Creative Writing at University of Worcester

Celebrate World Poetry Day with the Creative Writing course at the University of Worcester. We will be welcoming the incredible Catherine Redford on Saturday to launch her collection: The Way the Water Held Me.

World Poetry Day: The Way the Water Held Me by Catherine Redford
Saturday 21 March, 6:30pm

Across poems of heartbreak and honesty, memory and mourning - and through unlikely companionship with a widowed Mary Shelley - Catherine Redford’s debut collection is visceral, profound and alive with what it is to be human, to have lost and to find ways to continue to love.

Book you FREE tickets here: https://e-services.Worcestershire.gov.uk/LibraryEvents/EventDetails.aspx?id=7424

Excited to welcome Luke Kennard to our Reading Series tomorrow.

Creative Writing Reading Series: Luke Kennard
Tuesday 17 March, 6:30pm - 8:00pm

Join us to celebrate the publication of Black Bag by Luke Kennard, a warped campus novel inspired by a real-life psychology experiment from the 1960s.

Luke Kennard is an award-winning poet and novelist. His literary criticism has appeared in the LRB, Poetry London, and TLS. His first novel, The Transition, was BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. His most recent novel is The Answer to Everything and his latest poetry collection, The Book of Jonah, was published by Picador in 2025. He is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham.

Book your free tickets here: https://e-services.Worcestershire.gov.uk/LibraryEvents/EventDetails.aspx?id=7429

Creative Writing Reading Series

Our next event is on the 29th of October, and in keeping with the season, it is focused on witchcraft and the occult.

6.30 pm
Hive Library Studio
Free Entry

Unapologetic Witches has guest readings from poet Jenny Hope, who considers herself a green witch, and the Worcestershire Young Poet Laureate 2025, Evie Hodgetts. It will also feature writing produced on the third-year Creative Writing module CRWT3009 Writing Witchcraft.

There are also open mic slots that you can sign up for on the night, so you can share your fierce and fantastic witchcraft writing (poetry and prose) (5 mins).

[email protected] for more info.

Creative Writing Reading Series

Jamie Thrasivoulou: Feral

Wednesday 26 March, 6:30pm -7:30pm

Worcester Hive Library Studio

Feral is the third poetry collection by award winning writer, poet and lyricist Jamie Thrasivoulou. These poems extract the mental turmoil and unrest of post-COVID Britain and lay the results on the page. Tracing themes of displacement, poverty, depression, loss, and self-sabotage, these narratives employ a sharp socio-political awareness, and are laced with satire and brutality. By far his most succinct work to date, the reader is placed as observer amidst existential crises. In defiance of the subjects the poems battle, there's an unbreakable hope; a snarling refusal to comply, ever-present throughout. In the author's own words, "Feral is a survival document".

Free, book your place here: https://e-services.worcestershire.gov.uk/LibraryEvents/EventDetails.aspx?id=7278

Creative Writing Reading Series at the University of Worcester

Hive Library Studio, 6.30pm

Free Entry but reserve a place here: https://www.thehiveworcester.org/698083C5F43846F881CE0F54A4066891.html

Wednesday 26th March: Jamie Thrasivoulou reads from his new collection Feral

Thursday 3rd April: Ruth Stacey launches new collection Feel Everything!

Wednesday 30th April: Jonathan Taylor reading from his new memoir A Physical Education: On Bullying, Discipline & Other Lessons

Friday 9th May: Book Launch with Verve poets Spoz and Holly Winter-Hughes

Wednesday 14th May: Celebration of Student Prizewinners as Caitlin Hassan and Cherine El-Bash launch their new books with Black Pear Press and V.Press

Talks, Lectures & Screenings - The Hive Enjoy a rare opportunity to view the Shakespeares' marriage documentation, held in The Hive, with Worcestershire Archives & Archaeology Service. Then join internationally renowned Shakespeare experts as they explore the mysteries of the documents, as well as marriage in the period and the plays, and...

Come and join us for our celebration of International Women's Day
8th March 3-5pm at the Hive studio.
Open Mic slots sign up on the day. FREE entry
Guest poets including Catherine Redford Claire Walker Jenny Hope Lesley Ingram Holly Magill and Kashala Abrahams

Join us for the October Creative Writing Reading Series Event with guest poet Jenny Hope.

6.30
30th October
Hive Library
Free entry

Jenny Hope is a writer, poet, workshop facilitator and presenter. Her forthcoming collection, Wild Boar, will be published by V.Press 2025.

She lives on a hill in wildish-Worcestershire just on the edge of Herefordshire – border country. Her poems explore both the internal and external landscapes with nature as the defining force. Life within the shadows and drawing on that which we keep hidden from plain sight. These are poems of nature’s darker self, of liminal places and times where inner and outer worlds meet, sometimes co-existing, sometimes not. These are poems of imagery, metaphor, dark sensuality and of otherworldly connections with the natural world. Poetry that calls upon us to listen to that which is unsaid.

Hosted by the University of Worcester Creative Writing course in the Institute of Arts and Humanities.

This is a free event live in the Hive Library.

As part of the event, there will be a witch-themed writing exercise, so please bring a pad and pen to join in.