Plymouth Laureate of Words: The Class of 2025-27

Event info:Join Plymouth’s Laureate of Words 2025-27, R.C. Thomas, and his shortlisted cohorts, Samantha Carr, Nica Cornell and Cate Taylor, plus special guest TBC, as they share a selection of their work to kick off the festival. There’ll be deep insight, there’ll be light-hearted laughter, and there’ll be everything in between. Grab your free ticket to reserve your seat and start the weekend as you mean to go on: invigorated with literary inspiration and creative energy.Author info:

Samantha Carr is a PhD Creative Writing candidate at the University of Plymouth, exploring ways to reimagine the lived experience of complex chronic illness and healthcare. She has led creative writing workshops, organised and participated in writing events, and been published in various journals, including Arc, Acumen, and Ink Sweat and Tears. In her spare time, she enjoys experimenting with surrealist art.

Nica Cornell is a South African writer and scholar based in Plymouth. She was first published, aged 14, when she wrote a weekly column for a national South African newspaper for three years. Her poetry anthology a sky is falling was published in 2023 and her memoir Sickness and Style: A Memoir of Distress and Dislocation through Dress.

Cate Taylor is a Plymouth-based writer whose poems have appeared in Hotdog and Girls’ Club. She will be reading from her debut novel, Shudder, an eerie speculative mystery. The manuscript was a top 100 finalist in the international Cheshire Novel Prize in 2024. Her work explores unsettling atmospheres, identity, and the quiet dread beneath everyday life.

R.C. Thomas is the author four books: The Strangest Thankyou, Zygote Poems, Faunistics, and Infinity Strings. He’s worked in various editorial roles for Symmetry Pebbles, Tribe, Thief, and INK. His poetry has been published internationally, accolades including an Honourable Mention in the Globe Soup Open Short Story Competition 2022 and shortlisted for The Haiku Foundation’s Touchstone Award for Individual Poems.

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Host or Publisher Plymouth Literary Festival