With the sad news of the passing of Tony Harrison, who as a working class poet had a great impact on me during my formative years of writing in the 1980s, I went back to a piece I was commissioned to write for an OUP collection of essays on his writing - both poetic and dramatic - in 1997. The book, …

Baked the day she suddenly dropped dead we chew it slowly that last apple pie. Shocked into sleeplessness you’re scared of bed. We never could talk much, and now don’t try. You’re like book ends, the ...

On becoming 40

Join us for the much-anticipated return of this exploratory events series which invites writers to speak on topics of their own choosing. Whether it's rese

A day of talks, readings, and discussions exploring how writing about place connects to today's big issues, from climate change to migration

How charming - to exist where nothing seeks / to kill us

In the ‘middle of life’ Lavinia reviews her frustrations, her solitariness, the grief and the rapture, her seeming companions in a pageant presided over, as it were, by the masks of Owl, for winter, a...

Secret audience, silence & John Berger on surveillance

Another peek inside my notebook

On being wrong

On being wrong

Poetry & rewilding, animism & the erotic

Fairytales and time: another peek inside my notebook

Reading, Manchester Poetry Library

Another peek inside my notebook for paid subscribers

On poetry and energetic moping