Literature & Spoken Word

The first Friday of the month means one thing for poetry in this town: Number Five Cafe: 6pm.  This month the Lancashire Dead Good Poets met on 5 July in association with the Wordpool festival and were joined, thanks to Wordpool funding, by Lancaster poet, Trevor Meaney.  The evening consisted of two sets from Trevor and two open mic sets, with about ten poets performing in each. The sun was blazing as the poets gathered, ordering cold beers and hot food at the counter.  The smell of chips mingled with beer breath and bodies around the tables as we reluctantly…

Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived... Walking into Central Library and being greeted by coffee and a Danish pastry is a luxury not often indulged in, but Friday morning was not just any day.  As part of the ongoing Wordpool literature festival, the library was hosting debut author, Elizabeth Fremantle.  Having recently released her first novel, Queen’s Gambit, she indulged us with a morning of reflection about the book which was both insightful and informative. Elizabeth’s choice to write historical novels is a bold one.  We know the stories and the people from our lessons in school, but it is…

Action thriller author Matt Hilton enthralled his audience of Wordpool Festival goers on Thursday with tales of his own writing experiences and gave us a little more insight into the protagonist of his popular series: Joe Hunter. Layton Library had a very strong turnout for the event, many of whom were already avid fans of fictional character Joe Hunter, who is sometimes likened to the famous Jack Reacher, the character from fellow action thriller writer Lee Childs who also happens to be a friend of Matt Hilton. In person, Matt Hilton is quite different to his fictional character Joe Hunter. Matt hails from Cumbria,…

There were small posters sporadically placed around the large building, set against a backdrop of lavish arches and beautiful architecture. On Thursday night The Winter Gardens in Blackpool was host to Aunty Social's latest filmic event.  Inside the Pavilion Theatre, many people gathered to watch Little Shop of Horrors. The cult musical seemed the perfect movie to enjoy once seated inside the large auditorium.  The brash, over-the-top comedy was more than up to filling the large space and the energy in the room grew with every laugh. Little Shop of Horrors is a fun, if not slightly twisted, musical staring…

Taking a seat in the delightfully cosy Anchorsholme Library for one of the first author visits of Wordpool, it is lovely to see the seats full of exciting chattering ladies awaiting her arrival.  A few avid fans are eager to grab front row seats but just as many who had never heard of Freda Lightfoot are telling me and each other how excited they are to be hearing from a ‘real’ author. Freda Lightfoot hails from Oswaldtwistle; apparently ‘that’s where the mill is,’ although as she takes us through her memories of childhood, she explains that the town had about…

Ahead of his much anticipated performance at the Dead Good Poets' event for Wordpool on Friday 5 July, altblackpool caught up with funny man and improv genius, Trevor Meaney to find out a bit more about what he does: How would you describe what you do? I perform high octane poems (mostly high octane), a mixture of comedy, love, social observations, politics, reality to surrealism and an obsession for chicken. Often fast and furious. Has been described as 'high voltage' but that personally reminds me of an Electric Six song. I do like the song. But I have to say...…

Huxley, Orwell, Asimov, Hawthorne, Shelley, Dick, Adams, Abbott, Wells, Gaiman...Hadley. If there's one word which binds this eclectic group it must be 'curiosity'.   The joy of infinite possibilities in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide series, the worryingly plausible dystopia in Phillip K Dick's Bladerunner, the weight of ethical ambiguity in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; the enduring appeal of science fiction lies, I think, in both the thrill of new ideas and the proximity of fantasy to reality.  It is this slight gasp between the two which forms the crux of Keeping Light, the title story from Norman Hadley's short story collection, in which a…

Last week saw celebrations to mark what would have been the 150 birthday of Allen Clarke and altblackpool's Neil Measures was on hand to find out more. Following his death in 1935, Allen Clarke the sombre-chap, as he was known in Blackpool, or Teddy Ashton, the cheeky-chappie, as he was known in Bolton, had *Little Marton Windmill in Blackpool dedicated to his memory. Today he got more than he bargained for too, apart from a large gathering of friendly folk; he got a personal appearance, albeit by letter. The Brunswick Room in central library was so full of interested people…

Recently I spoke with Zoe Lamond, from Blackpool, who is this year's winner of Grand Words. This one act playwriting competition for people in North West England has been running for several years now and is associated with the Grand Theatre Blackpool. I asked her: David Riley: How long have you been writing? Zoe Lamond: I have been writing for about eight years now. I loved to invent stories as a child but hadn’t done any creative writing as an adult until I turned forty. My childhood stories were full of adventure and heroic deeds - probably inspired by Enid…

Guest post by Ashley R Lister. As I write this I’m preparing for a night of poetry at the Dead Good Poets' latest open mic event.  I had never thought I would become a person who went to open mic events. I never thought I’d become the sort of person interested in poetry. It always struck me that there was an air of superficial pseudo-intellectual artifice to public poetry events. But the Dead Good Poets aren’t like that. The poetry at a typical event is eclectic. There are poets who rhyme every line all the time. There are poets whose…