Event type: Literature

The Writer’s Bloc Birkenhead: Screen Writing for Beginners with Margy McShane

 

 

Writer’s Bloc Birkenhead: Screenwriting For Beginners with Margy McShane

Margy McShane is a teacher of Screenwriting and Creative Writing. She has taught at LJMU, Manchester Metropolitan University, and on many community projects throughout Liverpool including WOW and The Bluecoat. She’s facilitated anthologies at WOW and SWAN Women’s centre and has an MA distinction in Screenwriting and a Diploma for Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector (DTLLS)

Screenwriting For Beginners – an introduction to the fist principles of writing for film and television. A welcoming and informal session which includes an optional freewriting session and analysis of a short film sequence. No previous writing experience required.

Monday 9th November 202610:30am – 12:30pm

Birkenhead Central Library, Borough Road, Birkenhead, CH41 2XB

Register for The Writer’s Bloc HERE

 

 

The Writer’s Bloc Bootle: Showing Personality in Writing with Charlie Lea

 

 

The Writer’s Bloc Bootle: Showing Personality in Writing with Charlie Lea

Charlie Lea is passionate about all things literary. As well as writing his own stories, he loves running creative writing workshops for both adults and children, online and in person as well as promoting the joy of reading to all. For his work boosting literacy and a love of all things literary, he was appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2017. He runs regular creative writing workshops for both adults and children through his organisation Read Now Write Now www.readnowwritenow.org.uk

During the 2 hour session we will look at how to show personality using dialogue, thought and action and will also look at showing neuro diversity and using dramatic irony.

Wednesday 16th September 202611am-1pm

Bootle Library, 220 Stanley Road, Liverpool, L20 3EN

Register for The Writer’s Bloc HERE

 

 

Writer’s Bloc Toxteth: Poetry – Redrafting/Editing with Alison Schultz

 

Poetry – Redrafting/Editing with Alison Schultz

Alison Schultz is a poet and musician from the beautiful Wirral Peninsula aka The Left Bank of the Mersey and has a background in teaching up to Post Graduate level. She is one of the team who run Wirral Poetry Festival (annual), curates/hosts a monthly performance night, The Wordsmithery, and performs at Arts Centres and Galleries accompanied by a guitarist. She is much anthologised and her previous volumes, Eyes on the Bright Horizon (2018) and Observatory (2021) are available on Amazon, her latest pamphlet being The Hushed Passing of the Blue Hour (2025 Yaffle’s Nest), very soon to be followed by Ugly Shoes (Yaffle’s Nest) in 2026, and longer collection Night on my Mind in 2027. She is currently the Wirral Libraries Poet-in-Residence and the Ambassador for the National Year of Reading.

Friday 11th September 202611am-1pm

Toxteth Library, Windsor Street, Liverpool, L8 1XF

Register for the Writer’s Bloc HERE

 

The Writer’s Bloc Bootle: Words for Change: Writing Protest Poetry with Amina Atiq

 

 

The Writer’s Bloc Bootle: Words for Change: Writing Protest Poetry with Amina Atiq

Amina Atiq is a Yemeni-British poet, teaching artist, performer and award-winning community activist whose practice centres on storytelling, social justice and community cohesion.

Her work spans poetry, performance, education and community engagement through international residencies, commissions and collaborations. These include Weston Jerwood Creative, the Humboldt Foundation Residency (Germany), Roots & Routes (Germany and the Netherlands), Erasmus+ Theatre-makers for Social Change (Hungary), Queensland Poetry Festival (Australia), the Imperial War Museum, University College London as Poet in Residence, the Norfolk Ponds Project (The Secret Life of Ponds), Museum of Colour’s These Things Matter exhibition, and Guest Poet at MANX Litfest 2024.

Explore poetry as a tool for resistance, storytelling and self-expression. Participants will discover how poets use language, imagery and repetition to express personal experiences, challenge injustice and share meaningful messages. Through exploring protest poetry and the Al-Ghazal form, participants will develop and write their own poems inspired by themes that matter to them.

Wednesday 19th August 202611am-1pm

Bootle Library, 220 Stanley Road, Liverpool, L20 3EN

Register for The Writer’s Bloc HERE

 

 

Writer’s Bloc Birkenhead: Showing Personality in Writing with Charlie Lea

 

 

 

Writer’s Bloc Birkenhead: Showing Personality in Writing with Charlie Lea

Charlie Lea is passionate about all things literary. As well as writing his own stories, he loves running creative writing workshops for both adults and children, online and in person as well as promoting the joy of reading to all. For his work boosting literacy and a love of all things literary, he was appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2017. He runs regular creative writing workshops for both adults and children through his organisation Read Now Write Now www.readnowwritenow.org.uk

During the 2 hour session we will look at how to show personality using dialogue, thought and action and will also look at showing neuro diversity and using dramatic irony.

Birkenhead Central Library, Borough Road, Birkenhead, CH41 2XBMonday 14th September 202610:30am – 12:30pm

Please register HERE

 

 

 

The Writer’s Bloc Bootle: What’s Your Story? With Jenny Newman

 

 

The Writer’s Bloc Bootle: What’s Your Story? With Jenny Newman

Jenny Newman has written three novels, Going In (Penguin), Life Class (Chatto & Windus) and In the Blood (Psychology News Press). She is also the author of A Novel in Nine Steps (Mslexia Publications), editor of The Faber Book of Seductions, and co-editor of British and Irish Novelists: an introduction through interviews (Arnold); The Writer’s Workbook (Arnold) and Women Talk Sex: autobiographical writing on sex, sexuality and sexual identity (Scarlet Press).  Her short fiction has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in The London Magazine. She is a former Head of Creative Writing at Liverpool John Moores University.

Everyone has a story to tell that belongs to them alone. Writing a memoir can be a precious act of self-discovery, and a way of finding meaning in key aspects of your life. This workshop will help you explore the craft of memoir writing and help you to find and develop your voice. Allowing space for short, structured exercises we will consider crucial techniques and ethical issues, and ways in which you can start to shape and share your memories in a way that both engages and inspires.

Wednesday 11th November 202611am-1pm

Bootle Library, 220 Stanley Road, Liverpool, L20 3EN

Register for The Writer’s Bloc HERE

 

 

Women in Translation LPL Online Book Club

 

CELEBRATING WOMEN’S STORIES, VOICES AND CONNECTION – IN EVERY LANGUAGE

Join us this August for Women in Translation month. We’re taking part in this global event to build a Liverpool City Region-based community for women who love reading, built around the richness of books from around the world. Whether it’s written in French, Ukrainian, Greek or Arabic, or reaches us through English translation, every story has a voice worth hearing. 

Across the month, we’ll be:

-Sharing books translated into English, alongside some of our own favourites translated from English into other languages

-Highlighting favourite reads recommended by our community

-Reading from women involved with texts, books and storytelling

-Celebrating authors and the richness of translated literature more broadly

Our online book club is part of an international celebration of women’s writing: a chance to connect with readers from across the world, explore what gets lost and found in translation and amplify voices that deserve a wider audience. Founded by blogger Meytal Radzinski in 2014, Women in Translation month highlights women writers and translators in a publishing world that heavily favours male authors in translated fiction.

While the book club lives online, there will be a few real-world surprises along the way – keep an eye on our channels throughout August so you don’t miss out.

JOIN IN

Liverpool City Region’s Women in Translation Festival 2026 is a partnership between Zest Event Management and Wordscape, supported by Kindred. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn for reading recommendations, community favourites and those real-world surprises. You can also access suggestions at our Bookshop.org store.

However you like to read, wherever you’re reading, there’s a place for your voice here too.

 

 

 

Liverpool Poetry Space: Pig Data with Anne Vegter

We are delighted to welcome Anne Vegter and translator Astrid Alben to Liverpool, in partnership with UK publisher Prototype. This event is part of New Dutch Writing, supported by the Dutch Foundation for Literature.Pig Data is a collection that exposes the raw nerves of power and desire, and is the winner of the Ida Gerhardt Poetry Prize.

Anne Vegter is the author of numerous poetry collections, children’s books, theatre monologues, and erotic stories. Her first poetry collection, Het veerde, appeared in 1991, followed in 1994 by Ongekuiste versies, a book of erotic tales. Since then, she has published widely across genres. Her work is characterised by an elastic style that is playful, erotic, enigmatic, and disturbing.

Vegter regularly works as a performer, collaborating with composers and musicians. She has received numerous awards for children’s literature, theatre, and poetry, including the Woutertje Pieterse Prize, the Awater Poetry Prize, the Anna Blaman Prize, and the Ida Gerhardt Poetry Prize. In 2013, she became the first woman to be named Poet Laureate of the Netherlands, a role she held until 2017.

Astrid Alben is a poet, editor, and translator. She is the author of Ai! Ai! Pianissimo, Plainspeak, and Little Dead Rabbit. Alben self-translated Little Dead Rabbit, published as Klein dood konijn by PoëzieCentrum. Her poetry and non-fiction have appeared in literary journals including Granta and the Times Literary Supplement. She has worked with BBC Radio, the Serpentine Gallery, and Wellcome Collection, as well as across performance and animation.

Prototype is an independent publisher of fiction, poetry, anthologies, and interdisciplinary projects, founded in 2019. It is committed to expanding the possibilities of contemporary publishing through distinctive book design and cross-genre publishing. In 2022, it published Astrid Alben’s translation of Vegter’s Island Mountain Glacier, which won an English PEN Translates Award.Thu 19 Nov, 6-8.30pm£2-5, booking required

A limited number of free tickets are available for those who are unwaged or experiencing financial hardship. Please select this option if it applies to you.

Liverpool Poetry Space: Matt Simpson Annual Reading (2026) with Ian Seed

Join us as we welcome the widely published poet Ian Seed to Liverpool to share his work and celebrate the legacy of Matt Simpson.

Ian Seed’s recent publications include Forgetfulness (Shearsman, 2026), My Outsize Hank Williams Cowboy Hat, with artwork by Lupo Sol (Sacred Parasite, 2025), Night Window (Shearsman, 2024), The Dice Cup, from the French of Max Jacob (Wakefield, 2023), The River Which Sleep Has Told Me, from the Italian of Ivano Fermini (Fortnightly Review Odd Volumes, 2022), and New York Hotel (Shearsman, 2018), a TLS Book of the Year. He was a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Liverpool 2023-25.

The Matt Simpson Memorial reading series was adopted by Liverpool Poetry Space in 2025 with the seventh reading in the series by Deryn Rees-Jones. Previous readings held at Liverpool Hope University were with George Szirtes (2018), Liz Berry (2019), Helen Mort (2021 – online), Kayo Chingonyi (2022), Seán Hewitt (2023), Janette Ayachi (2024).

Matt Simpson (1936-2009) was a poet and literary critic, born in Bootle, Merseyside, to a family with a long sea-faring tradition. His poetry is both literary and accessible. He was a Senior Lecturer in English at Liverpool Hope University for 30 years. He published six full collections including An Elegy for the Galosherman (Bloodaxe) and numerous books of literary criticism. His poetry was included in over 100 anthologies of poetry for children, with his Collected Poems published by Shoestring Press.

£2-5, booking required

A limited number of free tickets are available for those who are unwaged or experiencing financial hardship. Please select this option if it applies to you.

Writer’s Bloc Toxteth: Writing Historical Fiction with John Donoghue

Writing Historical Fiction with John Donoghue

John Donoghue is a Liverpool-based author whose first novel, THE DEATH’S HEAD CHESS CLUB was published by Atlantic Books in 2015. The following year it won the Waverton Good Read Award, the only literary prize voted for by the public. The novel explores the extraordinary relationship between an SS officer and a Jewish watchmaker and has been translated into twelve languages.   John’s new novel, NOT ALIVE, NOT DEAD is a historical thriller and has just been published by Atlantic Books.  

In this workshop, John will cover aspects such as authenticity and voice as well as which sources to use and which to avoid. They’ll be practical exercises to give you a taste of using historical sources to create characters and- as always – lots of opportunities to ask questions.   Friday 17th July 2026

11am-1pm

Toxteth Library, Windsor Street, Liverpool, L8 1XF