Manchester Literature Festival (which runs from Thursday, 13^th to Sunday, 23^rd October, 2011) is teaming up with ALL FM Community Radio Station for a project the will celebrate poetry along the A6 ‘corridor’, as well as offering you the opportunity to take part in a six week radio production course.

They are commissioning five poets from the area – Suzanne Batty, Helen Clare, Pete Kalu, Shamshad Khan, and Martin de Mello – to produce new poems set in, and around, the Stockport Road area of Manchester; the poems will be recorded on location and aired on ALL FM in May 2011.

They are also offering six people the opportunity to take part in a six week radio production course run by ALL FM. The course will provide training in show planning, scriptwriting, interview techniques, equipment use, practical recording and editing. Course participants will also produce podcasts of the newly commissioned poems and interviews with the poets for live broadcast and online ‘listen again’ facilities, and is aimed at people with a particular interest in learning how to promote the arts and culture using new media.

The course is open to those living in the Levenshulme, Longsight, or Ardwick areas of Manchester, and will run from Friday, 18^th February until Friday, 25^th March, 2011 inclusive. You must be available to attend all of the course sessions which will run every Friday between 1pm and 4pm at ALL FM Radio Station in Levenshulme, and be willing to participate in post-course production sessions in April 2011.

The closing date for applications is Friday, 4^th February,  and to apply you need to send an email to Jason Cooke at jason@allfm.orgexplaining how you think you would benefit from taking part in the course and how you meet their requirements.

Full details of the course, who is eligible, and how to apply can be found on the Manchester Literature Festival website at: http://www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk/