Becci Fearnley

Becci Fearnley is a performance poet and children’s writer, performing and writing around London and Reading. She is a qualified teacher and bases much of her poetry around the lives of the teenagers she has taught. She performs at various venues around London and the whole of England, including The Roundhouse, The Poetry Café, The Gallery Café, BoxPark in Shoreditch, Camden Lock, Overground Tube Stations and numerous cafes in Canterbury. She is a Roundhouse Associate Artist and has worked with Apples and Snakes. She is a firm feminist, an animal enthusiast, and could not live without tea.

Quick bio

• Star Sign: Gemini
• Inspirations: Kate Tempest, Derek Walcott, Camden Market, China Town, my students, and the many conversations I have had with old/homeless/busy/lonely/ill people in London.
• Favourite books: Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett, Napoleon's Travelling Bookshelf by Sarah Hesketh and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
• Favourite film: Rabbit Proof Fence and Howl's Moving Castle.
• Favourite car: my granddad's prehistoric old car, which he rebuilt and reanimated and used to drive us around Penicuik in when we were little.
• Favourite food: My mum's amazing pasta bolognaise with red wine.
• Favourite places: Hendon Park, Canterbury, a little place called 'My Village Cafe' in Camden and the Alto Lounge in Reading.
• Favourite things: an Ankole mask I brought back from five weeks in Uganda, my Chamilia bracelet, bought for me by my amazing Mum for my graduation, and two golden gun awards I won at brilliant London Poetry night, Bang Said The Gun.
• Biggest Challenge: Training to be a teacher.
• Things I have learned: Being a teacher is the same as professional improvising, and a good metaphor for life. Parents are just really good at pretending they know what they're doing. Telling someone 'don't worry', is about as useful as telling a slug that a piano is about to fall on it. It doesn't matter how bad the thunderstorms get, they are NEVER as bad as the ones spent sitting under corrugated tin roofs, in electrical blackouts, watching the lightning strike the trees on the mountains in Ruhanga.