​       Susan Jane Sims lives with her husband Chris in Beaminster, Dorset. She has been passionate about poetry since childhood but began writing more seriously when studying for an English Literature degree in her thirties as it included a creative writing module. She is currently pursuing an interest in reading her work in public and has appeared at Bath Arts festival, Penzance festival, Bradford on Avon, Bristol and London venues. Her work has been published in a variety of magazines and anthologies and she has had prizes in competitions.
      Susan published her pamphlet collection Irene’s Daughter in 2010 through her own publishing organisation Poetry Space. Her first full length collection A number of things you should know was published in 2015 by Indigo Dreams Publishing. She loves encouraging others to write, particularly young people and for eight years (until 2016, when the project ended) she worked as a writer in primary schools with Threshold Prize.
In January 2018, Susan was awarded a Hawthornden fellowship and had the privilege of staying in a Scottish castle for four weeks. This proved to be a healing and creative space to finish and edit her collection Splitting Sunlight.
       She loves connecting with other creative people and does this through her membership of Second Light Network, Bath Writers and Artists, Lapidus and the Royal Society of Arts.

'I found the poems incredibly moving, and also impressed by your style - absolutely clear and stopped me in my tracks.'
Catherine Davies

'It is so moving and brave - it is beyond words.'
Ruth O’Callaghan

'I read Splitting Sunlight last night and was very moved by it, moved to tears. The cover is beautiful and I loved the title poem, particularly the phrase "rainbow wraps/your cannulated wrist" which just says it all, really. It's a beautiful and very moving tribute to Mark and I think it will help many other people who have to travel the same journey.'
Janet Sutherland 

​'Thank you so much for your signed copy of your poems, I have just finished reading them. Wow, they are incredible. Devastatingly raw with emotion. I had to hold back the tears towards the end. They are genuinely exceptional. Just wanted to let you know.' 
Davide Bertone

'Splitting Sunlight' by Susan Jane Sims
Published January 2019
84 pages, W15cm x H21cm
​£10.00
Available from Amazon.co.uk from1st February 2019 or now from this website (our prices include postage and packing)

Poems from 'Splitting Sunlight' by Susan Jane Sims

Mothers and Sons
 
I thought I knew
all about mothers
all about sons
thought I knew all there was to know
  
That was then
when words like as and when
and tomorrow
meant something completely different
 
Wednesday 18th February 2015

Grenades
 
bottled with your blood
have taken
almost twelve years
to silently explode
within your vital organs.
 
On the scans
they look like craters;
evidence for the pain
you had on Wednesday;
the dry cough you’ve had for weeks;
 
the night sweats
you blamed
on a warm duvet
for a mild winter.