Conversations with Writers

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Poetry and Settled Status for All: Readings and Conversation _ Online Events, February 2022

February 14, 2022

Writers in the East and West Midlands regions of the UK are organising two online events around the new anthology, Poetry and Settled Status for All (CivicLeicester, 2022) : ● Poems for a Changing World which is taking place online on Thursday, 17 February 2022 (7-8.30pm, UK time), and ● Poems about Migration , on Friday, 25 February (7.30-8.30pm, UK time). Both events are free and open to all. As part of the events, a number of writers will be reading and talking about their work featured in the anthology. Also speaking at the events are representatives from Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Refugee Forum (17 February) and Shropshire Supports Refugees (25 February). Introduced by Claudia Webbe, Member of Parliament for Leicester East, Poetry and Settled Status for All presents 114 poems and short prose pieces from 97 writers from around the world exploring themes that include lived experience of migration, refugee and undocumented migrant experiences, and the hostile environme

Poetry and Settled Status for All - a Call for Submissions

February 12, 2021

Poetry and Settled Status for All: An Anthology (CivicLeicester, 2022) is now available. This call for submissions is now closed. CivicLeicester is inviting and accepting poems and short fiction on the theme, Settled Status or Indefinite Leave to Remain for All. The editors will also consider poems and short fiction exploring themes that include: ● lived experience of being a migrant or an undocumented migrant or seeking refuge in Britain and the Irish States, ● migrant, undocumented migrant or refugee experiences of rural and urban life, education, housing, work, healthcare, immigration and asylum systems, and ● the hostile environment. The call for submissions is inspired by how, in Britain and the Irish States, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, several coalitions, including the Status Now Network (SNN), Members of Parliament (MPs) and groups that are concerned about the welfare of refugees and migrants are calling for settled status or indefinite leave to remain to be gr

Interview _ Becky Swain

January 19, 2021

Becky Swain is Director of Manchester Poetry Library , the North West’s first public poetry library, opening in 2021. She has experience leading arts, literature and learning programmes at organisations including Arvon, Creative Partnerships, and Creativity Culture and Education, and is an experienced youth worker, English and Drama teacher, coach and arts learning facilitator. A Clore Fellow (2009), and a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, she is a member of the Advisory Group and Young Poets’ Stories, a poetry writing development research. In this interview, Becky Swain talks about poetry, the Manchester Poetry Library and why poetry matters. How would you describe the Manchester Poetry Library? Manchester Poetry Library based at Manchester Metropolitan University, is the North West’s first public Poetry Library, and the only public poetry library in the country to be based within a university. The Manchester Poetry Library will open on Oxford Road in Manchester early in 2021.

Black Lives Matter: a Call for Poems and Microfiction

June 08, 2020

Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New Word (CivicLeicester, 2020) is now available * CivicLeicester is inviting and accepting poems and short fiction on the theme, Black Lives Matter . We welcome submissions exploring any of the images, issues, triggers, histories, lives, demands and outcomes that are being highlighted by Black Lives Matter and current and past protests. We welcome submissions from writers of all ages, based anywhere in the world. The video of George Floyd dying as a white policeman pressed his knee against Floyd's neck and kept it there even after Floyd had stopped speaking or moving has triggered weeks of mass protests around the world. The protests are taking place in the midst of a global pandemic that is also disproportionately killing people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds. Around the world people are demanding justice. "Black Lives Matter", "Hands up, don't shoot", "Am I a threat?", "I

Interview _ Siobhan Logan

May 02, 2020

Siobhan Logan is a storyteller and poet. Her first collection of poems and non-fiction, Firebridge to Skyshore: A Northern Lights Journey (original plus, 2009), was sponsored by auroral scientists at the University of Leicester. It was performed at the British Science Museum, the National Space Centre and Ledbury Poetry festival. Her second collection, Mad, Hopeless & Possible: Shackleton’s Endurance Expedition , was also published by Original Plus Press, whilst Philae’s Book of Hours was published on the European Space Agency’s website. Logan's poetry is widely published in magazines and short stories appear in various anthologies, including Wednesday’s Child (Factor Fiction, forthcoming 2020), Leicester Writes Anthology 2017 (Dahlia Books) and Mrs Rochester’s Attic (Mantle Press 2017). In 2014, she led a WW1 writing residency for 14-18 NOW and in 2015 co-edited a Five Leaves Books anthology for refugee solidarity, Over Land, Over Sea . She is co-director of i

Interview _ Andrew Button

April 15, 2020

Andrew Button lives in Market Bosworth in western Leicestershire, England. His poems have been published in magazines that include Orbis , Staple , The Interpreter’s House , Iota and Ink, Sweat and Tears . His pamphlet, Dry Days in Wet Towns , was published in 2016 and a first full collection, Melted Cheese on the Cosmic Pizza in 2017 by erbacce press . In this interview, Andrew Button talks about his latest collection of poems Music for Empty Car Parks and poetry in the time of Covid-19. How would you describe Music for Empty Car Parks ? Music for Empty Car Parks is an eclectic mix of poems that wryly observe life with all its quirks and obsessions. Eccentricity and human preoccupations particularly fascinate me. You could say that is my poetical obsession! How long did it take you to put the book together? I have a large back catalogue of poems written over the years and it was a matter of selecting the best ones, old and new. I really enjoy the process and quite