' was showcased there in March. The black comedy/musical follow-up, Nero High School Slaughterhouse, is currently in development. It can only be described as Glee meets Carrie.
He was also 2011 writer in residence at Zion Arts Centre in Hulme, Manchester, and has recently completed an attachment with Conor McKee Productions and Wyllie Longmore at the Royal Exchange Theatre. The former culminated in a vast site-specific promenade intervention located in the Zion building and spanning a hundred years of history. The latter culminated in a spoken word theatrical performance called Friend Roulette, dealing with social media, virtual reality and cyber sex. Elsewhere he has been commissioned to lead an Olympics-funded youth writing project for Barnsley museums, where he developed written, filmic and audio responses to the collections at Wentworth Castle and Cannon Hall.
Awards
Eric Hoffer Award/Best New Fiction (shortlisted) (2011)
Lambda Literary Award/Transgender (shortlisted) (2010)
Lambda Literary Award/Gay Fiction (longlisted) (2010)
Lambda Literary Award/Poetry (longlisted) (2010)
Lambda Literary Award/Bisexual (longlisted) (2010)
British Fantasy Award/Best Novel (longlisted) (2009)
British Fantasy Award/Best Collection (longlisted) (2009)
British Fantasy Award/Best Magazine (longlisted) (2009)
Spectrum Fantastic Arts/Editorial (Silver Award, won) (2008)
Bibliography
Troglodyte Rose (Lethe Press, 2012) (novel)
Monster (Dead Ink Press, 2012) (novella)
Best New Writing 2012 (Hopewell Publications, 2011) (anthology)
Precious Cargo (Fruit Bruise Press, 2011) (poetry chapbook)
Shiny Black Thing (Punk A$$ Kids Productions, 2010) (anthology)
lavenderblack (Fruit Bruise Press, 2010) (poetry)
Troglodyte Rose (Cadaverine Publications, 2009) (novella/chapbook)
Clutching at Seashells (Fruit Bruise Press, 2009) (poetry chapbook)
Borrowed Time (Fruit Bruise Press, 2009) (poetry chapbook)
Killing Bob Marley (Punk A$$ Kids Productions, 2009) (anthology)
Chimeraworld 5 (Chimericana Books, 2008) (anthology)
Commissions/Residencies
Writer in Residence/A Pleasant Sunday Afternoon promenade, Zion Arts Centre (2011)
Composers & Poets Forum, Leeds Lieder+ (2011)
'Mary', a song for a capella voices (with Nikki Franklin), BBC Singers (2011)
Artist in Residence/Seeds of Change, part of Precious Cargo, 2012 Olympics (2010-11)
21st Anniversary Attachment, West Yorkshire Playhouse & BBC Writersroom (2010-11)
Writer in Residence, I Love West Leeds Arts Festival (2010)
Street Voices 2, Freedom Studios (2009)
Light Night, West Yorkshire Playhouse (2009)
Associate Artist, Garner & Firmin, International SEAS Festival (2009)
Education
MA Writing for Performance & Publication (University of Leeds)
BA (Hons) English Langugae & Literature (Class I) (University of Leeds)
Related Links
http://www.troglodyterose.com
http://www.adam-lowe.com
http://www.polluto.com
http://www.doghornpublishing.com
http://www.beyonceholes.com
http://www.ilovewestleeds.co.uk/adam_lowe.html
http://www.poetcasting.co.uk/?p=198
