Jan Norton’s debut pamphlet, Relief Map, traces her journey from a working-class Welsh Valleys childhood to where she finds herself on the map now. These no-nonsense poems are packed with rich detail, evoking vivid memories of that childhood and the people who populated it. Although the poems leave the Valleys, Wales never leaves the poems, and through laughter, love, sorrow, motherhood and challenges, Norton observes families, friendships, passion and pain in the light of her origins.

Though born and brought up in the South Wales Valleys, Jane has lived and worked in Nottingham for over 40 years, and is a former Head of English in a Nottingham comprehensive school. She is active in the East Midlands poetry community. Jan has published poems in The North, Ink Sweat and Tears, Cannon’s Mouth and The Lampeter Review, as well as being successful in numerous poetry competitions, including winning the Ilkley Poetry Festival’s Robert Swan Prize and being placed in the Elmet Trust Poetry Prize and the Kent and Sussex Poetry Competitions.