Word Walk Zine Launch

With incredible views across the city from The Sillitoe Room, upstairs in Waterstones, we can’t wait to share the beautiful written work created by Nottingham folk over the past six months. We visited Green’s Windmill, Bulwell Bogs, Nottingham Contemporary, Highfields Park, Sneinton Market and Victoria Embankment, collecting scribbles around the city to create a series of zines dedicated to each area in collaboration with Dizzy Ink – now, we’re ready to share the goods.

Expect tea, coffee, cake, and poetry performances from some of our brilliant lead writers on the project:

Leanne Moden
Leanne is a poet, performer, and educator, based in Nottingham. She writes poignant, funny, and accessible poetry about trying to be human in a world that doesn’t always make that very easy. Leanne has performed at events across the UK and Europe, and she was a semi-finalist at the BBC Edinburgh Fringe Slam in 2019. She also won the trophy for the “most improved” ballet performance (when she was 11) and she has never forgotten the AUDACITY of that back-handed compliment! Leanne is currently writing a show about music and belonging, and her second collection of poetry, ‘Get Over Yourself’ was released by Burning Eye Books in 2022.

Caroline Stancer
Nottingham poet Caroline Stancer has been a counsellor and trainer within the NHS and other organisations for many years. She recently completed the pamphlet This Weighted World on the MA in Creative Writing at NTU. She won the Stonewood Prize for Regional Writing (2017), was longlisted for the Primers competition (2019), and for the National Poetry Competition (2022). She has performed at the Nottingham Poetry Festival, the Nottstopping Festival, and in a livestream for World Poetry Day for UNESCO City of Literature. Caroline is currently working on a poetry collection and a novel with mentor Helen Mort on the Writing East Midlands Mentoring Scheme. Caroline’s work explores transformations that happen in ordinary lives. Having lived with mental health difficulties, and as a carer for an autistic relative, Caroline writes about exclusion, and the value of unusual points of view. The natural and the technological appear side by side in her poetry, with trees, animals, rocks, rivers, vehicles and streets appearing and disappearing regularly.

Sonia Burns
Sonia is a Derby and Nottingham based poet, performer and community worker. Her debut chapbook Umbra:philia was published by the Derbyshire-based Bearded Badger Publishing Company in November 2021 with the support of Arts Council funding. Sonia is a member of several poetry collectives, including Nottingham’s World Jam and Paper Crane Poets. She hosts the Poetry Praise Sandwich event in Derby with Camille McCawley. Sonia has featured and performed at numerous events alongside poets including Dom Berry, Matt Abbott, and Nafeesa Hamid. Her work has featured on BBC Radio Derby and on several podcasts, has been published in anthologies and magazines and set to music by Open Collab.

Sophie Sparham
Sophie is a poet and writer from Derby. She has written commissions for BBC Radio 4, The V&A and The People’s History Museum. She co-hosts the night Word Wise which won best spoken word night at the 2019 Saboteur Awards. Her latest collection ‘The Man Who Ate 50,000 Weetabix’ came out in April 2021 via Verve Poetry Press. Sophie’s work has been published in Orbis, Under the Radar and The Morning Star. Her poem Sunrise Over Aldi won third place in the 2020 Charles Causley International Poetry Competition.

Plus, our open mic and the big reveal of our Word Walk Zines, featuring:

Green’s Windmill

Bulwell Bogs

Nottingham Contemporary

Highfields Park

Sneinton Market

Victoria Embankment

Caroline Stancer our Lead Writer for our Nottingham Contemporary Word Walk, is looking forward to the launch:

“I can’t wait to see the zine that we all created at our Word Walk together, to say hello again to all our Word Walkers, and taking zine home  so I can read everyone’s work slowly and really appreciate it. It’s a unique experience to have created something as a group in response to a particular time and place. I’m looking forward to sharing a few poems and to seeing everyone again!”

(An NPF Event)