Joolz Denby
Joolz Denby has been a professional writer of poetry and fiction, spoken-word artist, illustrative artist and photographer for over thirty years.
* Add Joolz as a Friend on Facebook: look for Joolz Denby.
* This year will be Joolz' 25th year as a spoken-word artiste at Glastonbury Festival: with over 100 performances of her writing at the festival, she is one of Glastonbury's most prolific performers.
*Joolz latest spoken word album, Spirit Stories, with music by Justin Sullivan is now available for download/mail order: please visit The Shop @ www.newmodelarmy.org Buyer Reviews: 'Two listens now. Still got gooseflesh. Poetry to touch the soul. And that voice. Hell, Joolz could read the phone book and leave you entranced. The music just provides the backdrop, but Joolz' voice is the main instrument here.' Ifran. '(the track) Boy You Need the Road - WOW.' St Alfonzo. (reviews taken from the Noticeboard at www.newmodelarmy.org). Magazine Reviews: 'Joolz Denby remains one of the real treasures of the British literary scene and "Spirit Stories", her new album, is quite simply an essential listen. . . Mesmerisingly atmospheric throughout. 'Bubblegum Slut Fanzine. Issue 32.
*She is an award-winning, multi-nominated novelist; for her debut novel Stone Baby (HarperCollins) Joolz won the Crime Writer's Association New Crime Writer Of The Year and was shortlisted for the John Creasey Award. She was also awarded the audio book industry's prestigious 'Earphone Award' (USA) for her brilliant unabridged recording of Stone Baby. Her third novel, Billie Morgan (Serpent's Tail) was shortlisted for the 2005 Orange Prize and also the Crime Writer's Association Dagger In The Library award.
*Her last novel Borrowed Light (Serpent's Tail) was released in February 2006 to enormous critical acclaim and her latest collection of poetry and short fiction Pray For Us Sinners (Comma Press), released in late 2005, is already in its second re-print. She has recently finished her new - as yet unpublished - novel, 'Wild Thing' (www.myspace.com/wildthingjoolzdenby) and has started working on another novel (working title) 'Midnight At The Rat N' Roses' and a new collection of poetry and short stories.
*Joolz tours the world giving highly acclaimed dramatic readings of her work (both poetry and prose). She is noted for the emotive, musical quality of her voice and the skill with which she presents the characters she has written about. She won the prestigious US audio book industry Earphone Award for her unabridged recording of her novel 'Stone Baby' and is considered to be the UK's premier woman spoken-word artist ('the Queen Of British Spoken Word'). In Britain she reads throughout the year at venues ranging from The Royal Albert Hall and the House of Commons to rock music festivals (twenty-two years as a performer at Glastonbury) arts centres, Universities, rock clubs and coffee houses. She is highly respected for her work with prison inmates.
* Joolz is an expert in the field of commissioned public poetry, having written poetry for Yorkshire Forward, The Royal Armouries, Alchemy Asian Arts, Yorkshire Museums Service, Bradford Capital Of Culture Bid and The Captain Cook Museum amongst others.
*Joolz is an extremely experienced and valued broadcaster, having worked regularly for radio of all kinds such as BBC Radio Four (including many broadcasts for Woman's Hour) and BBC Radio One. She has also a
“To be honest? I'd thought myself above them. What a nasty little counter-culture snob I was. There they were, doing their fucking best, trying to have a life, trying to bring up their children decently, struggling to make the payments on the little house, wondering where their youth had gone, where love had gone, what was to become of them and all I could do was be a snotty, judgmental cow. But it was no good. I couldn't be like them. I'd seen too much, done too much that was outside anything they knew. I wasn't better than them, but I was different. We had no point of contact other than work. Even then, they disapproved of my attitude, my ways of dealing with the clients. Many's the time I'd ground my teeth as Andrea or Fran had taken the piss out of some hapless, useless, illiterate get they were assigned to; being funny at the expense of their stupidity, their complete inability to deal with straight society. Sure, I knew it was partly a defence mechanism; they did it because it was laugh or scream, and we were always told it wasn't good to let the clients get too close. But all too often - not always, but enough times to make me seethe with irritation - there was an ingrained, self-serving elitism in there too. Who'd see it better than me? They sealed themselves up in their white-collar world like chrysalides and waited for some kind of reward for being good girls and boys, for playing the game, being a bit of a cut above the messy rest - a reward that didn't exist, would never come and that they would only realise was a lie when it was far too late.Now I would be one of the Others, the clients, the ones who stood outside in the cold and, shivering, looked in at the lighted windows of reason and middle-class respectability. I would be another colossal fuck-up, another dinner party story. But my sin was all the greater because I'd wilfully defected from the right side to the hopelessly, eternally wrong side. I was not only a screw-up, I was a traitor.”
“I smelt him, smelt Johnny; for a second I thought - what? That he was there, was with me, that he wasn't...But I realised it was his perfume, the one I'd had made specially for him by an artisan perfumer in New York, his own custom-made one-off blend. It had been hideously expensive but I hadn't cared as long as it had pleased him. It was all intense essential oils, layer upon layer of labdanum, patchouli, vanilla, vetiver, ambrette, frankincense, myrrh, amber, Bulgarian rose absolute, Oud wood - the list was endless and beautiful, like a scented prayer. The woman had said some of the ingredients would keep their fragrance for a hundred years, would never die. Like me, he'd said, like us. I'd put some drops of the heavy dark oil on a couple of cotton wool pads and put them in the box when we got it, now the fragrance - strange, narcotic, archaic - filled the room like his ghost, embracing me in memories.”