A selection of our past events can be viewed above. Forthcoming events below.

Creative Writing Reading Series
6.30pm
The Glass Room level 0, the Hive Library.

Free Entry

8th November
Oz Hardwick and Katy Wareham Morris

Oz Hardwick is a European poet, photographer, occasional musician, and accidental academic, whose work has been widely published in international journals and anthologies. He has published “about a dozen” full collections and chapbooks, including Learning to Have Lost (Canberra: IPSI, 2018) which won the 2019 Rubery International Book Award for poetry, and most recently A Census of Preconceptions (SurVision Books, 2022). In 2022, he was awarded the ARC Poetry Prize for “a lifetime devotion and service to the cause of prose poetry”. Oz is Professor of Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University. http://www.ozhardwick.co.uk

Katy Wareham Morris is a writer and lecturer in media and culture at the University of Worcester. She has a particular interest in gender and queer studies, identity politics and digital humanities. Alongisde her poetry, she is currently working on her PhD research in literary gaming, play and post-queer politics. Katy’s debut poetry collection, Cutting the Green Ribbon was published by Bristol-based, experimental publisher Hesterglock in May 2018.
Her latest collection, Violet existence, was published in 2022 by Broken Sleep Books. ‘Wareham Morris explores the world through other eyes, always bold in her use of form, creating high voltage, daring poetry.’

29th November
Bobby Parker, Casey Bailey, and Rhianna Levi

Bobby Parker was born in 1982 in Kidderminster, Worcestershire. His critically acclaimed first full-length poetry collection Blue Movie (2014) is available from Nine Arches Press. He has taught at The Poetry School and been widely published in magazines in print and online.
Working Class Voodoo, published by ORB in 2018, was a selection of Bobby’s best work from the last few years, continuing in the strange, raw, autobiographical vein for which is he known. Parker’s latest collection, Honey Monster, was published by Broken Sleep Books 2022. In Honey Monster Bobby Parker uproots the confessional tradition and plants it on a British council estate. Masochistic, impolite and painfully uncomfortable, Parker writes in first person about his childhood, unafraid to show his scars, revelling in dark moments, as if bringing them to light will bring closure. Parker is a martyr to the page, writing as if nothing mattered more, with electricity in every phrase. “Highly recommend Bobby Parker’s Honey Monster, I love how it twists and turns from sharp and savage to brutal and beautiful with a gentle deft skill, caustic observation and vivid truth. This is a heroic and miraculous book, it is an instant 2020s cult classic.”- Salena Godden

Casey Bailey was the Birmingham Poet Laureate 2020-2022. He is a writer, performer and educator born and raised in Nechells, Birmingham. Casey’s second full collection of poetry ‘Please Do Not Touch’ (2021) was published by Burning Eye Books. Casey has performed nationally and internationally, spent some time on a residency with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and taught, facilitated and led up and down the country. His debut poetry pamphlet ‘Waiting at Bloomsbury Park’ was published by Big White Shed (2017). His first full collection of poetry ‘Adjusted’ (2018) was published by Verve Poetry Press.

Rhianna Levi is a teacher, academic, and writer. She is the youngest ever Worcestershire Poet Laureate, in tenure for 2022/23. Her writing and social media presence focuses on social issues, spirituality and humanity in the world.

Please email r.stacey@worc.ac.uk for more information.

To read a review of one of our live at the Hive library events please follow this LINK.