Spoken Label

Latest up from Spoken Label (Author/Poet Podcast) is the wonderful Jo Somerset.

Jo Somerset is a Manchester-based writer.  She has lived in Manchester for over 40 years, during which time she has been a student, feminist, peace activist, skilled tradeswoman, housing officer, local government officer, mother, equality consultant and company director.   Now that her children are grown up Jo is going backwards, revisiting the powerful feminist and lesbian movements of the 1980s and looking for untold stories.  Her aim is to make sense of the twentieth century, so we can understand it for today’s world.

Her writing found a voice through the Northern Gay Writers group at Commonword, Manchester’s community writing organisation, and honed her craft with the help of Arvon Foundation courses and groups led by writers Charlotte Keatley and Heather Leach.  In 2020 she completed a MA in Creative Writing at Salford University, where she received the inaugural Leanne Bridgewater Award for Innovation and Experiment.

In a former life, Jo was a founding director, alongside her partner Liz Clarke, of Manchester-based cycle training company BikeRight!    Under their leadership  BikeRight! became the leading UK company in its sector, winning four awards for women in business / business growth in 2009, 2014 and 2018.  She was also a non-executive director of Central Manchester Hospitals NHS Trust, and a Governor for Manchester Health Academy.

Previously she won the Prince’s Trust Quality Award (2000) and a British Diversity Award on behalf of Manchester City Council (1998).

Having jointly brought up five children, Jo is passionate about lifelong learning. In 2016 she gained a distinction for her Graduate Certificate in History from Birkbeck College, London, and made it a double when she graduated with distinction from Salford University MA in Creative Writing: Innovation and Experiment in 2020.

As a keen cyclist, Jo commutes by bike, and is a member of Team Glow Women’s Road Cycling Network.  She has undertaken several bike tours, triathlons and 100-mile cycling sportives, and led a Team Glow women’s charity ride from Land’s End to John O’Groats.

You can speak to Jo at: https://josomersetwriter.wordpress.com/

Another Bonus Mini Episode today from Spoken Label features the wonderful Liz Gibson talking about work she will be showing shortly on 10th August 2022 at Islington Mill, Salford, UK on the theme of Worker’s rights with assistance of several actors.   

A bio about Liz is (in her own words):  “Hello! I'm Liz.   I am a writer, performer and tutor based in Manchester. I write poetry and fiction, reviews, essays, and opinion pieces. I am inspired by themes of community, city life, queerness, body image, and mental health, as well as by travel, the natural world, and folklore. I was awarded a DYCP grant by Arts Council England in Spring 2021, to develop my poetry and performance.  In early 2021, I was chosen by Dibby Theatre for the competitive First Dibs programme for LGBTQ+ theatre-makers, and am working on my spoken-word show about walking in an empty city, and finding comfort in the places, nature, and animals around me.  In 2020, my poem "Arrival" was selected by Manchester City of Literature to be part of the Tartu Bus Poetry Project in Estonia, and it currently appears on bus windows in Tartu, representing Manchester.   I am a graduate of The Writing Squad and Young Identity (who I represented at One Mic Stand in 2019), and a member of Out on the Page.  

More about Liz can be found at: http://elizabethgibsonwriter.blogspot.com/ 

More details about the event is here - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/workers-rights-tickets-393166239807?fbclid=IwAR0e0xYeWV4aMrssfh3yXyoVH5tk2twtM5rUtmm_yfpGgJoMnkC0kmLXcMw

The event starts at 6.30pm. 

Latest up from Spoken Label (Spoken Word / Poet / Artist Podcast) features the wonderful Lauren Temple.

LAUREN TEMPLE is an emerging poet and writer from Manchester, she is part of the poetry collective Young Identity; published in their anthology Ecosystems of Fury.

Her work often explores mental health, emotional inheritance, domestic abuse, neurodiversity, and dementia. When she isn’t writing poetry, Lauren works as an Activities Co-ordinator in a care home, teaching poetry to the residents.

Her website is: https://laurentemplepoet.wordpress.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurentemplepoet/

Top of the Label is a new semi regular poetry / spoken word Podcast series within the umbrella off Spoken Label hosted by Andy N and Amanda Nicholson featuring a mixture of new and returning friends all returning a piece each (on occasion two).

Part 2 features the following guests:

Polly Anna Rose, Andy N, Sarah James (Sarah Leavsley), Elisabeth Horan, Katy Konrad, Jessica Kim, Amanda Nicholson, Clive Oseman, Jenny Berry and Steve Mingle.

Top of the Label is a new semi regular poetry / spoken word Podcast series within the umbrella off Spoken Label hosted by Andy N and Amanda Nicholson featuring a mixture of new and returning friends all returning to read out a piece (sometimes two) each. 

Part 1 features the following guests:

Skylar J Wynter (reading two pieces), Nick Lurvell, Kealan Coady, Lauren Temple (reading two pieces), Mike Booth, Quigley C B, Rich Davenport, Peter Humphreys.

Latest Spoken Label (Author / Writer Podcast) session features from Platt Bridge, Gareth Ellis.  Gareth is from Platt Bridge, Wigan and his bio says "Gareth started writing a few years ago. Initially, it was a means to get a story that was in his head down on paper, but quickly found that he enjoyed the process of writing and creating a world. It also helped him cope with some of the ups and downs involved in his bipolar.  He is a multi-genre author so far releasing books relating to horror and sci-fi.  When he's not writing, he enjoys reading, gaming and Lego."  His Website is - https://garethellis.co.uk/

Latesty from Spoken Label (Author/Artist/Poet Podcast series) features the return of our wonderful friend, Leila Ziari

talking about her second poetry book "Seaside Serenades: The Ocean in Haiku"

The book is described as "Seaside Serenades: The Ocean in Haiku" is the poetic chronicle of an intense love affair with the ocean, the secret lover and source of inspiration for many artists. 

Leila Ziari’s collection of haikus will transfer you through the rivers of time, love, and passion while you bear witness to the ocean’s ever-changing, awe-inspiring nature.

With her soothing, resonating poems, Ziari will remind you of your own memories of the ocean and make you long to reunite with it.

Do you remember how far the ripples of the water extend? What’s beneath lies the surface of such immaculate depths? "

More about Leila can be found at: https://leilaziari.com/

Latest up from Spoken Label (Author / Artist / Poet Podcast) features the wonderful Rebecca Phythian.

Latest up from Spoken Label (Our Poet/Artist/Writer Podcast) features our returning friend, Sarah James also known as Sarah Leavesley to talk about her latest poetry collection from Verve Poetry Press "Blood Sugar, Sex, Magic"

The book is described as "Blood Sugar, Sex, Magic is award-winning poet Sarah James’s exploration of 40 years living with type one diabetes, a life-threatening autoimmune condition that is now treatable, but remains incurable. The collection tracks her personal journey from diagnosis, age six, to adulthood, including the high and the low points, as well as the further long-term health risks lurking in the background. These are poems of pain, but also of love and beauty, taking in motherhood, aging and establishing self-identity in a constantly updating world. The route to some kind of acceptance and belonging may be troubled by ‘trying to escape’ but it also ‘holds | more light than your eye | will ever know’

‘Sarah James’ Blood Sugar, Sex, Magic compellingly conveys the journey of a life pervaded by type one diabetes and the myriad struggles of that hidden disability. It’s a world of sunlit fields and night sweats, “doorstep birdsong” and pricked fingertips, at once arduous and munificent. Always engaging and often moving, James’ poems deftly immerse as well as inform, urging a deep appreciation of life’s plenty, “breath[ing] in the sky.’ – Carrie Etter

“These poems speak with such urgency and humanity that we take the deeply researched science (and magic) in our stride, then get pulled up short by its failure to ‘make sense of unfairness’. It’s an exhilarating, poignant collection combining raw honesty with impressive craft. The way ‘the world shrinks’ in personal hardship and the sheer and constant work it takes to open it up again. I feel more awake and alive for reading it.” – Luke Kennard

“Sarah James’s fine poems are wonderfully abundant in experiment, energy, and expression. She has a remarkable sense for how the self-discipline of illness—like art—can release and shape the language of wonder, wisdom, and love.” – David Morley"

More about Sarah can be found at: https://www.sarah-james.co.uk/

NB. As a P.S. and recorded after the poetry session of the Podcast - there is a bonus poem recorded - "How to become your own worst friend".

Returning to Spoken Label after a long break are two dear friends (off) ours the wonderful Chelsea Tadeyeske and Edie Roberts who we met in Manchester years back (speaking to us from the Gamli Skoli Residency on Hrisey Island) in Iceland

Chelsea Tadeyeske is a poet, performer, and bookmaker from and currently based in Milwaukee, WI. She is the founding editor of pitymilk press where she publishes short-run chapbooks and edits both online and print journals. 

Edie Roberts is a multi-disciplinary genderqueer performer and curator living in Detroit, MI.

More about both can be found at:

https://edieroberts.wordpress.com/

https://chelseatadeyeske.wordpress.com/