Astra Bloom

Astra Bloom writes for young and old humans. She makes fiction, poetry and the odd memoir piece. Astra is a working class writer who grew up in Hounslow, Middlesex. She never got to go to university but ran off to be penniless in Paris instead. She worked in fashion and catering, slept on floors in squats all over London before moving to Brighton where she grew a lovely family, worked helping children to read, and suffered a long and debilitating illness which was awful but allowed her to stare at the sky and daydream a lot.

Too Much Imagination has always got her into trouble and out of it.

Astra is one of the new writers to feature in Kit De Waal’s Common People anthology of working class writing. She was longlisted by 2018 Penguin Random House Write Now Live, she was Brighton short story prize runner up and 2x Sussex winner; she won the 2016 Bare Fiction poetry prize, has been shortlisted by Bridport, The London Magazine essay prize, Live Cannon International poetry, Brighton poetry, Aurora poetry, Bristol short story, fish and more. Her stories and poems have appeared in journals such as Magma, Under the Radar and Brittle Star; her story Telling Blue was a much celebrated Weekend Read selection online at ForBooksSake.She has poems online at Burning House Press and Visual Verse. And she had two novels longlisted by the 2017 Mslexia International novel award.