Wolverhampton Literature Festival to offer a boat trip with performance poet Emma Purshouse on Saturday 12th October from 11am to 3pm. See the Smestow Valley in autumn and write your own poems. Cost £12 per person plus booking fee. Age 14 plus. Light refreshments available but guests need to bring a picnic lunch. Tickets are available from Ticketmaster https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/floating-poetry-tickets/artist/5314979
Common People is a collection of essays, poems and memoir written by working-class writers.
These are narratives rich in barbed humour, reflecting the depth and texture of working class life. The anthology brings together 33 established and emerging writers who invite you to experience the world through their eyes.
Join anthology contributors Stuart Maconie, Lynne Voyce, Emma Purshouse and Lisa Blower for a discussion about their stories and what it means to be a working class writer.
Written in celebration, not apology, this anthology gives voice to perspectives that are increasingly absent from our books and newspapers. Common People ensures they are heard loud and clear.
Chaired by Jonathan Davidson.
About the speakers:
Lisa Blower is the author of the short story collection It’s Gone Dark Over Bill’s Mother’s (Myriad 2019) and a contributor to Common People edited by Kit de Waal. Her fiction has appeared in The Guardian, Comma Press anthologies, The New Welsh Review, The Luminary, Short Story Sunday, and on Radio 4. Her debut novel Sitting Ducks was shortlisted for the inaugural Arnold Bennett Prize 2017 and longlisted for The Guardian Not the Booker 2016.
Stuart Maconie is a writer, broadcaster and journalist specialising in British social history, landscape, politics and pop culture. He currently hosts shows across the BBC radio networks and is president of the Ramblers, hoping to encourage that august organisation to stay true to its roots in working-class dissent.
Lynne Voyce grew up on a council estate in Ellesmere Port; a place full of larger-than-life characters, tall tales, and the odd dodgy deal. Inspired by her dad buying The Literary Classics Collection with some of his redundancy money, she studied English at the University of Leeds, and went on to take a teaching qualification and then a postgraduate degree in educational psychology. Lynne now works in an inner-city comprehensive school in Birmingham. She has published more than fifty individual short stories, won a number of literary competitions, and, in December 2015, published her first story collection, Kirigami, with Ink Tears Press. She is currently working on her first novel.
Emma Purshouse left school in the early 1980s at the age of fifteen, initially working on various government schemes interspersed with bouts of extreme unemployment. She gave education another go as a mature student, attaining a BA from Wolverhampton University and an MA in creative writing from Manchester Met.
For the last twelve years Emma has been making a living as a writer and performance poet. Her passion is writing about the working-class communities that she has lived in, often making use of Black Country dialect within her work. In 2017 she won the international Making Waves spoken-word poetry competition judged by Luke Wright. Emma co-runs a successful spoken-word night in the Black Country.
Tickets are available from this link https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/bhamlitfest
Poetry On Loan invite you to join Poets, Prattlers, and Pandemonialists for their lively, upbeat, improvised poetry show. Emma Purshouse, Steve Pottinger, and Dave Pitt will take a given theme from the audience and run with it. Expect fun and funny, tenuous links, and occasional moments of thoughtfulness and poignancy.
Tickets £3 from Stourbridge Library. To reserve yours phone 01384 812949
Birmingham Literature Festival
Read On: After Summer and Other Stories
An anthology of new writing for young people.
Writing West Midlands asked teenagers to commission an anthology of short stories. The result is an incredible selection of stories from UK and European writers that are set to thrill, inspire and entertain.
Our commissioned UK writers – Liam Brown, Ken Preston and Emma Purshouse – will talk about their approach to writing to an unusual brief, and read short excerpts from their stories.
This event is part of the Birmingham Literature Festival’s Read On EU Day.
All day, young writers and readers aged 12 to 19 will be performing, presenting, hosting and producing events as part of the Birmingham Literature Festival 2019. The day is presented as part of Read On EU, a Europe-wide project getting young people across the continent reading and writing.
You can join in from home, too, on the Read On EU website: upload book reviews and your own stories; get advice on books you might like to read; and chat to authors you admire.
Tickets £3
Poets, Prattlers, and Pandemonialists present their ever popular spoken word night.
This month the featured artist is Jim Higo who is coming all the way from Hull to be with us. In the ‘Half Ender’ slot we have Scarlett Ward who will be selling copies of her new poetry collection from Verve Press (so bring your purses).
This is a pay as you feel event. Come along and join us. To reserve a place please email poetsprattlerspandemonialists@gmail.com
6 open mic slots available in advance/4 on the door. Strict 5 minutes.
Postcard poetry launch
Every other year, Poetry on Loan commissions local poets to write poems on a given theme – this year the theme was Anniversary. Eight are chosen, and turned into beautiful poetry postcards by our designer, Gregory Fisk.
It’s not easy to get eight poets together, especially around National Poetry Day, so this year we are having two launch events for our postcards. The first is in Hereford Central Library, 7:30 – 8:30 (doors 7 pm) on October 3rd, and features Jeff Phelps, Sarah Leavesley, Emma Purshouse and Brenda Read-Brown – a truly stellar collection of poets!
Open mic night MCd by Emma Purshouse, Dave Pitt and Steve Pottinger. All welcome. In the first half people read creative writing written on a theme. This month it’s ‘Wardrobe Issues’. In the second half anything goes. Come along and share your work.
Join Poets, Prattlers, and Pandemonialists for the Ironbridge Festival Poetry Slam. Dave Pitt, Emma Purshouse and Steve Pottinger MC as 15 poets go head to head in a live poetry competition. Expect fast-moving, high-energy entertainment. Expect whooping, cheering, and hollering as the judges make decisions based upon the quality of the writing, the performance skills of the poet and the audience response! Winner to get a paid gig at next year’s festival. Let battle commence.
If you would like to take part as a competitor please contact pandemonialists@gmail.com for more information.
This event maybe contain adult language and subject matter.
Tickets are £5
To book go to
http://theplacetelford.com/whats-on/all-shows/poetry-slam-with-poets-prattlers-and-pandemonialists/3197#tickets
Come listen, read, perform. Poetry does not conform.
Come and share your rhymes and your lines with some poetry good times! We have Special Guests and plenty of Open Mic spots, it’s a safe space for newcomers to have a go and a great platform for established poets to share their work. Anyone could be chosen as “Poet of the Month”, – it’s the poet our judges want to see and hear more from, and the winner gets their photo on the website and their own feature slot at the next event. Added to this of course we always welcome a large number of the poetry-curious – people who just want to have an interesting evening out and simply come along to listen.
Special guests for 2019:
January 30th Nona Wyld
February 27th Ruth Stacey
March 27th Daron Carey
April 24th Amy Kinsman
May 29th Ravelle-Sade
June 26th Willis the Poet
July 24th Sami the Bard of Northampton
August 28th Scarlett Ward
September 25th Emma Purshouse
October 30th Jake Wild Hall
November 27th Amanda Baker
December 18th Indigo Douglas
Temperance is Leamington’s coolest and newest Art Cafe and Performance Venue, they always have loads of stuff going on. It’s on Bath Street, just down past the Parish Church and there’s plenty of parking nearby. Scriptstuff Poetry is there on the last Wednesday of every month.
Emma Purshouse & Steve Pottinger have performed their work all over Britain in the last few years and will delight audiences with their wit and down to earth take on life. This is performance poetry at its best!
£5 per ticket.
To book go to…
http://theplacetelford.com/whats-on/all-shows/emma-purshouse-and-steve-pottinger/3195
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