Poet and musician Heather Wastie (pictured) grew up in the Black Country. In 2006 she moved to Kidderminster where she was The Worcestershire Poet Laureate 2015/16.
Her first collection, in 1997, was humorous poetry about her life as a musician; in April 2025 she published her ninth collection, YOU ARE HERE, a personal account of lockdown in poetry and photographs. She is currently working on a humorous collection centred on her love of Black Country dialect, including monologues by her alter ego Black Country Pat.
Her work has recently been published online and in print by Ekphrastic Review, Failed haiku, Wells Street Journal, Atrium, Rough Diamond, Flight of the Dragonfly and The Broken Spine.
Heather Wastie (pictured) is well known for her interpretations of oral history, sharing people's life experiences in poems and songs. As Writer in Residence at the Museum of Carpet, she published Weaving Yarns with Black Pear Press in November 2015. She has toured her own work widely. Several shows in her performance repertoire were inspired by the history of canals, including two Canal & River Trust commissions. In 2017 she wrote and recorded poems for the popular Nationwide Building Society ad campaign, Voices Nationwide.
See www.wastiesspace.co.uk for more.
Heather will be on The Ian Henery Show, Black Country Xtra
Sunday 11th January 4pm
Monday 12th January 6pm
