Aisle16

Aisle16 is a collective of seven writers: Tim Clare, Joe Dunthorne, Chris Hicks, John Osborne, Joel Stickley, Ross Sutherland and Luke Wright. Click on a name to see more about that writer.
Formed by Luke Wright and Ross Sutherland in 2000 Aisle16 have risen from their humble beginnings, running a poetry club above a communist theme pub, to become one of the most sought after poetry acts in the UK.
From 2004 to 2007 Aisle16 featured Luke Wright, Ross Sutherland, Chris Hicks and Joel Stickley. Together the four created some of the most dynamic and ground-breaking poetry shows in the UK. Powerpoint won a Time Out Critics' Choice award in early 2005. Follow-up Poetry Boyband enjoyed sold out shows in Edinburgh that year before being awarded Time Out's Critics' Choice of the Year in 2005.
After a successful 20 date tour of Poetry Boyband Aisle16 were asked by Candida Lycett Green to headline John Betjeman's centenary party in Cornwall in August 2006. The boys put together an entirely new show entitled Aisle16's Services To Poetry, which saw them following in JB's footsteps and touring England looking for poetic moments in the everyday. The crucial difference was they only went to motorway service stations. Services to Poetry toured in 2007, finishing with a three night run at Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre.
Aisle16 has now grown to accommodate Tim Clare, Joe Dunthorne and John Osborne. The seven writers are all collaborating on different projects.
Your Aisle16er's for this project are:

Luke Wright is the true alternative laureate. The leading light of a new wave of stand-up poet taking the noble art by the scruff of the neck and turning it into something that can delight audiences at comedy clubs, indie gigs and literary festivals.
A 2007 4Talent Award winner, Luke is the founder of Aisle16, the host of Glastonbury's Cabaret stage and has three five star solo Edinburgh shows under his belt. His debut, the multi-media Luke Wright, Poet Laureate took the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival by storm, scooping a clutch of 5 star reviews before completing a 20 date national tour. Follow-up Luke Wright, Poet & Man was an altogether more grown up affair, stripped of any fancy-dan visuals it was a warmer, more reflective show and won it's author new fans, collecting a 'Spirit of the Fringe Award' along the way. This year he took A Poet's Work Is Never Done north of the border for a week whilst performing the sell out show Who Writes This Crap? A Poet's Work is Never done got two five star reviews and despite no marketing budget managed to sell out.
Wright's first book, Who Writes This Crap? was published by Hamish Hamilton/Penguin in November 2007. Co-authored with long time collaborator Joel Stickley, Who Writes This Crap? is a conpendium of everyday texts like mobile bills, cereal packets, newspaper articles and health warnings brutally satirised and presented as the trip through a day in the life of a temp worker in London. Visit www.whowritesthiscrap.com. Order it here.
Who Writes This Crap? is now a hilarious live show. Find out more from WhoWritesThisCrap.com
Wright also curates and hosts the Latitude Festival's Poetry Arena (the largest live poetry event in Europe) as well as taking his finely-tuned events elsewhere such as The Soho Theatre, The Whitechapel, Port Eliot Lit Fest and Luke Wright's Poetry Party - his own 2 day festival in Edinburgh. He also wrote the script for The technical Hitch, an animated short about Tikuf, the electrical anomaly who's at the heart of all technical malfunction - www.tikuf.com

Ross Sutherland was born Edinburgh in 1979. A former lecturer in electronic literature at Liverpool John Moore's University, Ross now works as a freelance journalist and as a tutor in creative writing. He was included in The Times's list of Top Ten Literary Stars of 2008.
Ross has co-written eight live literature productions, including the critically acclaimed Poetry Boyband (Time Out Critic's Choice of the Year 2005). He has four productions touring throughout 2009: Found in Translation, Infinite Lives, The Dead That Never Lived and The Shallowing Shovel.
Ross tours both individually and as a member of Aisle16, making regular appearances at Manchester Literature festival, Aldeburgh Poetry festival, Glastonbury, Latitude Festival, Port Eliot Literary Festival and poetry/comedy/cabaret/misc clubs around the UK. He's also completed solo tours of Switzerland and Germany, during which the Basel Zeitgung described him as "stromschnellen". He is reliably informed that this has something to do with white water rafting.
Ross's poems have been published in Rising, Reactions, Orbis, Mercy, Tears in the Fence, The Fix and NME. He co-edited the new writing anthology Rock/text (Pen & Inc, 2002) and appeared with the rest of Aisle16 in their group collection Live From the Hellfire Club (Eggbox, 2005). His debut solo collection, Things To Do Before You Leave Town , in published by Penned in the Margins in January 2009.

Chris Hicks is the finest legal mind in poetry, and is far heavier than he looks. Imagine somebody his size, carrying somebody much smaller, and you get the idea. It's probably his neck, if you can even call it a neck.
Chris is a member of aisle16- whose show Poetry Boyband was Time Out's Critics' Choice of the Year in 2005- and runs London live literature night Homework. He contributes to things like McSweeneys and performs poetry and stand-up like everyday in fun places (Latitude, Reading, Leeds, Glastonbury, Edinburgh, London, Slovakia, his dark room). 

Joel Stickley is a writer and performer. His work has been featured on Radio 4, Radio 3, BBC7, BBC Scotland, ITV and BBC Choice. As a member of Aisle16, he has performed at Glastonbury, the Edinburgh Fringe, Port Eliot Lit Fest, the Latitude festival and a whole clutch of literary events across the country. Aisle16's comedy theatre show Poetry Boyband was named as Time Out's Critics' Choice of the Year in 2005.
Co-authored with Luke Wright, his book Who Writes This Crap? is available in Penguin paperback. The Guardian called it "an inspired piece of parody." The live show of Who Writes This Crap? had a critically acclaimed sell-out run at the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe, receiving four stars from The Scotsman, Fest, ThreeWeeks, Broadway Baby and The List and attracting more than a thousand punters over the course of the run. It will be touring the UK in 2009.