Writer, Workshop Tutor & Literary Event Organiser
A Geordie, Steve Harvey’s been an English teacher, youth worker, police officer, volunteer teacher in Iraq and lecturer in Modern Poetry at Suleimaniyah University, Safety & Security Officer for an NGO in South Sudan, and run the national ‘Children, Fathers & Fatherhood’ Project in Scotland and creative writing courses in his old mill in Normandy. At various times over the years, and on his many travels, he's also sold brushes door-to-door, worked on building and archaeological sites, been a doughnut baker and bus boy in Illinois, and worked on organic farms and vineyards in New Zealand and Argentina.
Steve has performed in poetry slams at the Scottish National Library Burns Night and the Tartan Heart Music Festival, and in January 2018 won the first GDD Slam to be held at the Scottish Poetry Library. He has had individual poems published in magazines, newspapers and books in the UK, Ireland and France, and a collection of his poetry, A Fixed Expression, published in lraq while he was teaching there in 2004. He was a contributor to Declarations, Scottish Pen's publication of poetry and prose 'on Freedom' to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the Treaty of Arbroath in 2020.
In May 2014, Steve was responsible for the Duddingston Festival in Edinburgh, featuring poets, authors, musicians and other entertainers. As well as being Poet-in-Residence at Duddingston Kirk, he is a frequent speaker and writing workshop tutor on international cruises.
His play, 'A Church Through Time', which Steve wrote to celebrate the Kirk's 900th anniversary, was performed there on Friday, December 13th 2024.
Steve organised the first Helmsley Literary Festival, which was held at Helmsley Arts Centre, in North Yorkshire, in September 2024:
https://helmsleyarts.co.uk/whats-on/helmsley-literary-festival
Contributing author, William Coles, wrote, 'What a wonderful festival you have started. In the most beautiful town!'
Harriet Constable, who discussed her debut novel, The Instrumentalist, wrote, 'Thanks for organising such a wonderful event Steve and for putting so much thought into it... Long may the Helmsley Literary Festival continue'.
Also taking part in the Festival were Anne Fine, Joanne Harris, John Hegley and Paul Sinha, as well as locally-based writers.
The next Helmsley Literary Festival is planned to take place over the weekend of 12-14 September 2025.
From 21-26 October 2025, Steve is running a residential memoir-writing workshop at the Argyll Hotel on the island of Iona off the west coast of Scotland: https://argyllhoteliona.co.uk/
Of his previous workshop there in October 2024 participants wrote:
“Dear Steve, Thank you for this fantastic writing workshop, thank you for sharing your stories and for the inspiration to write our memoirs! It was the best!!”
Rinske, Netherlands
“I really enjoyed the workshop and am continuing to write my ‘story’ so to speak. I appreciate all the suggestions you have shared and will continue to find prompts for writing.” Jan, Canada
Steve's memoirs, Between Dreams: Difficult Paths & Dangerous Places, were launched at Blackwell's in Edinburgh in November 2016 by Fledgling Press and are also available in Kindle form on Amazon.
Selected poems:
RUSH-HOUR CRUSH
(For those travelling miles on public transport daily
Who exchange smiles or glances but not contact details)
Platforms at commuter stations,
Bus stops, checkouts, round the nation,
Are places where longing glances,
In time, turn to rued missed chances,
Lead to these brief descriptions seen
In morning Metros, page 19.
Do content couples on the bus,
Understand this lusting fuss,
And wonder if ‘Blue Hair Red Coat’
Ever approached ‘Bearded, Arbroath’?
Did the ‘Guy in Hi-Vis Jacket’
Find ‘Miley Cyrus nut’ and crack it?
How many of these brief encounters
Ended up at café counters?
And of those caffeine assignations
Which ones were stirred into ‘relations’?
Did winter trysts in Wetherspoons
Result in summer honeymoons?
Most messages won’t lead to marriage
But nervous looks around the carriage
For ‘Sexy Gok Wan Lookalike’,
‘Goth girl with studs and fold-up bike’,
‘Tall man in duffle coat and glasses’ –
Shy eye-contact? Public passes?
Poor Dave – the shaved-head builder’s straight;
And Jane, you’ll have a wasted wait –
The smile for which you’ve daily pined
Was misread by your wishful mind.
These yearnings – Unreturned? Unseen? –
Ease his, and her, and our, routine.
CLEARING MINES IN KURDISTAN
(For those who do it)
They move along the rows as though tending
Some crop delicate as dragonfly wings,
Pricking, teasing – all that crouching, bending –
Knowing each steel seed could be the ending
Of a life, not the beginning.
The flags,
Lively triangles of vermilion,
Are not to scare off sparrows or pigeons,
Nor are they the accumulated bunting
From village festivals to say, "We've won!"
Forewarn a harvest stored in body bags.
The staked out plots resemble graves, a dig:
Hunched figures uncovering the remains
Of earlier civilizations, working
Painstakingly to preserve intact
Each lovingly crafted artefact.
Let's hope
The Future's archaeologists might find
Something more worthwhile than, "This land was mined."
ON THE ROAD FROM WUNROK TO WAU
(For Pauline Cafferkey, a colleague in Twic County, South Sudan,
who subsequently contracted Ebola while nursing in Sierra Leone, surviving two bouts of the virus)
On the road from Wunrok to Wau in South Sudan,
I saw many people walking – some wanting a lift,
Others knowing that their lot was to walk, whilst ours to ride by in clouds of dust.
I saw men in long tunics to the knee or so, bright green or red,
Like Irish or Welsh rugby shirts, others light blue, deep purple, some trousered
In the same material, and men with spiky, spindly spears and even sharper eyes.
I saw boys fishing with poles in Monetesque lily ponds, carrying their catch on strings;
Boys diving naked off low bridges, wrestling in muddy pools, washing;
Young women, bare-breasted doing household chores outside their tukuls,
Mothers feeding babies, children nursing younger children,
A woman carrying an oil drum on her head;
There were soldiers coming back to base with their AK 47s and firewood;
Three men on a motorbike (five is the most I've seen),
No helmets or goggles but the rider always has a pair of shades;
Cattle with twisted horns and hump backs, kamikaze goats and indifferent sheep;
A woman in a shawl holding a baby and begging;
A lorry full of people, stuck in mud; a sick donkey; a dead cow –
All these things I saw today, on the way from Wunrok to Wau.
POSTCARD FROM PORTOBELLO
From the number 46's upper deck
I look down on the littered street and see
A lame man using what appears to be
A TV aerial as a walking stick.
I wonder if, wherever he's going,
He gets a good reception.
Steve has performed in poetry slams at the Scottish National Library Burns Night and the Tartan Heart Music Festival, and in January 2018 won the first GDD Slam to be held at the Scottish Poetry Library. He has had individual poems published in magazines, newspapers and books in the UK, Ireland and France, and a collection of his poetry, A Fixed Expression, published in lraq while he was teaching there in 2004. He was a contributor to Declarations, Scottish Pen's publication of poetry and prose 'on Freedom' to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the Treaty of Arbroath in 2020.
In May 2014, Steve was responsible for the Duddingston Festival in Edinburgh, featuring poets, authors, musicians and other entertainers. As well as being Poet-in-Residence at Duddingston Kirk, he is a frequent speaker and writing workshop tutor on international cruises.
His play, 'A Church Through Time', which Steve wrote to celebrate the Kirk's 900th anniversary, was performed there on Friday, December 13th 2024.
Steve organised the first Helmsley Literary Festival, which was held at Helmsley Arts Centre, in North Yorkshire, in September 2024:
https://helmsleyarts.co.uk/whats-on/helmsley-literary-festival
Contributing author, William Coles, wrote, 'What a wonderful festival you have started. In the most beautiful town!'
Harriet Constable, who discussed her debut novel, The Instrumentalist, wrote, 'Thanks for organising such a wonderful event Steve and for putting so much thought into it... Long may the Helmsley Literary Festival continue'.
Also taking part in the Festival were Anne Fine, Joanne Harris, John Hegley and Paul Sinha, as well as locally-based writers.
The next Helmsley Literary Festival is planned to take place over the weekend of 12-14 September 2025.
From 21-26 October 2025, Steve is running a residential memoir-writing workshop at the Argyll Hotel on the island of Iona off the west coast of Scotland: https://argyllhoteliona.co.uk/
Of his previous workshop there in October 2024 participants wrote:
“Dear Steve, Thank you for this fantastic writing workshop, thank you for sharing your stories and for the inspiration to write our memoirs! It was the best!!”
Rinske, Netherlands
“I really enjoyed the workshop and am continuing to write my ‘story’ so to speak. I appreciate all the suggestions you have shared and will continue to find prompts for writing.” Jan, Canada
Steve's memoirs, Between Dreams: Difficult Paths & Dangerous Places, were launched at Blackwell's in Edinburgh in November 2016 by Fledgling Press and are also available in Kindle form on Amazon.
Selected poems:
RUSH-HOUR CRUSH
(For those travelling miles on public transport daily
Who exchange smiles or glances but not contact details)
Platforms at commuter stations,
Bus stops, checkouts, round the nation,
Are places where longing glances,
In time, turn to rued missed chances,
Lead to these brief descriptions seen
In morning Metros, page 19.
Do content couples on the bus,
Understand this lusting fuss,
And wonder if ‘Blue Hair Red Coat’
Ever approached ‘Bearded, Arbroath’?
Did the ‘Guy in Hi-Vis Jacket’
Find ‘Miley Cyrus nut’ and crack it?
How many of these brief encounters
Ended up at café counters?
And of those caffeine assignations
Which ones were stirred into ‘relations’?
Did winter trysts in Wetherspoons
Result in summer honeymoons?
Most messages won’t lead to marriage
But nervous looks around the carriage
For ‘Sexy Gok Wan Lookalike’,
‘Goth girl with studs and fold-up bike’,
‘Tall man in duffle coat and glasses’ –
Shy eye-contact? Public passes?
Poor Dave – the shaved-head builder’s straight;
And Jane, you’ll have a wasted wait –
The smile for which you’ve daily pined
Was misread by your wishful mind.
These yearnings – Unreturned? Unseen? –
Ease his, and her, and our, routine.
CLEARING MINES IN KURDISTAN
(For those who do it)
They move along the rows as though tending
Some crop delicate as dragonfly wings,
Pricking, teasing – all that crouching, bending –
Knowing each steel seed could be the ending
Of a life, not the beginning.
The flags,
Lively triangles of vermilion,
Are not to scare off sparrows or pigeons,
Nor are they the accumulated bunting
From village festivals to say, "We've won!"
Forewarn a harvest stored in body bags.
The staked out plots resemble graves, a dig:
Hunched figures uncovering the remains
Of earlier civilizations, working
Painstakingly to preserve intact
Each lovingly crafted artefact.
Let's hope
The Future's archaeologists might find
Something more worthwhile than, "This land was mined."
ON THE ROAD FROM WUNROK TO WAU
(For Pauline Cafferkey, a colleague in Twic County, South Sudan,
who subsequently contracted Ebola while nursing in Sierra Leone, surviving two bouts of the virus)
On the road from Wunrok to Wau in South Sudan,
I saw many people walking – some wanting a lift,
Others knowing that their lot was to walk, whilst ours to ride by in clouds of dust.
I saw men in long tunics to the knee or so, bright green or red,
Like Irish or Welsh rugby shirts, others light blue, deep purple, some trousered
In the same material, and men with spiky, spindly spears and even sharper eyes.
I saw boys fishing with poles in Monetesque lily ponds, carrying their catch on strings;
Boys diving naked off low bridges, wrestling in muddy pools, washing;
Young women, bare-breasted doing household chores outside their tukuls,
Mothers feeding babies, children nursing younger children,
A woman carrying an oil drum on her head;
There were soldiers coming back to base with their AK 47s and firewood;
Three men on a motorbike (five is the most I've seen),
No helmets or goggles but the rider always has a pair of shades;
Cattle with twisted horns and hump backs, kamikaze goats and indifferent sheep;
A woman in a shawl holding a baby and begging;
A lorry full of people, stuck in mud; a sick donkey; a dead cow –
All these things I saw today, on the way from Wunrok to Wau.
POSTCARD FROM PORTOBELLO
From the number 46's upper deck
I look down on the littered street and see
A lame man using what appears to be
A TV aerial as a walking stick.
I wonder if, wherever he's going,
He gets a good reception.
