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
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
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
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
Meet the experts themselves! Wednesdays through Summer 2026 World Museum are hosting their fabulous curatorial team to tell all about herbivorous dinosaurs, prehistoric insects, giant birds, folklore, and fossils. Suitable for all ages.
To join them, book tickets for the Natural History Centre Exploration Space at 2pm and 2.30pm on the following Wednesdays:5 Aug, 12 Aug, 19 Aug, 26 Aug.
Join us for a summer evening of togetherness, food, music, creativity and mutual aid. Let’s tend the future together, at home on the 100-year street!
Next up…
– Climate Catastrophe comedy with artist Andrea Ku in our front room. (please note there might be a bit of swearing and reference to bees mating, so guardians discretion re children attending)
– Lughnasadh preparations – let’s craft together with our grain & fire festival on 1st August in mind
Plus we’ll be tasting the elderflower & rose cordial we made in community at the May summer night session!
Come for your tea in our cafe, specially open late with delicious food for sale including free soup if you need. Our shop will be open too, full of fresh produce and top cooking ingredients. The cafe and shop are open to all, whether taking part in activities or not.
Activities are free/by donation. We’ll be raising funds for our Soup-it-Forward initiative. More info here.
This Lughnasadh / Lammas; the Gaelic fire festival marking the grain & fruit harvest, we’re coming together on Windsor Street to consider the past and future traditions of land, food, community, energy and place:
- Make and taste flatbread from 12 noon with Edi! With heritage grain flour gifted by our pal Fred from Gothelney Farm & UK Grain Lab.
- Squash building tours with architect and co-founder of People Powered Retrofit Marianne Heaslip – come and find out more about how we co-designed and built our eco community building. 11.30 and 1pm.
- Visit the Travelling Power Station which will be rocking up to Windsor Street! The Travelling Power Station is an exhibition, game and space for having conversations about energy. It has been designed by communities for communities, putting people rather than energy systems at the centre. Participants need no prior knowledge of, or interest in energy. The Travelling Power Station centres fun, game playing, reflection, conviviality and care as crucial to the future of energy. Meet artist Josh and join in! With love and support from Two Up, Two Down, Zero Carbon Liverpool and the University of Manchester.
- Add to the Lughnasadh altar with artists Tabitha & Clare
- Visit the Co-Labouring with Soil exhibition at our community garden 12.30pm
- Every Saturday is Sourdough Saturday at the Squash cafe – loaves and sweet bakes on sale from 10am!
AT SQUASH, 112-114 WINDSOR STREET, LIVERPOOL, L8 8EQ
Access info: The Squash building is fully accessible including level threshold entrance (shop/cafe) and ramp access to the garden. There is an accessible toilet. The Grapes Community Garden is a short walk from Squash, approx. 150 meters along Windsor Street. There is some uneven ground in the garden.
The Stronger Together project is back at Squash Cafe (112-114 Windsor Street, L8 8EQ) 9am-10am, July 31st with Maxine Brown!! The project is about creating safe and creative spaces for women of different backgrounds to express themselves, improve their health & wellbeing and reduce isolation and develop their skills
These inclusive free community classes are for women seeking asylum and refugees, women with mental health illness, low-income/ single-parent/ carer families and local women who would benefit from these sessions
Maxine has a wealth of experience as a community dance leader and specializes in African and Caribbean dance and somatic movement.
We support participants with travel expenses and also provide refreshments
Practical –
For more info contact rosanne@movema.co.uk or phone (Tues – Thurs 10am – 4pm) – 07548365869
Join international artists Rie Nakajima and Pierre Berthet to make your own moving sound sculpture out of metal, wood, shells, plastic materials and household items. We’ll play them together, improvise, watch and listen.
Bring along a household object from home to experiment with if you would like to!
For children and young people aged 8 – 14.
Tickets: £3 per child
Pop into any Library to book your spot.
1 parent or carer per child is welcome to join free of charge
Rie Nakajima is a sculptor based in London. She creates sounds using a combination of motorised devices and everyday objects in installations and performances. Her art is between sculpture and music with improvisation at the heart of it.
Pierre Berthet is a musician based in Belgium. He builds sculptural sound objects and installations made from steel, plastic, water, motors, vacuum cleaners and other items and has presented them in exhibitions and performances across music venues, festivals, galleries and other outdoor venues.
Part of Now Playing! A summer of sounds and music in Sefton Libraries
Join artists Emma, Leila and Mia for playful and creative workshops to help children develop the skills and confidence they need to be school-ready for September.
An hour and a half of fun, sensory activities including music, movement, puppets, making, playing shop and colouring our emotions. Led by a different artist each week.
Designed for children aged 3 – 4. Younger siblings welcome. Spaces are limited to 3 children per adult. Please book for every child and adult attending.
Every Tuesday in the summer holidays, 10:30am – 12pm, Bootle Library
