This event is the prize-giving event for our 4th Poets and Players Competition which was judged by Jackie Kay. The winners will be announced and will read their poems. There will also be a poetry reading by Jackie Kay and music from The Alba Quintet. The venue is the Whitworth Art Gallery, Oxford Rd, Manchester M15 6ER.

This is a free event open to all and there’s no need to book.

Jackie Kay was born and brought up in Scotland. THE ADOPTION PAPERS (Bloodaxe) won the Forward Prize, a Saltire prize and a Scottish Arts Council Prize. FIERE, her most recent collection of poems was shortlisted for the COSTA award. Her novel TRUMPET won the Guardian Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the IMPAC award. RED DUST ROAD (Picador) won the Scottish Book of the Year Award, and the LONDON BOOK AWARD. It was shortlisted for the JR ACKERLEY prize. She was awarded an MBE in 2006, and made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002. Her book of stories WISH I WAS HERE won the Decibel British Book Award.

She also writes for children and her book RED CHERRY RED (Bloomsbury) won the CLYPE award. She has written extensively for stage and television. Her most recent plays MANCHESTER LINES (produced by Manchester Library Theatre) and THE NEW MAW BROON MONOLOGUES (produced by Glasgay) were a great success. Her most recent book is a collection of stories, REALITY, REALITY. She is currently working on her new novel, BYSTANDER. She is Chancellor of the University of Salford and Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University.

THE ALBA QUINTET

The Alba quintet is a chamber ensemble of five musicians from the Royal Northern College of Music. The group includes two violins, viola, cello and clarinet, played by Freya Stokoe, Callum Sherriff, Dominic Adams, Lucy Neil and Ruaridh Bakke respectively. We are a group of close friends who met through studying at the RNCM and have since enjoyed exploring the vast and contrasting repertoire written for clarinet quintet(and even having a go at arranging/composing some music for the quintet) and, of course, performing.