Making live events happen: talking to musician, poet and community activist Elaine McGinty
Write Out Loud Woking relocated to a new live venue at the end of November. The Fiery Bird community arts and live music venue has opened up in a new ‘temporary’ home in Woking, thanks to the indefatigable efforts of Elaine McGinty, her partner Joe Buckley, and a host of volunteers, over many years of false dawns and setbacks that are still continuing. As well as being a community facilitator and ...
30th November 2023
‘The poetry of play’: lifelong fan Carol Ann Duffy cheers women footballers, past and present
Carol Ann Duffy has written a sonnet to honour England’s Lionesses and pioneering women fooballers - and a game she has “loved from childhood”. The UK’s first and so far only female poet laureate, who said she grew up in a “footballing family”, pays homage to the trailblazers behind today’s squad in...
30th November 2023
Jane Burn wins environmental pamphlet award for whaling poems
Jane Burn has won the Michael Marks Environmental Poet of the Year award for a portfolio of poems titled A Thousand Miles From The Sea. The pamphlet of poems will be launched at the annual Michael Mar...
25th November 2023
'One tree can't breathe for the whole world': Simon Armitage marks chainsaw felling at Sycamore Gap
The poet laureate, Simon Armitage, has written a poem to mark the destruction of the Sycamore Gap tree at Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland. Titled ‘The Holy Land’, it focuses on the “cock of the north...
17th November 2023
Biographer's Yeats lecture ends year of Nobel centenary events
The official biographer of WB Yeats, Roy Foster, will be delivering the inaugural Bedford Park Lecture on the Nobel prizewinner at St Michael and All Angels church, Chiswick on Thursday 14 December at...
16th November 2023
Write Out Loud Woking's Heather Cook to launch award-winning pamphlet collection
Heather Cook, a regular reader at Write Out Loud Woking live nights and Write Out Loud Woking on Zoom, will be launching her award-winning first poetry pamphlet, Out of the Ordinary, at a Zoom event e...
16th November 2023
Where does a poem come from? Crucial questions answered in book of interviews with leading poets
A book of interviews which should prove very useful to poets aiming to improve their skills, and is already on the reading lists of several universities, is being launched next month.
Journalist an...
14th November 2023
Making Other Plans: Nigel Planer, Flapjack
Nigel Planer is perhaps best known as Neil the hippy in the anarchic 1980s youth comedy The Young Ones. But as well as being an established actor with an impressive track record, he’s also a novelist,...
13th November 2023
Martin Figura to judge £1,000 Cafe Writers competition
Martin Figura will be judging the £1,000 Café Writers competition. The deadline is 30 November. More details
13th November 2023
'It took every soldier': railway company posts poem for Remembrance
A railway company has worked with its local community to commemorate Remembrance with a special poem. The poem, 'It took every soldier', was read aloud as part of EMR's annual Routes of Remembrance ev...
10th November 2023
Octopus Mind: Rachel Carney, Seren
Rachel Carney grew up in Sheffield and now lives in Cardiff where she teaches creative writing. For several years she worked in museums and is completing a PhD on the potential of ekphrastic poetry as...
10th November 2023
Write Out Loud regular Ray launches bumper poetry collection
Write Out Loud regular Ray Pool has published a new, bumper collection of his poetry titled Hopscotch. He has been a professional musician for many years, and the collection reflects this with a secti...
9th November 2023
The Turpentine Tree: Lynne Hjelmgaard, Seren
Not to be confused with the turpentine tree in the Eucalypt forests of Australia, the tree in question here is Bursera simaruba, commonly known as gumbo-limbo or copperwood, a tree species native to t...
9th November 2023
Looking back at this year's Marsden poetry jam ... and remembering Paul Blackburn
It was all change for the Write Out Loud poetry jam last month at Marsden Jazz Festival. With our usual venue the Railway Inn unavailable, we decamped to Sass Wellbeing Studio and Coffee House, replac...
6th November 2023
Poetry charity appeals for help after losing Arts Council grant
A charity that makes available recordings of poets reading their own work free of charge is appealing for donations and memberships after losing its Arts Council grant earlier this year. The Poetry Ar...
2nd November 2023
New venue for Write Out Loud in Woking
Write Out Loud Woking's open-mic night has a new home. After several successful years at the Lightbox museum and art gallery, it has moved to the new Fiery Bird community arts and live music venue, at...
1st November 2023
Malika Booker to judge Teignmouth poetry competition
Malika Booker, who won this year’s Forward prize for best single published poem for the second time, will be judging the £600 Teignmouth poetry festival competition. The closing date is 31 January 202...
1st November 2023
Carol Hughes donation boosts Huddersfield's Ted Hughes archive
The University of Huddersfield has announced a major addition to its archival collection of materials relating to Ted Hughes. The widow of the former poet laureate, Carol Hughes has made a significant...
1st November 2023
