Andy Croft (born 1956) is an English writer, editor, poet and publisher based in North East England.[1] His books include Red Letter Days, a history of British political fiction of the 1930s.[2] Other books written or edited by Croft include Out of the Old Earth, A Weapon in the Struggle, Selected Poems of Randall Swingler, After the Party, A Creative Approach to Teaching Rhythm and Rhyme,Forty-six Quid and a Bag of Dirty Washing, Bare Freedom and The Privatisation of Poetry. He has written seven novels and 42 books for teenagers, mostly about football.[1]
Writing residencies include the Hartlepool Headland, the Great North Run, the Southwell Poetry Festival, the Combe Down Stone Mines Project, HMP Holme House and HMP South Yorkshire. He has given many poetry readings, including readings in Paris, Moscow, Potsdam, Sofia, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, New York and London's Poetry International. He ran the Writearound Community Writing Festival in Cleveland, the T-junction International Poetry Festival in Middlesbrough, the Ripon Poetry Festival and Smokestack Books. From 2004-2022 he was poetry editor at the Morning Star.[1][3]
The Night Shift (2010) with Michael Baron and Jenny Swann[18]
Everything Flows: A Celebration of the Transporter Bridge in Poetry (2012)[19]
A Modern Don Juan: Cantos for these Times by Divers Hands (2015) with Nigel Thompson
Release the Sausages! Poems for Kier Starmer (2025)[20]
Other publications
smoke! an historical pageant (2004, Mudfog) - commissioned as part of the 150th anniversary of Middlesbrough.[21]
Comrade Heart: A Life of Randall Swingler (2003), revised 2020 as The Years of Anger
References
^ abc"About the Contributors", in Edward J. Carvalho (ed.), Acknowledged Legislator: Critical Essays on the Poetry of Martín Espada. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014, ISBN1611476429 (pp. 333–4).
^Croft, Andy; Mitchell, Adrian (2003). Red sky at night: an anthology of British socialist poetry. Nottingham: Five Leaves. ISBN9780907123491. OCLC51622309.
^Fuller, Cynthia; Croft, Andy (2006). North by north-east: the region's contemporary poetry. Cullercoats, Northumberland: Iron Press. ISBN9780906228937. OCLC212204375.
^Croft, Andy; Dymoke, Sue (2006). Not just a game: an anthology of sporting poems. Nottingham: Five Leaves Publications. ISBN9781905512133. OCLC85824026.
^Croft, Andy (2007). Speaking English: poems for John Lucas. Nottingham: Five Leaves Publications. ISBN9781905512126. OCLC154708360.
^Baron, Michael; Croft, Andy; Swann, Jenny (2010). The night shift. Nottingham: Five Leaves Publications. ISBN9781905512584. OCLC244314996.
^Croft, Andy (2012). Everything flows: a celebration of the transporter bridge in poetry. Middlesbrough: Middlesbrough Borough Council. ISBN9780860830924. OCLC858967262.
^Croft, Andy; Thompson, N. S.; Byron, George Gordon Byron (2015). A modern Don Juan: Cantos for these times by Divers Hands. Five Leaves. ISBN9781910170045. OCLC1062202730.