Tracey S Rosenberg

Biography

Tracey S. Rosenberg used to write 'poet' as her occupation on immigration documents, and remains astonished that the Home Office never deported her for smugness.  She eventually became British, and now revels in swanning through EU passport control.  Among her literary accomplishments since moving to Scotland are writing a PhD on the late-Victorian writer Mona Caird (and treating the National Library of Scotland as her local during her doctoral research): working as Bookstalls Assistant at StAnza and Booksales Officer at the Edinburgh International Book Festival; being a Bright Ideas fellow at the ESRC Genomics Forum, where she ran student workshops on poetry and science; publishing poems in Anon, Chapman, and New Writing Scotland; and selling her WWII novel The Girl in the Bunker to Glasgow-based publisher Cargo (forthcoming in 2011).  She plans to spend her next birthday on Easter Island.

She blogs about writing (mostly) at http://tsrosenberg.wordpress.com

During her award period, she'll be working on a collection of poetry tentatively titled Secondary.

Writing Sample

Cancer villanelle

Needles plunge. Consultants come and go.
Today, leukocytes are easy to locate;
tomorrow, next year, they may sink below.

Taxol drags at her heart. The drip, so slow,
eases on, flowing down her hand's tight veins
as needles plunge and consultants come and go.

The nurses praise her husband's constancy, though
he's uneasy, each treatment -- can he sustain
her, tomorrow or next year, if she sinks below?

The ward's fish flit through a new tank, even though
the fatigued walls sag with the same diseased paint.
Needles plunge. Consultants come and go.

She still submerges, cold, forlorn. She knows
he'll ease her to a surface of hours, days,
tomorrow. Next year, she might sink below.

Bloods, infections, bruises, vomit, soothing low
tones, fish rising in an easy ballet:
tomorrow, next year, all these could sink below
the needle's plunge. Consultants come and go.

Comment

"I'm still not sure whether I'll ever be a Scottish writer (or even what that description means), but I've loved integrating into the Scottish literary communities, and this award makes me feel as though I can contribute quite a lot more."