Please join us on Saturday 28 November 2026, 2.30-4.00 at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation for a wonderful line-up of poets and musicians.

You will find all the information you need regarding visiting the IABF on their website here. The event is free and everyone is welcome (no need to book tickets). Performers often bring along books and CDs to sell, please note we are only able to accept cash payments.

You can read about the poets and musicians below:

Jeffrey Wainwright

Jeffrey Wainwright was born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1944 and was educated locally and at the University of Leeds. He has taught at the University of Wales, Long Island University in Brooklyn and for many years at the Manchester Metropolitan University where he was Professor in the Department of English and its Writing School until 2008. His first poetry collection was published by Northern House in 1971 and first full book, Heart’s Desire, by Carcanet in 1978.Carcanet Press also publish his Selected Poems (1985), The Red-Headed Pupil (1994), Out of the Air (1999) and Clarity or Death! (2008), The Reasoner (2012), What Must Happen (2016) and most recently As Best We Can (2020). He has translated plays by Péguy, Claudel and Corneille for BBC Radio 3 and his version of Bernard-Marie Koltès’ In the Silence of Cotton Fields was broadcast in March 1999 and among other stage productions is the one by the Actors Touring Company in London and tour September-November 2001. The text is available in Koltès: Plays 2 (Methuen 2004). For eleven years, 1989-99, he was northern theatre critic of The Independent contributing twenty or more reviews per year. Radio work has included reviews for Kaleidoscope, Night Waves and On Air. His book, Poetry the Basics, was published by Routledge in April 2004, third edition 2016, and his book on the poetry of Geoffrey Hill, Acceptable Words, in 2005. He has also published many articles on modern and contemporary poetry. He lives in Manchester and for part of the year in Umbria.  

Jennifer Lee Tsai

Jennifer Lee Tsai is a poet, writer and teacher. She was born in Bebington and grew up in Liverpool. Her poetry and literary criticism are widely featured in publications including The Guardian, The Poetry Review, Poetry London, The Telegraph, The TLS & The White Review as well as on BBC Radio 4. Jennifer has received a Northern Writers Award for Poetry and is a winner of the Rebecca Swift Foundation’s Women Poets’ Prize. She has worked extensively as a lecturer and teacher of English to students in universities and colleges as well as within community settings. Jennifer is an Artist in Residence at the Bluecoat. Her first full-length poetry collection, Melete (Bloodaxe, 2026) was longlisted for the Jerwood Forward Prizes for Best First Collection 2026, selected as a Poetry Book of the Month in The Observer and described as ‘a landmark work’ in The Guardian.

E Walker

E Walker has an MFA in Poetry from MMU and was Apprentice Poet in Residence at Ilkley Literature Festival in 2018. Their work won in the 2021 Ambit International Poetry Competition, appeared on the Oxford Brookes Poetry Competition and Primers Vol. 5 shortlists, and in several magazines and anthologies, including The North and Magma. Inspired by queer ecologies, entomology, sex and spirituality, Andrew McMillan said their poems “show us that in understanding the curiosities and mechanics of other species, we might have some way to a better understanding of our own.” Their debut chapbook, Invertebrate, is published with Broken Sleep Books.  

Sanja Cin (details to follow)