Clare Shaw

This anthology showcases the very best in humorous short story writing, by outstanding contemporary women writers, including Kathy Lette, Sadia Azmat, Lucy Vine, Josie Long, Paula Lennon, and many more. It includes the winning and shortlisted stories from the Comedy Women in Print Short Story Prize. From tales of a narcoleptic biscuit lover, con artists with a twist, and the accidental death of a hamster; to consequences of accidental gluing, the imagined world of extreme shopping, and the delightfully surreal world of canine dating, these 15 boldly imaginative stories range across a multitude of genres and themes. Each proves the power of the short story to disarm, tickle or simply entertain.

Clare Shaw’s fourth collection Towards a General Theory of Love shows that poetry can say as much as about who we are – and especially how we feel – as psychology. They also feed each other. Harry Harlow’s famous experiments on baby monkeys changed the course of psychology. They proved that we need care, contact and love – and they inflicted profound and lasting suffering on their subjects. Clare Shaw’s poems in Towards a General Theory of Love are driven by the same furious need to understand the experience of love and its absence. Harlow’s findings, attachment theory, mythology and art are set alongside stories of attraction, grief and desire. The book is inhabited by the character of Monkey, who shows by example how early attachments and trauma may shape us, but how ultimately the individual – like the reader – will come to realise her, his or their own general theory and practice of love.

The territory of Clare Shaw's third collection isn't one she chose herself, but one which chose her: the flooded valley and the ruined home. The 2015 floods in Britain left whole swathes of the country submerged, including her home town. Flood offers an eye-witness account of those events, from rainfall to rescue, but ripples out from there. Intimately interwoven with the breakdown of a relationship, flooding serves as a powerful metaphor for wider experiences of loss, destruction and recovery. Testifying equally to the forces that destroy us and save us, flood runs through the book in different forms - bereavement and trauma, the Savile scandal, life in an asylum. Yet ultimately, this is a story of one life as it is unravelled and rebuilt, written from the heart and from the North, in a language as dangerous and sustaining as water.

From the direct trajectory of her first collection, Straight Ahead, Clare Shaw's second collection Head On turns an unflinching gaze into startling new territories. Structured by interweaving themes of political and personal conflict, the book begins and ends with the recurrent necessity of speaking out. And this is a book which speaks in equal measures, in precise and uncompromising language, about love and tenderness; violence and brutality. Clare Shaw writes to speak to the world. But first and foremost she speaks directly to the reader, through words which shock, engage, disturb and delight. This is a book which - in its content and its impact - sets out to establish and to challenge the limits of language. Exploring with unflinching focus and intent some of her darkest territory yet - but returning, as always, to the light - she offers us a furious but ultimately hopeful exploration of the world as she lives it.

Nutrition plays a crucial role in supporting patients receiving treatment for cancer. Carefully considered nutritional options can help to manage patients with weight loss and cachexia, support the patient’s ability to recover from surgery and cope with treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Patients living with and beyond cancer can also benefit from advice on optimal nutrition and lifestyle changes. Edited by Dr Clare Shaw, Consultant Dietitian at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, Nutrition and Cancer takes an unrivalled look at this prevalent disease, offering the reader: An insight into the nutritional challenges faced for patients with cancerA practical guide to nutrition and dietetic practice in cancer careA detailed look at nutritional options for different diagnostic groupsContributions from a wide range of cancer specialists An excellent resource for dietitians, clinical nutritionists, doctors, nurses and other health professionals working with cancer patients, this book is also a fascinating reference for students and researchers with an interest in the area.

"Straight Ahead" is Clare Shaw's first collection. Firmly located in the social and physical landscape of northern England, the poems capture intimacy, loss, fragmentation and delight - being alive in all its colours. The book follows the trajectory of a life through childhood, breakdown and love, recording on the way the million sufferings and hopes of everyday life. The poems move rapidly between contrasting experiences and emotions, from violence to madness, yet are held together by Clare Shaw's ever-present love of language, her celebration of sound, rhythm and imagery. These are poems which are - like the lives and the landscapes they record - by turn harsh and tender, humorous and bleak. Dynamic, darkly humorous, and exactingly detailed, they invite the reader into a rich and complex world.