Sam Bolton

Writer, Artist, Musician

Sam writes short stories, poetry and songs influenced by her queerness, as well as by modernists, like Virginia Woolf, and the tragic, yet iconic female poets of the 20th century poet, such Renee Vivian and Sylvia Plath.

She attended Sands, a democratic school for six years, which informed her political beliefs and showed her the virtues of caring education. Since then, she has been involved in a number of democratic education projects, such as Schule Macht Demokratie in Bremen, Germany, where she helped run the lectures; a project on food, mental health and alternate education at the School Full of Dreams in Seoul, Korea; and was part of a team that advised Charlotte Church about the running of her newly setup democratic school in Dinas Powys, Wales.

At Sands she became enamoured with zines and independent publishing, leading her to create, with some of her peers, Black and White and Read All Over, a political arts zine, focussed on amplifying the voices of young people. Wanting to emulate the traditional 70s style of DIY punk zines, they made the layout of the zine completely by hand, using scissors, glue and Sands’ abused photocopier. Black and White and Read All Over gathered a cult following, ran for six issues and was distributed in various locations around Germany, Texas, Argentina, England and South Korea.

She now makes small print run mini-zines containing her short stories, diaries, essays and poetry.

Sam plays guitar, bass and saxophone, and is working on a number of personal music projects inspired by artists like Kate Bush, Mitski, Bent Knee and Sonic Youth. Other musical skills include: composition and an extensive knowledge of jazz harmonic concepts.

Additionally she is pursuing the visual arts through the mediums of sculpture, painting, and pen+ink drawings.

I hate how pretentious writing about myself in the first person is, but it does boost my ego and make me feel professional. But now that’s over, thank you so much for checking out my website, I love you <3.