Going live! How my pamphlet publication opened door to spoken word scene
I am standing in a ‘community hub’. This takes the form of a prefabricated, restyled chicken shed in the middle of a playing field in my home village of Great Barrow, near Chester. It is a lovely summer’s evening and I am surrounded by friends and neighbours. Standing to my left are four spoken word artists and a playwright. They comprise: Dublin-based Leon Dunne, the All Ireland Slam champion 202...
4th August 2025
Organiser Simon Fletcher looks back on 20 years of Wolverhampton spoken word night
“City Voices’ is 20 years old? I can’t believe it,” a friend commented to me recently. I can’t believe it either but there it is. Who’d have thought a gathering of poets and writers in an upstairs room of a hotel in Chapel Ash, Wolverhampton, would still be going 20 years later?
How did that happ...
27th August 2022
‘I now help many people find their own pleasure in writing. You can't put a price on that'
Linda Cosgriff, a longstanding member of Stockport Write Out Loud, wrote an article for this website five years ago about her excitement at embarking on a creative writing MA at Manchester Metropolita...
22nd August 2022
Custard pie throwers, a Laughing Yoga Man, and the Reality Zone: poet Robert Garnham on the bizarre world of Britain's Got Talent
Comedy performance poet Robert Garnham was somewhat startled to be invited to audition for the hit TV show Britain's Got Talent hosted by Ant and Dec. But he was happy to go along with it. Here's his ...
10th August 2022
