Rough Edges

Natasha Carthew is a Cornish working-class writer and poet. She is the author of ten books, mostly recently Undercurrent: A Cornish memoir of poverty, nature and resilience (2023), which was shortlisted for the non-fiction prize at the inaugural Nero Book Awards. She has also contributed to Hag: Forgotten Folk Tales (2020) and Women on Nature: 100+ Voices on Place, Landscape & the Natural World (2021) and Bog People: A Working-Class Anthology of Folk Horror (2025).Natasha is the Founder/Director of The Working Class Writers Festival and Common Ground Nature Prize for Working Class Writers.

Rough Edges brings the reality of severe coastal poverty into sharp focus in an urgent and compassionate blend of candid memoir and compelling literary reportage. Natasha Carthew writes with an insight and an acuity of vision that few can match, and the messages of Rough Edges land with great integrity. Rough Edges unflinchingly scrutinises the systematic inequalities wrecking coastal communities and sets out a vision in which people in the 'salt belt' shorelines of these islands can thrive