Whether you’re an artist, aspiring programmer, or a poetry-lover who just wants to get closer to the action, StAnza offers a warm and welcoming community to be a part of. Our affordable and inclusive festival offers a raft of participatory events – both online and in person – from open mics and slam competitions, to poetry walks, workshops and interactive installations. To see what’s on offer at the next festival, click on the ‘Festival’ tab, and don’t forget to join our mailing list to be the first to hear the latest news.

Interested in getting more involved with making the festival happen? There are three main ways you can take part:

  • If you’re an artist, you can submit an event proposal for consideration at the next festival.
  • If you’re a local resident, and/or a poetry-lover with some time to offer, you can apply to join our team of festival volunteers.
  • If you have a close connection to Fife and/or the poetry sector and are interested in supporting the festival year-round, you can apply to join our Festival Planning Committee.

Read on below for more details on each of the above.

And if you’re an aspiring event manager, producer or programmer, join our mailing list to hear about upcoming professional development programmes.

StAnza On Screen

We are currently closed for submissions to StAnza On Screen.

Poetry films should be no longer than 6 minutes and should have captions or subtitles for anything spoken. We ask for only one film per person or group. We are looking for submissions that are poetry films and utilise both poetry and film conventions and elements. We are not looking for poetry readings to camera or image collages.

Our next submission window will open late 2026, with the deadline of 17:00 31st January 2027.

If you have any questions, get in touch with our team at stanza@stanzapoetry.org.

Details and Submission link for Poetry Films

Volunteering

Our volunteers are essential to making StAnza happen every year and we work hard to ensure that it’s a valuable and enjoyable experience for everyone. There are many different roles that our volunteers take on, making it a great opportunity to meet people, get experience of different event roles and see some fantastic performances while you’re at it.

Volunteering might include:

  • Front of house – welcoming audiences, assisting artists and attendees and helping to create the right atmosphere for the festival;
  • Box office – managing ticket collections and sales for events at different venues;
  • Artist Liaison – greeting artists as they arrive, orientating them to the festival and assisting them before and after their events;
  • Bookstall – assisting our booksellers with sales of printed works by our visiting artists;
  • Social media – assisting our marketing team with capturing and creating content for our social media channels…

…and many other duties!

As an organisation, we are committed to ensuring that our volunteer opportunities are accessible to all, and we will work with you to ensure that the experience meets your needs and ambitions, as well as our own. In return, volunteers are expected to follow StAnza’s policies – including our Code of Conduct – all of which can be found here.

Our volunteer expression of interest form will open January 2027 for our March 2027 festival.

Email us at stanza@stanzapoetry.org if you have any questions.

Festival Planning Committee

Our Festival Planning Committee is a small, committed group of StAnza enthusiasts who meet (online) year-round to feed in ideas for the programming and running of the festival, and who offer practical support, especially by promoting StAnza to – and connecting us with – interested communities in Fife and beyond.

If you’d like to join the committee and help bring the annual festival to life, you can apply by emailing stanza@stanzapoetry.org with ‘Festival Planning Committee’ in the subject line. You should tell us a bit about:

  • yourself – including what you do and where you’re based;
  • how you heard about StAnza and which years’ festivals you’ve attended;
  • why you’d like to join the committee and what knowledge, skills and connections you feel you could offer.

The committee is key to ensuring that we incorporate a range of perspectives in the festival and reach a broad audience with our activities. We are particularly keen to hear from individuals who:

  • have a strong knowledge of and are based in Fife/Dundee;
  • are Gaelic speakers, or speakers of other minority Scottish languages;
  • and/or who have lived experience of disability; being from the global majority; and/or working class backgrounds.

Artist Proposals

We welcome event proposals from poets, publishers, workshop facilitators, and performers for our 30th anniversary festival in March 2027, to be held online and in St Andrews. Dates are to be confirmed.

Our theme for 2027 is ‘Generations’ and we are specifically seeking proposals for events in the following categories:

  • workshops (online and in person)
  • live art and interdisciplinary performances
  • outdoor activities (e.g. walks, site-specific events)
  • party-vibe events for evenings – on stage or in the café bar

You can submit your event proposal here via Jotform until 11:50pm (UK time) Sunday 19th July 2026.

You can view a pdf version of the form here – this is for reference only, please submit using the Jotform linked above.

As we are a small team, we will not be able to accept submissions outwith this window, read full books, or give individual feedback. We also cannot accept proposals submitted via email.

If you have any questions or need support completing the form, please get in touch with us at stanza@stanzapoetry.org.