What Makes a Collection?
From manuscript to collection – what to know as you prepare for submission.
On this practical day, no question is too small or too big. We’ll look at everything from ‘how do I know I’m ready for a collection?’ to ‘Is this a pamphlet or a collection?’ and ‘what are editors looking for?’. We’ll discuss how to research publishers, how to go about submitting, what you should send, and what you should say about yourself and your poetry.
Along the way, Katrina Naomi will also give you tips on making your collection as good as it can be, looking at how to organise the poems, whether to theme or not to theme, and how to pitch your work. We’ll consider collections by Caleb Femi, Cynthia Miller, Abigail Parry, Joelle Taylor, and Jane Yeh, among others, as exemplars of the collection form. Katrina will demystify the whole process of publishing to boost your confidence and will offer honest advice, along with ideas on marketing and publicity.
1 x full day session, running 10.30am–4.30pm (GMT), on 4 Oct 2025. This course will take place at Friends Meeting House, 173-177 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BJ.
Concessions & Accessibility
To apply for a concession rate, please send relevant documentation showing your eligibility for one of our concessions to [email protected]. Conditions of eligibility are detailed here. If you have any questions or wish to be added to the waiting list of a sold-out course, please email [email protected].
What to Expect
Please check the left hand side of this page for information on how this course works in practice, under the heading ‘Course Style‘. If you’re unsure as to what any of the terms there mean, or if this course is a good fit for you, please visit our What to Expect page which includes some further information on how our courses function.
Image credit: @avinezzati
About Katrina Naomi 
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Katrina Naomi is an award-winning poet, performer, mentor, and judge. Her fourth poetry collection, Battery Rocks, (Seren, 2024) is the winner of the Arthur Welton Award from the Society of Authors. Katrina’s previous collections have won an Authors’ Foundation Award and Saboteur Award, and she is a recipient of the Keats-Shelley Prize. Katrina’s poetry has appeared on Poems on the Underground, BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, Open Country, and Poetry Please, and in The TLS, The Poetry Review and Modern Poetry in Translation. She has a PhD from Goldsmiths and tutors for Arvon and the Poetry School. Katrina lives in Cornwall www.katrinanaomi.co.uk.
"Writing poetry has improved my self knowledge because it makes me think deeply about what I feel and finds the words to express it."
The Poetry of Picture Books
A Bargain with the Light: Exploring Lee Miller at Tate Britain
Creation/Destruction