Description

The Leeds Library continues its Speaking to the Shelves programme with a new series of creative writing sessions available online from the comfort of your own home (see separate ticket) or in person at the Library. Workshops cost £12. The in-person workshop runs 1-3 pm with the option to stay from 3-4pm to receive input from the writer on how to develop your work.

When the programme’s curator Becky Cherriman asked established writers and workshop leaders to design writing activities around texts they considered part of the literary canon, she expected some surprises. The writers did not disappoint. Sign up to deepen your knowledge of a much-adored Classic, discover a book you haven’t yet read, see what we can learn from the canon and expose problems within it. Sign up to write creatively. Together you will climb onto the shoulders of these powerful giants, notebook and pen in hand.

Join Author Matt Abbott. Choose from the Online Zoom workshop or the In-person workshop.

Matt Abbott is a poet, educator, and activist from Wakefield. His début one-man show Two Little Ducks earned 5* reviews at Edinburgh Fringe 2017 and on a 2018 UK theatre tour. The show’s poems were published as his début collection by Verve in 2018.

Matt’s début kids’ poetry collection A Hurricane in my Head was published by Bloomsbury in 2019. It was a National Poetry Day selected title. Matt founded spoken word record label Nymphs & Thugs in 2015 and fronts indie band Skint & Demoralised.

Commissions include Nationwide Building Society, Leeds United FC, Cancer Research UK, and Blue Peter.

Workshop title: Contemporary Kitchen-sink

Book title & author: A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney

Forms: Poetry-focused but flexible

Further workshops in the programme can be found here: https://www.theleedslibrary.org.uk/events

The programme is supported by funding from Leeds Inspired, part of Leeds City Council.

Curator Becky Cherriman is a Yorkshire writer, workshop leader and performer. She works part-time as Co-leader of the Creative Writing pathway at The University of Leeds Lifelong Learning Centre. Published by Seren, Mslexia, New Walk, Envoi, Mother’s Milk, Bloodaxe, Well Versed, Moving Worlds and The North, she was resident poet for Morley Literature Festival in 2013 and lead artist for Altofts Festival In A Day 2016. ‘Echolocation’, her first poetry pamphlet, and first collection ‘Empires of Clay’ were published in 2016 by Mother’s Milk and Cinnamon Press respectively. Her agnostic poem Jesus Lives was highly commended in the Forward Prizes 2017.