The Telling by Julia Webb is a distinctive and acutely-observed collection of poems that unravel the intricacies at the heart of human relationships an insistent, quietly fierce tour de force from this Forward Prize commended poet. Moving and dark, we uncover the things that go unspoken between people despite their closeness.In turning her forensic focus on what makes us human, and in particular what it is that glues us together or causes us to come apart, Julia Webb's poetry examines the wreckage of complex lives to understand where the fault lines and fractures lie. What are the stories that construct our families and relationships, and who gets to tell them? Can we trust the stories we inherit, and what happens when we recover the right to tell things for ourselves? These compelling, taut poems crackle with the electricity of the untold of flawed humans and hurt, of daring and being, of reclaiming and persisting.

Julia Webb is a neurodiverse writer and artist from a working class background. She has three poetry collections with Nine Arches Press: Bird Sisters (2016), Threat (2019) and The Telling (2022). She has a first class honours degree in creative writing from Norwich University of the Arts and a poetry MA from The University of East Anglia. She has had two poems highly commended in the Forward Prize (2016, 2022). Julia has taught creative writing for organisations such as Lapidus, MIND, Norfolk County Council, and The SAW Trust. She currently runs real world and email poetry courses, and mentors for The Writing Coach. She is steering editor for Lighthouse a journal for new writers. She lives in Norwich.