PLACE 2020 is the project that launched the Centre for Place Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. The work here explores, via a dynamic mix of new writing (poetry, essay, commentary, reflection and story), films, photography and podcasts, how ideas of ‘place’ shifted radically across the globe in 2020, as billions of people went into lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Centre invited some of the most acclaimed, distinctive and emergent thinkers, writers, artists and film-makers in place writing and related creative fields to respond to these ideas. The work can still be found online at /submissions (I'll put a link in the bio too) #PlaceWriting
Coming soon - the new @aftershockpoetry edition - featuring @morty_but_nice@english_manmetuni along with @holliepoetry@godzillakent@katiescribbles@raymond_antrobus Fiona Sampson, Abeer Ameer, Yuri Leving, Xingyu Zhao, Italo Ferrante, Catherine Redford, Stephen Boyce, Blake Morrison, Jessica Mookherjee and Maura Dooley.
From Aftershock Review - /product-page/issue-three // What do you need but a bit of hope?
What you’re seeing on this cover is the first tranche of acceptances — around 10% of the magazine.
The rest of the architecture is still being built.
Hollie McNish. Fiona Sampson. Abeer Ameer. Yuri Leving. Xingyu Zhao. Aaron Kent. Italo Ferrante. Catherine Redford. Stephen Boyce. Blake Morrison. Raymond Antrobus. Jessica Mookherjee. Tom Branfoot. Helen Mort. Maura Dooley. Katie Hale.
Congratulations to Supriya Kaur Dhaliwal @wooolgatherer who, as well as being @morty_but_nice 's Featured Poet this week in 'A Time and a Place', has two new poems accepted for publication in the next edition of @stingingfly #poetry @english_manmetuni /product/summer-2026/
Sarah Butler @sarahbutlerwriter will be part of a day long event, led by Emily Jones from UoM, interrogating the purpose of history today. This all-day event features talks, workshops, and more on the uses and abuses of Manchester's past.
What is History For?
6 June, 10am-4pm
John Rylands Library & Research Institute. Part of the Manchester Histories Festival 2026.
Sarah will be running two creative writing workshops imagining a new museum of Manchester.
@english_manmetuni@aheadmmu
More information and booking details can be found here: /e/what-is-history-for-tickets-1986890009504?aff=oddtdtcreator
New from @gregorynorminton - the publishing world as a citadel - on writing & reading - "There are a few authors, a very few, who have a relationship, these days, with a publisher who sticks by them, who encourages and cajoles and chivvies them for the next book. The market, as a whole, does not allow such nurture. So you labour alone, trying to bring something to life, and then (to belabour our medieval peasant analogy) you sling this heavy, unwieldy and possibly undesirable produce onto your bullock cart and plod off to try to sell it....There is something inherently generous about reading, about giving your time and lending your imagination to the fruits of someone else’s time and imagination. To read is to reach across a divide, to connect with another mind. Writer and reader are engaged in something that transcends the swapping of goods and services. If writing and reading are transactional, it is a transaction such as occurs within symbiotic systems. It is a giving and a receiving of gifts. A sharing of nutrients." /@gregorynorminton /note/c-248386908?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=1z6v62
Earlier in the year Antony Rowland prepared a 'state of the subject' report for @englishassoc - next week, an online forum invites you to reflect and respond to this report.
@english_manmetuni // Link to report: /the-state-of-the-subject-an-ea-report-2025/ // Link to event: /e/the-state-of-the-subject-2025-6-online-forum-tickets-1987993965466?aff=oddtdtcreator
The featured poet on Helen Mort's latest post from A Time and a Place is PGR Supriya Kaur Dhaliwal @wooolgatherer - with two of her poems exploring catastrophe. Sign up to @morty_but_nice A Time and a Place on the same link here: /p/featured-poet-supriya-kaur-dhaliwal // Supriya Kaur Dhaliwal is a writer and literary translator, born in Palampur, India. She studied at St. Bede’s College, Shimla; Trinity College, Dublin; and Queen’s University, Belfast. Her poems have been translated into Arabic, German, and Italian, and have appeared in Ambit, Bad Lilies, Banshee, Cyphers, Gutter, Oxford Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Jukebox, Poetry London, Rattle, The Irish Times, and elsewhere.
Call for Papers - from ASLE - The Many Languages of Climate Change: #EnvironmentalHumanities #Multilingualism .uk/green-letters-special-issue-cfp-the-many-languages-of-climate-change-environmental-humanities-comparative-literature-and-multilingualism/
Congratulations to @leverhulmetrust
PGR Anita Slater @anitainw0nderland who has two new poems featured in this month's issue of The Poetry Lighthouse @thepoetrylighthouse :
/poems/the-day-is-a-catalogue and
/poems/go-with-me
In celebration of this year's Festival of Libraries @traffordlibraries Jodie Matthews @profjodiematthews@english_manmetuni will be running a writing workshop on the history of canals and enslavement on Saturday, 13th June. This inclusive workshop involves reading short extracts from poems and life writing by black and white authors to explore the relationship between the region’s industrial canals and histories of enslavement in Africa and the Americas.
There are hundreds of canal stories to tell: this one is rarely told. Participants can contribute their thoughts, feelings and creative ideas about encountering this uncomfortable history of the canal, or are welcome to have a quieter and more reflective experience. No previous experience of poetry or creative writing is required. Book your place here: /e/rewriting-the-waterways-with-professor-jodie-matthews-tickets-1988393975908?aff=oddtdtcreator
Another piece from Joe Shute this week - today celebrating the 100th birthday of Sir David Attenborough for @telegraph /culture/sir-david-attenborough-tv-documentaries-gallery/
In response to the hantavirus outbreak on board a cruise ship this week, PGR Joe Shute has written about why rats don't deserve to be public enemy number one for The Independent. Joe is author of Stowaway: The Disreputable Exploits of the Rat ( @bloomsbury_publishing ): /voices/rats-hantavirus-cruise-ship-hondius-strain-plague-pets-b2972181.html
