Hollie McNish and Michael Pedersen

Hollie McNish / The Lobster Tour

After a run of sold out shows up and down the UK, Hollie McNish is back with a brand new book, Lobster and other things I’m learning to love. A Sunday Times bestselling writer whose live readings are not to be missed, expect strong language and adult content, gift-wrapped in gorgeously crafted poetry.

In Lobster, Hollie brings her much-loved style to questions of friendship, flags and newborns, clocks, cocks and volvos, shining a ridiculous and beautifully poetic lens upon all those things we have been taught to hate, and which we might just learn to love again. Here, she will be joined by fellow poet Michael Pedersen reading from his latest brilliant books The Cat Prince and Boy Friends.

Adult content warning 14+ / Book signing after the gig

“like Pam Ayres on acid” – Lemn Sissay
“Funny, so smart and refreshingly honest” – Sarah Millican
“Her writing is sublime” – Ellie Taylor
“One of the best poets we have”. – Matt Haig
‘‘Never have we needed her more’ – Stylist

www.holliemcnish.com

Michael Pedersen is a prize-winning Scottish poet, author, scribbler, stitcher. He is currently Writer in Residence at The University of Edinburgh. He’s unfurled two acclaimed collections of poetry with Polygon Books with a third (The Cat Prince & Other Poems) published by Corsair/Little Brown in July 2023—the title poem of which is currently shortlisted for the Forward Prizes. His prose debut, Boy Friends, was published by Faber & Faber in 2022 in the UK & North America and was a Sunday Times Critics Choice. He won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship, the John Mather’s Trust Rising Star of Literature Award, and was a finalist for the 2018 ‘Writer of the Year’ at The Herald Scottish Culture Awards. With work anthologised by the likes of Pan MacMillan and Canongate Books, Pedersen has collaborated with musicians, film-makers, and visual artists.

‘Uncommonly romantic, irreverent and, at times, laugh out loud funny.’ —Shirley Manson
‘Enchanting…astonishingly compelling…sparklingly written…rare and to be treasured’.’ — Stephen Fry
‘A master of words. He plays them like music.’ —Kae Tempest
‘Lucid, lyrical, loaded, BOY FRIENDS is a love letter to friendship.’ —Jackie Kay

Instagram:: @michaelpedersenoyster
Twitter: @scribepedersen 

Leanne Moden
Leanne is a poet and educator, based in Nottingham. She’s performed poetry all across the UK, and her latest poetry pamphlet, ‘Get Over Yourself,’ was published in 2020. Leanne mostly writes about women’s experiences, and she is fuelled by Jaffa Cakes, fruit tea, and unrelenting whimsy.

Ali Brumfitt
Ali Brumfitt has performed at Ledbury Poetry Festival, Swindon Festival of Literature, Glastonbury and other impressive and less impressive sounding places. They ping-pong like an ADHD fuelled poetic cannon ball between cabaret, performance poetry and those dead serious ‘reading’ type events. They love all of these things.