Time to Read and Oldham Libraries are thrilled to host Martina Evans and Michael Schmidt, as one of ten literature events for the New Words Festival. Book now!

Martina Evans is an Irish poet, novelist and teacher. She grew up in County Cork in a country pub, shop and petrol station and is the youngest of ten children. She is the author of eleven books of prose and poetry and three novels. Martina has won many awards.

Her most recent collection, Now We Can Talk Openly About Men, is a sequence of narrative poems in the form of monologues by two women at the time of the Irish War of Independence and the subsequent Irish Civil War.

“The description ‘compulsive reading’ rarely applies to a poetry collection, no matter how well written, so it’s a welcome surprise to find a book that’s hard to put down until every poem is read.” Adele Ward

Now We Can Talk Openly About Men and other collections by Martina Evans are available from the Carcanet website: carcanet.co.uk/

Michael Schmidt FRSL, poet, scholar, critic and translator, was born in Mexico in 1947; he studied at Harvard and at Wadham College, Oxford, before settling in England. Among his many publications are several collections of poems and a novel, The Colonist (1981), about a boy’s childhood in Mexico. He is general editor of PN Review and founder as well as managing director of Carcanet Press.

About the event

The event will be held through Zoom. After you register, you will receive an email with the log-in details. The session will feature a reading and talk by Martina, and questions from the audience will be taken through the chat feature. Please note the event will be recorded.

The New Words Festival is made possible through  public funding from Arts Council England.

Time to Read and Cumbria Libraries are thrilled to host poet, Alan Baker, one of eleven literature events for the New Words Festival. Alan will be reading and then will host a Q and A session on creative writing on Tuesday 9 March.

UPDATE – tickets available now!

Alan Baker was born and raised in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and has lived in Nottingham since 1985, where he has been the publisher at Leafe Press for the last twenty years, and editor of its associated webzine Litter. He has published several poetry collections, including Variations on Painting a Room: Poems 2000-2010 (Skysill, 2011), Letters from the Underworld (Red Ceilings, 2018) and Riverrun (Knives, Forks and Spoons, 2019). His latest collection is A Journal of Enlightened Panic (Shoestring, 2020). He has translated the poetry of Yves Bonnefoy and Abdellatif Laâbi.

“I started writing poetry in my teens, gave it up, then returned to it in my late twenties, but I didn’t publish my first, slim pamphlet until I was forty-two. I’ve published ten collections of poetry since then. Why do I write poetry? Because I love it, always have – not writing it I mean, but poetry itself, reading it out loud, hearing it read, reading it silently, and I’ve loved it since I was a youngster enamoured of G. M. Hopkins and Robert Frost. So I wanted to “be in that number” as the song goes, and learn the art.” Alan Baker – Creative Writing at Leicester blog

Knives, Forks and Spoons Press is an independent publishing house based in Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside, United Kingdom. It was established by Alec Newman in April 2010. The press publishes avant-garde and experimental poetry, full collections, pamphlets and anthologies. Follow KFS Press on Twitter @KFSPress

Riverrun is available from the KFS Press website: knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk

About the event

The event will be held through Zoom. Tickets will be available from Cumbria Libraries. Stay tuned for the link! After you register, you will receive an email with the log-in details. The session will feature a reading by Alan, and questions from the audience will be taken through the chat feature.

The New Words Festival is made possible through public funding from Arts Council England.

Do you enjoy creative writing? Is playing with words – writing poems, something you’d like to try? Time to Read and Blackburn with Darwen Libraries invite you to join poet, Dr James Davies, for a poetry writing workshop.

About the workshop

List poems at first might sound like simple poems to write. In one sense they are and that’s one of the great things about them. Yet to write good list poems careful consideration needs to be taken about how they are produced, so that they are engaging, have texture and suit your subject matter,.

During this short workshop we’ll read some key examples of a form which is exceptionally varied and flexible, in order to write some fantastic poems of your own.

About the Tutor

James Davies has published many books of poetry and prose. His writing often incorporates elements of the list poem. His novel The Wood Pigeons (Dostoevsky Wannabe) is a set of 263 iterations of the same story, with the story getting shorter and shorter page by page. His Carcanet poetry book stack is a long list of minimal walking performances which when read in various ‘stacks’ create a range of alternative meanings. In addition to writing, between 2008-2018, he was part of the team that created the legendary The Other Room reading series in Manchester and is the editor of the experimental poetry press if p then q.

Browse and buy poetry and prose at Knives Forks and Spoons Press knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk

For more about James, see www.jamesdaviespoetry.com

About Zoom
The event will be held through Zoom. After you register, you will receive an email with the log-in details. Ease have a pen and paper available to use.

This workshop is one of ten events for the New Words Festival. This is a free event but there is limited availability. Please contact Blackburn Libraries to book a place. The New Words Festival is made possible through public funding from Arts Council England.

Who was the real Charlotte Brontë? Was Emily a woman ahead of her time? Why has Anne been endlessly sidelined? And which is the greatest Brontë novel of all?Bolton Libraries and Saraband Press invite you to join a conversation with Dr Sophie Franklin and Adelle Hay. Book your tickets now.

This event is part of the New Words Festival – a joint online book festival celebrating the partnership between the Time to Read network of 22 North West library authorities and five of the region’s independent publishers; and is funded by Arts Council England. Browse the full list of events.

‘A View From the 21st Century’ Brontë biographies are available to buy from Saraband Books and to reserve from your library.

Time to Read and Blackpool Libraries are thrilled to host talented author Naomi Booth.

Naomi Booth is a fiction writer and academic. She is the author of The Lost Art of Sinking, Sealed and Exit Management, and she was recently named one of The Guardian’s ‘Fresh Voices: Fifty Writers to Read Now’. She is the recipient of a Saboteur Award for Best Novella and her short fiction has been longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award and the Galley Beggars Short Story Prize. She was recently commissioned to retell the northern folk tale of the boggart for the Audible Original/Virago anthology Hag; the resulting story, ‘Sour Hall’, has been adapted into an audio drama series. Naomi grew up in West Yorkshire and now lives in York.

Tickets available now

Exit Management and Sealed are published by Dead Ink Books and available to buy from deadinkbooks.com. You can also download Exit Management as an ebook from many North West Libraries.

About the event
After you register for the event, you will receive an email with the log-in details. There will be a chance to as questions. The New Words Festival is made possible through public funding from Arts Council England.

Time to Read and Halton Libraries are delighted to host J. A. Mensah, as one of eleven literature events for the New Words Festival. For details on our other authors events visit New Words.

On Friday 26 March at join J.A Mensah, author of Castles from Cobwebs, a compelling exploration of memory, race, mothers and the fractured self. Castles from Cobwebs is published by Saraband Books in February 2021.

This is a free online event. Book tickets at Eventbrite.