Hilda Sheehan, Malika Booker, Clare Shaw & Olivia Moore: 16 September 2017

Free reading at the Whitworth Art Gallery on Saturday 16 September at 2.30-4.00.

Hilda Sheehan

Hilda Sheehan’s debut collection is, The Night my Sister Went to Hollywood (Cultured Llama Press, 2013) She has also published a chapbook of prose poems, Frances and Martine (Dancing Girl, 2014) ‘Joyously funny … comic writing with a bite’ David Caddy, Tears in the Fence. The God Baby is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press in September 2017. Hilda is the director of Poetry Swindon.

Malika Booker

Photograph by Siro Micheroli

Malika Booker is a British poet and multi-disciplinary artist of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage. Breadfruit (pamphlet), (flippedeye, 2007) was recommended by the Poetry Society and her poetry collection Pepper Seed (Peepal Tree Press, 2013) was longlisted for the OCM Bocas prize and shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre prize for first full collection (2014). She is published with the Poets Sharon Olds and Warsan Shire in The Penguin Modern Poet Series 3:Your Family: Your Body (2017). Malika has been the recipient of residencies from Millay Colony, Cove Park, The India International Centre and Kocevje through The Centre for Slovenian Literature. She is a Fellow of both The Complete Works and Cave Canem and was inaugural Poet in Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Malika has an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths University, was the Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow in Creative Writing at University of Leeds and is now an LHRI Fellow at that same university

Clare Shaw

Described by the Arvon Foundation as “one of the country’s most dynamic young poets”, Clare Shaw has two collections from Bloodaxe: Straight Ahead (2006), which attracted a Forward Prize Highly Commended for Best Single Poem; and Head On (2012), which is, according to the Times Literary Supplement: “fierce … memorable and visceral”. Clare was born in Burnley in 1972, and her poetry finds its roots in place and an uncompromising voice. Often addressing political and personal conflict, it is fuelled by a strong conviction in the transformative and redemptive power of language.

Clare is Royal Literary Fellow at Huddersfield University, and a regular tutor for the Poetry School, the Wordsworth Trust, The National Writer’s Centre of Wales, and the Arvon Foundation. She is also a mental health trainer, activist and author: recent publications include “Otis Doesn’t Scratch: talking to young children about self-injury” (PCCS Books, 2015); and “Our Encounters with Self-Harm” (2013).

Olivia Moore

After giving her first performance at the age of four, Olivia spent her childhood and teen years playing classical music before going on to explore the art of improvisation. She has performed at many of the UK’s biggest venues such as at the Lowry, Bridgwater Hall, The Barbican & Glastonbury Festival. She has appeared at the UK’s main Jazz festivals (including London, Manchester and Brecon) with her own Indian Style Jazz band “Unfurl”. She frequently collaborates abroad with Indian Tabla Player Mukesh Jhadav.