The first in our new series of poetry masterclasses, with Rachel Long as guest tutor, was useful and inspiring - and quickly sold out! The same has happened with our second poetry masterclass on Wednesday 28 April with Forward prizewinner Caroline Bird as guest tutor, despite the slightly increased capacity of 25 participants!

We have been targeting these masterclasses at poets who want to develop their skills and learn new approaches. Over the coming months, we’ll also introduce workshops for poets who are just starting out on their creative journeys. Nurturing the development of poets at all levels has always been a core aim for Write Out Loud and we feel like these online masterclasses and workshops are key to that.

Caroline Bird is a poet and playwright. She has six collections of poetry published by Carcanet. Her most recent collection, The Air Year, won the Forward prize for poetry 2020, and was shortlisted for the Costa prize. Her fifth collection, In These Days of Prohibition, was shortlisted for the 2017 TS Eliot prize and the Ted Hughes award. A two-time winner of the Foyles Young Poets award, her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes was published by Carcanet in 2002 when she was 15. She won an Eric Gregory award in 2002 and was shortlisted for the Geoffrey Dearmer prize in 2001 and the Dylan Thomas prize in 2008 and 2010. She was one of the five official poets at the 2012 London Olympics.