This free, all-ages event brought the city’s rich literary heritage to life through poetry, storytelling, and interactive workshops from researchers at University of Nottingham.
We explored Nottinghamshire’s literary map, heared powerful multilingual stories from first-generation migrants, played with dialects and language, and uncovered hidden feminist voices from the archives. With creative sessions led by local writers, poets, and scholars, followed by an exciting poetry showcase as the day’s finale, we gathered together and celebrated the voices that shape our city and added our own to Nottingham’s unfolding story.
The day culminated in a Poetry Showcase, where professional performers responded to the city’s rich literary and cultural history – celebrating identity, resistance, and the enduring power of the written word. Whether visitors were a seasoned poet or a first-time storyteller, we celebrated Nottingham’s diverse voices and added to its unfolding story.
Where: Nottingham Central Library
When: 29th November
Main atrium – Drop in 12-4
Workshops – 10:30, 2pm and 3pm (see information below)
Poetry show case – 6pm (see booking link below)
Atrium – Drop in between 12 and 4
Language Bridges: Connecting Humans
Experienced language educators from the University of Nottingham held an interactive workshop where stories, images, and voices become bridges between people and cultures. With participants contributions we showed how languages reveal our shared humanity. Bringing together Nottingham’s diverse communities through the power of language, this interactive event invited visitors to share personal stories in their mother tongue. These multilingual stories were then shared with a broader audience, sparking reflections and conversations with native-English speakers. Every story matters. Every language matters.
Literary Map of Nottingham
The Map of Nottinghamshire celebrates both well-known and hidden stories from across the city and county, and was available to view in the reception area the library throughout the day. You can now find it in the Nottinghamn Tourism Centre
Our words, our world – Celebrating languages and dialects
Professor Nicola McLelland (Professor of German and History of Linguistics) presented a fun, hands-on exploration of language and dialects through a series of engaging games and activities for all ages. She explored Nottingham’s rich tapestry of dialects and languages in a playful, welcoming space featuring interactive games like “Crack the Code” and “LingoBingo”. Participants discovered how the way we speak shapes how we see the world and ourselves.
Kate Maclister
Kate MacAlister is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Nottingham, with an MA from the Manchester Writing School. She is the author of two poetry collections: Songs of the Blood (Querencia Press, 2022) and Burn It All Down Then Kiss Me (Sunday Mornings at the River Publishing, 2023). Her work examines the body as a site of protest and reclamation, exploring themes of care, embodied experience, and intersectional feminist resistance. In her work Kate bridges personal narrative and collective struggles through poetry and storytelling. Her writing has been recognised with the Derby Poetry Festival Prize (2024) and a shortlisting for the Bridport Prize (2025).
Maps of Nottingham’s stories – 14:00 – 16:00
Dr Matthew Welton (Associate Professor in Creative Writing) and guests held an inspiring afternoon of story-sharing and creative writing. At the map workshop, Nottingham’s rich literary heritage was explored through a Q&A with Dr Welton, Dr Gary Priestnall, and a representative from UNESCO Nottingham City of Literature. This was followed by a hands-on session where attendees had the chance to contribute your own story to the map.
Matthew Welton
Matthew Welton’s poems take a playful approach to language and often blur the boundaries between poetry and other forms, such as fiction, music and visual art. Matthew Welton was born in Nottingham, lives in Nottingham, and teaches creative writing at the University of Nottingham.
Bi+ Lines: Writing Between the Lines – 14:00 – 16:00
Helen Bowell, editor of Bi+ Lines (fourteen poems, 2023), the first anthology of bi+ poets, led an interactive poetry workshop to explore the notion of in-betweenness. We read poems from the book and used them as jumping-off points to explore in-betweenness in poetic form, identities and the fabric of reality itself. We found new ways to mine our daily lives to write and reconsider all the binaries we’ve been taught to depend on. This workshop looked at queerness, but we invited anyone, whether queer and bi+ or not to take part.
Hongwei Bao (he/him)
Hongwei Bao is a Nottingham-based queer Chinese writer, translator and academic. He teaches media studies at the University of Nottingham. He is part of the Fifth Word Playwrights, GOBS Collective, Paper Crane Poets and Nottingham Playhouse Writers’ Room. He is also a Middle Way Mentee for writing fiction and a New Earth Theatre theatremaker. His work explores queer desire, Asian identity, diasporic positionality and transcultural intimacy. Hongwei is the author of Dream of the Orchid Pavilion (poetry pamphlet, Big White Shed, 2024), The Passion of the Rabbit God (poetry collection, Valley Press, 2024), Self-Portrait as a Banana (poetry collection, Poetic Edge, 2025) and Queering the Asian Diaspora (nonfiction, Sage, 2025). His short story ‘A Postcard from Berlin’ was a runner-up for the Plaza Prize for Microfiction in 2023. Hongwei serves on the advisory board of New Nottingham Journal.
Helen Bowell (she/her)
Helen Bowell is s a poet and producer based in London. Her debut pamphlet
The Barman was published by Bad Betty Press in 2022, and selected as the Poetry Book Society Summer 2022 Pamphlet Choice. She ran the
Bi+ Lines project for bi+ poets, and edited the first anthology of bi+ poets in English with
fourteen poems in 2023. She is also a co-director of
Dead [Women] Poets Society, a live literature organisation which ‘resurrects’ women poets of the past through events and online. On their behalf, she co-guest-edited the
Autumn 2020 Modern Poetry in Translation focus on dead women poets in Autumn 2020. She’s currently Arvon’s Learning Manager; produced the Poetry Translation Centre’s 20th birthday programme in 2024; and for six years worked in The Poetry Society’s Education team. With Troy Cabida, she co-edits
fourteen poems pamphlets and anthologies.
Jake Wild Hall (he/him)
Jake Wild Hall is an award winning poet and one half of Bad Betty Press. He has performed on BBC Radio and at festivals and literary events across the UK. He is a multiple slam champion and his work has been published in magazines, anthologies and online journals. He is the Author of two pamphlets Solomon’s World which was longlisted for the Saboteur award for best pamphlet and Blank. He has worked with partners including Penguin, Apple’s and Snakes, Writing East Midlands, Derby Poetry Festival and Pearsons. He has also been a guest tutor for Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham University, King’s College London, Lincoln University and others. His debut collection Alanis Morissette is due out in 2026 with Broken Sleep Books.
Poetry Showcase
In this showcase event, Nottingham-based poetry publisher Bad Betty Press brought local and national poets together to celebrate Nottingham’s rich tapestry of words, drawing inspiration from local voices like Byron, D.H. Lawrence, Nicola Monaghan, Rose Fyleman, Alan Sillitoe and John Lucas.
Each of the six headline poets (Alan Baker, Helen Bowell, Troy Cabida, Becky Cullen, Jack Wild Hall and Joshua Judson) performed a set of poems including those specifically composed as a response to the literary history of Nottingham
